Ancient Religions (with Dr. Luke Gorton)

Dr. Luke Gorton (University of New Mexico) answers questions about ancient religions, magic, mystery cults, languages, and more from Patreon supporters of Dr. Jackson Crawford, in a Patreon-exclusive Crowdcast recorded October 30, 2020.
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawford.com/ (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
Jackson Crawford’s Patreon page: www.patreon.com/norsebysw
Visit Grimfrost at www.grimfrost.com?aff=183 and use code CRAWFORD for 5% off your order!
Latest FAQs: vimeo.com/375149287 (updated Nov. 2019).
Jackson Crawford’s translation of Hávamál, with complete Old Norse text: www.hackettpublishing.com/the-wanderer-s-havamal-4275
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Poetic Edda: www.hackettpublishing.com/the-poetic-edda
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Poetic-Edda-Audiobook/1982597550?qid=1542115406
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Saga of the Volsungs: www.hackettpublishing.com/the-saga-of-the-volsungs-4098
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Saga-of-the-Volsungs-Audiobook/B07L44HRNH
Music © I See Hawks in L.A., courtesy of the artist. Visit www.iseehawks.com/
Logos by Elizabeth Porter (snowbringer at gmail).

[@animistchannel2983]

FYI: The romans did know that lead was toxic in high dosage, and they had a particular name for the madness that lead mine workers got (I forget exactly, plumbum insanire or dulces amentia or something like that). What they didn't clearly understand was metal solubility and accumulated residual toxicity, so they did sweeten wine with something like lead ethylene, which is sweet tasting, not realizing the effects would last longer than the alcohol itself. Roman bodies/bones have been found with what we would consider extreme residual lead levels. In modern times, there have been severe scandals among European winemakers, particularly in the Czech Republic and France, who got caught using lead solutions to sweeten or "soften" their wines to make them taste higher quality and thus more expensive. [Responsible winemakers, on the other hand, have even stopped using lead foil to wrap their bottle necks with, because lead is so soft it will literally rub off onto the glass and the hands of the person opening it, in sufficient quantities to become chemically/medically measurable in the body. I remember an outcry among wine-lovers in California in around 1980's-'90s period when they discovered they were literally testing higher than average due to just handling their beverages.] For residual toxicity purposes, this is essentially the same as drinking leaded gasoline additive, which has notoriously been found as a residual toxin worldwide, even in antarctic core samples, for the period of its use. It is persistent, non-metabolizable, and accumulates variously in living tissues. You can't even get rid of it by cremation. It will only be truly removed from the living environment by geologic processes, although getting it out of the circulating air and water, and back into the ground, provides some alleviation from its effects, as has been documented. Anyone drinking such concoctions regularly, and indeed anyone just living and breathing in developed/urbanized areas in the leaded-gas era from 1930-1985 or so would have accumulated enough residual lead toxicity to affect mood and behavior, and the effects are persistent, along with the establishment of personality traits accordingly. The symptoms include memory impairment, volatile judgements, irrational suspicion and paranoia, and susceptibility to violent or risk-ignoring outbursts -- hallmarks of both the later roman times and the Cold War era. (In high enough levels, it will cause organ failure.) It has been considered, medically, a potentially significant contributor to the extremes of both times. Statistically, since the banning of lead fuel additives (given a few years lag time for atmospheric levels to be reduced, and new children to develop), there has been a marked, consistent decrease in the incidence of violent crimes and incidents across the board in modern nations as the population ages through. It is mathematically arguable that since 1930, that one well-organized marketing and lobbying campaign has caused more crimes, deaths, strife, and social and personal unrest than any other cause except perhaps WW2 itself. Basically, anyone born before 1970 could be considered to have been at least marginally compromised by lead poisoning. In the height of the roman era where it was common enough practice for social leaders and the wealthy to actually drink the stuff on purpose, the entire ruling classes, control strata and mechanisms of their society were distorted by it. So when you do an "anthropological assessment" of peoples both ancient and modern, you have to take into account that their entire way of life may have been built upon an actual sickness so widespread and common that their society no longer had the equivalent of free will. By what seems a harmless affectation, a people can literally become toxic to themselves, their neighbors, and ultimately the entire environment. Welcome to the intersection of science, brewing/alchemy, and the emergent collective consciousness :)

