All language subtitles for Strangest.Things.S02E04.The.Psychograph.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_eng

NARRATOR:
Could this strange contraption

really see into your soul?

WEST: The idea that
you could just put something

on someone's head
and then suck out

all the measures of
personality from them --

wouldn't that be fun?

NARRATOR:
Why was the wearer of this

weird gold mask treated
so bizarrely?

ESCOLANO-POVEDA:
He was placed upside down with

his head separated from
the body.

NARRATOR: And what is so odd
about this ancient Greek jar?

MacDONALD: There's every reason
to believe

that this combination of pot

and sacrifice and iron nail
are part of an act of

dark magic.

NARRATOR:
These are the most remarkable

and mysterious objects on earth.

Hidden away in museums,
laboratories, and storage rooms.

Now, new research
and technology

can get under their skin

like never before.

We can rebuild them,

pull them apart,

and zoom in to reveal

the unbelievable,
the ancient,

and the truly bizarre.

These are the world's
strangest things.

In Minnesota's Science Museum

sits one of the strangest
devices ever invented.

This is a completely
bizarre contraption.

NARRATOR: Now, using
cutting-edge technology,

we can bring this unique
object to life.

This is the psychograph.

Consisting of nearly
2,000 individual parts,

it looks like some kind of
robotic hairdryer.

BALL: There's a dome
that comes down from a pole

over the head, and that's
attached to a mahogany box,

and then there are
electrical connections

going from this device
into the box.

NARRATOR:
Within the dome are 32 tiny,

twisted steel probes
mounted on pivots.

They are designed to press up
against the skull.

Its creator claims
this allows it to accurately

calculate your psychological
strengths and weaknesses.

It's supposedly capable
of revealing

not just what kind of person
you are,

but the kind of job that you
should do.

NARRATOR: When it is unveiled
to the public,

it becomes a sensation,
with people clamoring

to get their head read,
but can it really work?

Where does the idea
for it come from?

And how does
a scientific device

end up in a shopping mall?

Wisconsin, 1901.

Inventor and self-proclaimed
profound thinker,

Henry Charles Lavery,

begins working on plans
for a revolutionary machine.

Lavery is essentially
an auto mechanic by trade,

but he's got big dreams,
and he earned a name

for himself as the Thomas Edison
of Superior, Wisconsin.

NARRATOR: Lavery believes
this new machine

will change the world,
because it will be

capable of reading and judging
someone's personality.

BELLINGER: The premise of this
contraption was that it could

measure the shape of

an individual's head
and spit out a reading

based on measurements that
varied one or two ticks above

or below normal and would

thereby reveal this person's
nature, their intelligence.

WEST:
Fundamentally,

the idea is that certain
thoughts, attitudes,

behavior patterns, talents,

they're linked to structures
in the brain.

NARRATOR: In 1931,
nearly 30 years

after Lavery first
came up with the idea,

he reveals
the finished machine.

He goes big on the name
and calls it the psychograph.

Where did he get the idea for
such a bizarre device?

Ancient Greece,
over 2,000 years ago.

Philosophers like Pythagoras
and Aristotle are

championing the idea that you
really can judge a book

by its cover.

It's called physiognomy.

BELLINGER: Physiognomy is
the belief that there's

a direct correlation between

one's outward physical
appearance and one's inward

intellectual capability
and personality.

NARRATOR: Sounds crazy,
but it's actually

something everyone does
without realizing it.

Human beings like to be able
to make judgments

fairly quickly.

And one of the easiest ways to
do that is to look at someone

and see how much you like
the way they look and then

extrapolate quite a lot about
them in other ways.

That's a normal thing for
humans to do, even if it isn't

a very accurate thing for
humans to do.

NARRATOR: Unsurprisingly,
physiognomy's popularity grows

over the centuries,

and it gives rise
to some very weird ideas.

BALL:
During the 16th century,

an Italian scholar called
Giambattista della Porta wrote

a book called
Human Physiognomy,

in which he drew comparisons

between human features

and features of
various animal species,

and he would suggest that
there were similarities,

behavioral similarities,
between these two types.