[@Lowlandlord]

Interesting, the wikipedia article on Lead(II) acetate mentions that when boiling down grape syrup (which they used as sweeteners for wine, also to make fruit preserves and things) that lead vessels for boiling may have been used and had lead leach into the syrup. There is some disagreement how common the lead vessels were use, copper would have been more common, and how much would therefor get into the syrup, as well as how much syrup gets used, so ultimately there is a lot of debate over how much lead actually worked it's way into food stuffes. At this point it is a "common knowledge" thing that is quite debatable and is common mostly because it was asserted by someone with little evidence. Little more alarmingly, Lead(II) acetate has been used in male hair dye as recently as within the last decade, in the US. Canada and Europe banned it only a little before. Grecian Formula specifically, so not some weird offbrand product. So lead poisoning, alive and well in the 21st century?

[@DrLeroy76]

Excellent post

[@iceblinkmender]

Fascinating. Thanks so much!

[@gnarzikans]

On the topic of χλωρός (khlōrós) sometimes meaning “pale green-yellow” or “sickly green-yellow”: Μηλινόη (Melinoë), a chthonic nymph or goddess invoked in one of the Orphic Hymns and represented as a bringer of nightmares and madness, may derive from Greek μήλινος (mēlinos), “having the color of quince", from mēlon (μῆλον), "tree fruit.” Apparently the fruit's yellowish-green color evoked the pallor of illness or death for the Greeks

[@parascopicvision]

Love to see this kind of collaboration, and thank you for introducing me to Word Safari!

[@Acetyleni]

"blood is something that people see, especially in war" - yeah, but also: half of the population sees blood once every month ;) blood is part of humanity, not only because of wars and violence. blood would be known even if wars didn't happen - just to add a perspective

[@ilyasantonov212]

Good point

[@Acetyleni]

@@azurephoenix9546 I know. Just pointing out something that is not often mentioned ;)

[@Acetyleni]

@@azurephoenix9546 i don't know, why does anyone comment on anything? Just sharing my thoughts here. Surprised that they invoke such a reaction

[@Acetyleni]

@@azurephoenix9546 Okay, a couple of things here. My point was that blood is a part of humanity, whether they fight wars or not. Modern Media often likes to depict, for example, all people of the viking age as these bloodthirsty beserkers clad in leather and piles of furs. Yes, wars were fought, I’m certainly not denying that, but they were also just… people. You used the word mundane. The mundane often gets overlooked in history. Yes, as you said in your first comment, people also slaughtered animals and got hurt otherwise. I didn’t mention this in my original comment, but of course I agree! I don’t feel like that takes anything away from my statement, but adds to it. Blood is not only associated with war, but with mundane lives. Even if people never fought and stopped eating animals (unrealistically), there would STILL be blood in peoples lives, so consistently (every month at least) and naturally, that to me it would definitely not be a surprise that the color for blood had a very firm and fixed definition. I’m simply adding to the argument that blood is so consistent that the color red deserves quite the clear definition. And that’s what all this was about! Classifications of colors and why red is so defined - because it’s such a part of life. Life did not only happen on battlefields and in heroic stories, is all I’m saying. I don’t know what the thing about drinking moon blood is about. Some people have always had uteruses and always bled every month or so, whether someone wants to use that blood for something or not. Which leads to another point. Fertility. Women have decorated their textiles with red lozenges or painted them on the bellies of clay figurines as fertility symbols (shape of a vulva) for thousands of years. Do you not think people in history where also concerned with bearing children (especially when they didn’t have the advances of medicine as today and pregnancy and birth was certainly hard)? Did they not have deities for fertility? Well, part of that “biological machinery” is menstruation = blood. I honestly don’t know why my comments offend you so, if they do - at least it seems like that to me. The intent of my comment was to add a perspective, nothing more. Don’t know why I have to justify to you why I said something that I said. If this riles you up, I certainly did not intend to do so. How about this, let’s just summarize and make a point together: “Blood is something that people see, in war as well as in everyday life, and therefore it makes sense that the color red associated with it is defined so strongly.“ Sound good?