NARRATOR: For example,
he suggests that looking like

a sheep means you have
a sheep-like personality,

an animal he believes is
stupid and wicked.

The psychograph is based on
an evolution of this idea first

proposed in the 18th century by
German physiologist,

Franz Joseph Gall.

BELLINGER:
Gall's ideas emerged

from his own experience
as a schoolboy,

in which he observed that
his classmates with the most

bulging eyes
and prominent foreheads

seemed to have the best memory
and recall.

Gall drew the conclusion
that there must

be some organ of memory that
resided in the skull right

behind the eyes, which would
cause it to protrude.

NARRATOR:
Gall decides that the brain

is divided into
27 independent regions.

BALL:
Gall believed that the brain

was actually a composite organ,

that it was made of many
different smaller organs

and that each of these

somehow governed
different aspects of our

character and our personality
and our behavior.

And the sizes of these
different regions would be

indicative of how much a person
held onto each of those traits.

NARRATOR: Gall believes that
the larger the region,

the more it changes
the skull shape,

creating lumps and bumps
on the surface

that can be measured,

exactly what the psychograph
does with its tiny levers.

By the early
19th century, Gall's idea

has acquired a very
scientific name -- phrenology.

Getting your head read with
a giant set of calipers

becomes all the rage among
the elites of European

high society,

while in America, brothers
Lorenzo and Orson Fowler

turn it into
a business empire.

The Fowler brothers created
the phrenological cabinet,

and they had thousands of
skulls of shady characters,

ranging from known criminals
to pirates,

and they offered readings
to the general public,

who could come in and pay
for the privilege of being told

what kind of person they were
based on their skull.

NARRATOR:
Phrenology attracts

celebrity fans like American
poet Walt Whitman,

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

and the great inventor,
Thomas Edison.

But there is a dark side to
the idea

behind the psychograph.

Amongst the skulls in the Fowler
Brothers collection was one

that had belonged to

an Apache chief named Mangas
Coloradas, who had been first

tortured and then killed by
American soldiers.

And they alleged that it
showed characteristics

of indigenous Americans

that set them apart
from white European settlers.

And so the whole science of
phrenology was very much caught

up with this deeply racist
undercurrent

of thinking about human races.

NARRATOR: Ignoring these
disturbing controversies,

inventor Henry Lavery sees
a business opportunity.

He's going to sell
phrenology to

companies so they can select
perfect employees.

But the old-fashioned
manual approach is

a poor fit for
his new business model.

BELLINGER: First of all,
it was very time consuming

but perhaps more importantly,
it's really subjective.

His idea was,
let's actually make

a device which can automate
this process.

It can do it faster
and more accurately

and more consistently.

Hence the psychograph
was born.

NARRATOR: Lavery claims his
bizarre new contraption can

take an accurate reading in
just 90 seconds,

but has he really made
a machine that can do that?

NARRATOR:
This weird contraption claims

to scientifically measure
your personality.

How on Earth can it do that?

A helmet was brought down
over the head,

there was a knob on the front
to tighten it, and then inside

the helmet,
there were 32 probes

that would move to 32 different
parts of the cranium and would

make measurements that would
allegedly reveal the scores for

these different
32 personality characteristics,

things like sense of humor,
covetousness, combativeness.

NARRATOR: As the metal probes
pivot to match

the shape of the skull,

they connect to one of five
different electrical contacts.

So each of these 32 probes
would measure

basically a bump on the skull

and see how big it was
and would send that signal to

the recording device.

So for a small bump,
you'd get a readout of one.

If it's a bit bigger,
it was two, and so on

on this five-point scale.

NARRATOR:
When the subject is in place,

the operator flicks a switch,

activating a belt-driven motor
that drives the printer in

the wooden box.

The printer receives a signal

from each of these 32 sensors

and stamps out
the appropriate number

from 1 to 5, consecutively

for each of
these personality traits.

NARRATOR: Five possible readings
from each of the 32 probes

gives an almost
unlimited number of

possible profiles.