[@Acetyleni]

@@azurephoenix9546 How a little comment under a video is supposed to manage to "derail a conversation" or hijack or dominate anything is beyond me. There was no >conversation

[@joshuadaniel5371]

Definitely need more calabs with you two!!!! Fantastic! The duo works perfectly.

[@Auriflamme]

22:30 Interesting, the Irish word 'geal' means bright, and the pronunciation is like the first syllable of gjallarhorn. The modern Irish for yellow is bui (pronounced bwee) while for red and reddish brown/russet you can say rua, but dark reds like blood are dearg. There is no separate word for orange and originally blue (gorm) and green (glas) were described with the same word.

[@CourtneySchwartz]

Interesting. Japanese has totally different color splits and convergences. There’s a famous misconception that they think traffic lights are blue (ao), but actually that word includes part of what English speakers conceive as cyan and green. Deeper green has a separate word (midori). There’s also multiple words for different shades of purple and brown. Wonder how much of such splits is due to local crops or wildlife.

[@ReidGarwin]

Color blindness perhaps?

[@ryanlucus1684]

Lead sugar was used. They put the wine in lead pots and a chemical reaction would make the lead sugar and the wine would get sweeter

[@1HistoricalBuff]

Most enjoyable~ thank you.

[@daddypoil]

Thank you so much !

[@johnfenn3188]

Brilliant podcast

[@regnbuetorsk]

is there some publication or study about the plants (officinal and not) known by ancient norsemen? i can't find much on the internet, and i find zero about the names in old norse

[@connorgioiafigliu]

Really interesting video guys!

[@jespermortennielsen]

Super interesting 👍

[@greysonbogle5080]

The Romans were particularly fond of wine made in jugs containing lead

[@danielhopkins296]

The Scythians we're explicitly known to not drink alcohol

[@aricliljegren890]

Great conversation. I was particularly interested 20 minutes in on the discussion of color. If it is true that terms that have come to mean specifically "red" might have meant more like a color that was warm and/or bright, does that mean references to "red gold" might have been talking about its shine/brightness rather than a specific color? Also, when we read descriptions of someone with "red" hair, might it also have actually meant simply bright or shining hair?

[@christopherowens7931]

people drink from milk jugs I wouldn't say that's a drinking glass though

[@delhatton]

When "magic" was used what was it contrasted with?

[@walkerealy8985]

Do either of you think there may be a connection with the Eleusinian Mysteries with Egyptian belief of afterlife? I ask due to the seemingly close resemblance between the myth of Demeter and Persephone and the myth of Osiris and Isis, another clue I have is once I heard(I cant remember the source) was that corn was a heavy feature of the group which Osiris may have been interpreted as a corn god at one time

[@DaneJarl]

Crawford generally doesn't answer KZbin comments. I'd go to Dr. Luke Gorton's KZbin page (Word Safari) and see if he responds to your question there.

[@wordsafari4611]

There's a lot of speculation about where the Greek mystery cults got their ideas from, but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't influence from Egypt and/or Persia. These were the two cultures of the ancient Mediterranean/Near Eastern world that pioneered more "evolved" ideas about an afterlife (i.e., not just having everyone go to some dark underground cavern for eternity). Furthermore, early Greek ideas that are outside of the latter paradigm (for instance, heroes such as Menelaus going to the Elysian Fields or the Isles of the Blest) probably were influenced by Egyptian ideas.

[@monicawitt9368]

If I'm taking anything from this, it's the phrase "Hellenistic enrollment period". Great coinage!

[@brightonbegole5459]

I feel like Apollodoras is more like Saxo Grammaticus than Snorri; his works and the Gesta Danorum seem to share many similarities (not least the drab prose of both).

[@Pandaemoni]

Dr Gorton: "If you believe there are more gods, you should be worshipping as many as possible to cover all your bases." Homer Simpson : "Jesus, Allah, Buddha, I love you all!"

[@countvanbruno182]

I would have loved to hear more about the Orphic Mysteries. Pythagoras, Plato, and the belief in Re-Incarnation.

[@oliverd.shields2708]

Karl Popper’s book “The World of Parmenides” has an interesting chapter on that, near the end of the book.

[@theisheep2676]

The belief in reincarnation comes from greek philosophers borrowing from indian philosophy

[@willmosse3684]

Interesting colour discussion. What about bright blue? I mean, these people live in the Mediterranean. They would have seen bright blue skies over their heads every day. One might think they would have a word for this.

[@MrBruno656]

what of logos as 'the breathe?'

[@brettportman9847]

Hi from Clovis.

[@Tina06019]

I often mix wine with water, 1:1. It’s refreshing and goes well with socializing. Of course I wouldn’t do that with a delicious fine wine, I would just drink a smaller volume. With a glass of water on the side.

[@brianne8254]

I often put ice in my red wine, as offensive as that is to people. I also dilute juice 1 parts juice to 3 parts water. Things are too dehydrating otherwise.

[@alexnaskos]

​@@brianne8254 In Greece it is quite common to put ice in wine (although less so in red wine and more in retsina for some reason, at least this is what I've observed). Personally I also mix sparkling water in sometimes but this is considered weird

[@ChlorineHeart]

@@brianne8254 My French mom puts ice in white wine and rosé all the time so as far as I'm concerned it's totally fine

[@majbrithoeyrup]

and in Bulgarian you differ between bright wine and dark wine, by tradition. There's plenty of words for colors.

[@AlbuquerqueBandit]

UNM, huh? I plan on going back to college after I finish my apprenticeship in my trade, maybe I'll try to throw your class into the mix if I can

[@jacksonhoppis]

I wonder if the association with dionysus and madness stems from the stigma of getting drunk and losing control Edit: maybe I should have listened to the whole thing they talk about it at 31:30 lol

[@oliverd.shields2708]

For the Greeks it’s still a lot of alcohol, because of the amount that people drink in a year. 1/2 to 1 L a day.

[@dixgun]

Have only heard of the Shiva/Dionysus (Bacchus) connection (and the Bhakti/Bacchant connection).

[@bastisonnenkind]

It may be possible, that the gold the greeks found and used was mixed with copper, so it would be more orange than the pure gold we have nowadays

[@elineeugenie5224]

24 carat gold looks like that.. We never get that nowadays because it's too soft

[@nathancole6678]

Freshly cast 24k gold has a pink/rose tint, but mellows overtime to a more classic gold color, though redder than 18k.

[@Walhaz]

Thought Crawford was talking to himself at first! 😆

[@ReidGarwin]

Historian generic phenotype 😂

[@gmkar7766]

Anyone who's ever had Mavrothafni knows why the Greeks had their wine watered down

[@kaloarepo288]

Eritrea - a modern country whose name comes from "erythros" meanind "red" from the Italian = the previous colonial masters of the area -ultimately from Greek of course and because of its position on the Red Sea.

[@faarsight]

Wasn't there some emperor that tried to Canonise a Greek Religious canon in opposition to Christianity?

[@donkeysaurusrex7881]

There was Julian the Apostate who was raised Christian, converted to paganism, and tried to move the empire back in that direction. Not sure if he’s who you are thinking of though.

[@faarsight]

@@donkeysaurusrex7881 I don't think so. It might not even be an emperor I'm thinking off honestly.

[@bcfoss515]

yeah, Aurelian did attempt to reform the faith by elevating Sol Invictus to major god status. He MIGHT also have pushed a more monotheistic view of the Graeco-Roman Pantheon, but I really cant remember.