The results appear
on a 16-inch-long

ticker tape roll of paper.

BALL:
It wasn't just giving you

a kind of objective assessment
of your personality.

It was dispensing
vocational advice.

So it was telling you
what kinds

of jobs you might be
suited for.

You know, whether you might be
best suited

to being a hotel manager
or even a prizefighter.

NARRATOR:
It looks deeply impressive.

But what's the real science
behind Lavery's strange machine?

Can you really measure
someone's personality

from the bumps on their head?

When Gall talks about
the brain being divided

into regions,
he isn't completely crazy.

BALL: If you think about
those porcelain figurines

that were made of the skull,

divided into various areas,
labeled with different aspects

of personality,

there's something in that
that resonates with

a more modern view of
understanding the brain itself,

and this was something
that really started to be

appreciated
in the mid-19th century,

in particular in the 1860s
with the work of

the French physiologist,
Paul Broca.

NARRATOR: Broca discovers that
all of his stroke patients

that have difficulty speaking

have damage to the left
frontal region of the brain.

He concludes correctly
that this area

controls our ability
to speak.

MAN:
The white area

that's shown here
in the black area,

it's a different way of
seeing it.

That's a devastating stroke.

This part of the brain is now
known as Broca's Area,

but this is not the same as
Gall's leap to defining all

personality from brain shape.

WEST: It is true that there are
different parts of the brain

that correspond to different

parts of our minds, if you want
to put it that way,

but it's not in the same neat,
packaged way

that Gall was proposing --
that part isn't true.

NARRATOR:
Even in Gall's day,

a century before the psychograph
sees the light of day,

phrenology is already viewed
with enormous suspicion.

BALL: One of the problems that
phrenology had is that there

wasn't any consensus about

which parts of the brain dealt
with which particular function,

which particular
personality trait.

And there wasn't any consensus
about what those traits were.

NARRATOR: But there is an even
more fundamental problem with

Gall's ideas.

BALL: The real problem with
phrenology is that the shape

and thickness of the skull

bears no obvious relation to
the brain it's encasing.

It can vary
for all sorts of reasons.

WEST: The idea that you could
just put something on someone's

head and then suck out all
the measures of personality

from them,
wouldn't that be fun?

It's a nice idea, even if not
a very credible one.

NARRATOR: By the turn
of the 20th century,

phrenology has been almost
completely debunked by science.

So why does
Henry Lavery then spend

30 years building
the psychograph?

The fact that science doesn't

support the psychograph
is almost irrelevant.

Lavery isn't planning
to sell it to scientists.

BELLINGER: We start to see these
psychograph machines popping

up everywhere --
in the lobbies of cinemas,

in department stores,
in cruise ships,

I mean, even in
doctors' offices.

They become a bit of a form of
public entertainment with this

kind of false promise of

enlightening people
about themselves.

NARRATOR: In 1934,
the psychograph is even

exhibited at
the Chicago World's Fair.

But it isn't alongside

the other technological
innovations of the age.

BELLINGER: It's over with
the freak shows in between

the Ripley's Believe It or Not
exhibition and the flea circus.

It's been relegated to

the sphere of pseudoscience,
to popular entertainment.

NARRATOR:
Up to 45 machines are built,

but in 1938, the psychograph
bubble finally bursts,

and Lavery is forced
to mothball his machines.

The psychograph
may have died in obscurity,

but the ghost of phrenology
lives on.

Its ideas have permeated into
our language to some degree,

they're still there,

so when we talk about,
for example, things being

highbrow and lowbrow,

that's a reflection of the old
idea that the shape of our brow

was somehow connected to
our intellect.

And if you had a low brow,

you were less intelligent than
if you had a nice sort of

high forehead.

NARRATOR: So, despite its
controversial past,

the idea behind
this bizarre machine

is the pseudoscience
that refuses to die.

In a display case at
a museum in Northern Peru is

a strange mask with
a distorted and heavily

decorated human face.

The quality of the craftsmanship
is outstanding.

NARRATOR: But brand-new analysis
has led experts

into a dark world of macabre
ancient rituals.