[@johnfenn3188]

The first Christian canon was based on the Greek Bible. In fact the Canon of Jewish scriptures was not fixed till around 1000CE. The Church accepted the Hebrew Scriptures in their Greek translation, the Septuagint, which included the books written originally in Greek, and now often included in the Apocrypha in Protestant bibles. Martin Luther's fault!

[@faarsight]

@@bcfoss515 That's probably the guy I was thinking off yeah

[@giovannicolpani3345]

Regarding the Dionysus-Jesus connection, while it is unlikely that it played a role in defining the Christian narratives of the New Testament, there is a relatively late document that hellenized Christians drew that comparison in Nonnus of Panopolis' epic poems the Dionysiacs and Metaphrasis of the Gospel of John, written in the V c. A.D. Nonnus employs similar expressions in describing Dionysius' deeds in the Dionysiacs as when he puts the Gospel of John into poetry. Nonnian scholars have studied these parallels and there is a lot of discussion on their significance. A good point of entry to the question for English speakers is the Companion to Nonnus.

[@danthefrst]

Hey Jack, have you read the book Language of Creation by Matthieu Pageau? If so, what do you think of it? If not, why don't? Great many thanks

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

So one of the horses of the apocalypse might be described as 'sallow' instead of 'pale'? 😂 I immediately think of the colour of Przewalski horses. Nah, that was the least of the interesting information in this. Wish I could like more than once.

[@nunyoubusyness6345]

Hahaha yes exactly 🤓🤓🤓Lots o family in Nuevo Mexico 💙💙💙

[@rabdoo2]

I my house we call that Greek wine call Wrecksina for a reason.

[@AmmaNonna]

It's probably just me but its so hard to listen to someone who stutters on purpose (especially while teaching about language) . It's always been a peeve of mine since hollywood and talk shows started it. I stopped watching TV shortly after. I need the info or I would have given up already.

[@jasondumb5706]

What a bizarre comment. I have no idea what it means Hollywood and talk shows started stuttering on purpose? Maybe I have a different definition of stuttering. Was there stuttering in this video? Maybe I watched a different video. Anybody Remember Mel Tillis? Now that guy stuttered.

[@aa-zz6328]

Please stop saying the Iliad like you say it!

[@ReidGarwin]

Is it ihl-yahd ? or eel-ee-yäd/ eel-yäd?

[@johnfenn3188]

'Old Testament' is a loaded term. It implies that it is outdated, past, gone, and in that sense can be read as anti-Semitic. Many theologians and pastors these days refer to it as either the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Scriptures.

[@johnfenn3188]

Actually, Christian scholars too. Maybe not yet in the US, but less and less in Europe.

[@johnfenn3188]

I mean more and more in Europe.

[@sameash3153]

Hmm, I never had that association. I just simply assumed it meant "older than the gospels", not necessarily "outdated" or "useless". I mean, it didn't seem so outdated or useless when it's included in every Bible.

[@johnfenn3188]

@@sameash3153 it’s the juxtaposition of old and new which leaves it open to that interpretation.

[@sameash3153]

​@@johnfenn3188 That's like saying there's a moral judgement against the elder futhark because it's contrasted against the younger futhark. Every church I know of reads both testaments in every service.

[@gnarzikans]

It looks like magister ultimately comes from *méǵh₂s (oblique *m̥ǵh₂-) “big, great,” whereas magic ultimately comes from *megʰ- “to be able to.” While, those two reconstructed roots do sound pretty similar, they also mark distinct laryngeal phonemes. But the “H” in PIE reconstruction is a cover symbol to denote “unknown laryngeal,” so it’s pretty difficult to say what those sounds were; though you may argue that no matter what they were, they were two different sounds, and therefore distinct, and therefore that magister and magic are ultimately unrelated. All that said, however, the combined semantic and phonemic similarities imply to me that they probably are related