DODDS PENNOCK:
This new research just added

an amazing new dimension to
our understanding.

NARRATOR: Now, using cutting
edge digital technology,

we can examine this strange
relic in microscopic detail.

This is the Sican Mask.

Fashioned from solid gold,

it measures
18 inches by 11 inches,

and at the center of
the unusually shaped eyes are

beads made from polished amber
and emeralds.

It's decorated with
a nose clip

and intricate
ornamental earrings.

Just from looking at
the craftsmanship, we can tell

it's incredibly valuable.

NARRATOR:
It is painted a vivid red,

the color still bright

a thousand years
after it was made,

and there is a gruesome reason
for that.

Who made it?
What was it for?

And what makes
the new research so grisly?

NARRATOR:
Northwest coast of Peru,

the Pomac Forest, 1991.

A team led by
Professor Izumi Shimada

is on
an archaeological dig.

This area is one of
only four areas in Peru

designated as of special
historical interest

and protected for that reason.

NARRATOR: Beneath the tropical
dry forest lie 36 manmade mounds

spread across
23 square miles.

It is all that remains of

a lost civilization that
flourished along Peru's

north coast.

It disappeared more than
600 years ago.

They are called the Sican.

Shimada's excavation
focuses on

a temple mound known as
Huaca Loro,

and at the bottom of
a 36-foot-deep vertical shaft

they find the motherlode,

an untouched Sican tomb
packed with riches.

DODDS PENNOCK: They recover
over a ton of grave goods,

about a third of which
are made of metal.

NARRATOR:
The treasures include crowns,

gold feather head ornaments,

gold earrings, and a gold
ceremonial knife.

But they also find the bodies
of two women and two children.

They are arranged
around a fifth body

in the center of the tomb.

DODDS PENNOCK: He is laying
on the remains of a robe

that was covered with hundreds
of tiny gold squares.

He has elaborate gold
shin ornaments, as well as

a big chest piece made of
inches deep of beads.

A reconstruction
reveals how the women

and children were
positioned around this man.

Each seems to have been placed
in very bizarre poses.

But strangest by far is
the man at the center.

He was arranged
in a seated position.

His body was painted red.

NARRATOR:
That's not what is strange.

He was placed upside down

and with his head separated
from the body.

The head has been removed
and rotated to 180 degrees

so it's upright.

NARRATOR: And covering
the decapitated head...

the weird red mask.

DODDS PENNOCK:
The mask is made of gold.

It has very delicate,
beaded eyes

made from different kinds
of stones

so you see the pupil
staring out from the mask

at you, but what's most
striking is this bright

red paint in which
it's been daubed.

It really gives the mask
this depth of color,

which has been
preserved incredibly

through the centuries.

NARRATOR: And these details
hide a gruesome

secret that has only
just been discovered.

The mask
is 1,000 years old.

It is made from
a single gold alloy sheet

just 200ths of an inch thick.

It is a perfect example of
the skill of Sican craft.

In shaping the mask,

there's a real kind of balance
to be struck between, you know,

keeping it thin enough,

but on the other hand strong
enough to maintain the features.

NARRATOR:
The iris and pupil are formed

from large pierced amber
and emerald beads.

The finishing touch was to add
the distinctive red paint.

SELLA:
That stunning red color

actually comes from a mineral
called cinnabar,

and it's the sulfide
of mercury.

NARRATOR: Cinnabar has been
highly prized as a precious

resource by
many different cultures

around the globe
for at least 12,000 years.

It's a fabulous dye and
therefore is often used to

evoke importance through ideas
about blood and rulership

and fertility in particular --
we know that

the Romans used it in
triumphal processions.

NARRATOR:
Many statues in antiquity were

originally decorated with
bright red colors.

But this mask is different.

There is something very dark
beneath its gaudy paint.

SELLA: The whole idea
of a paint is that

you're going to apply a color
across a surface.

And for that, you're gonna
need, first of all, a pigment.

That's the substance
which actually

gives rise to the color.

NARRATOR:
In the case of the mask,

that is the red mercury salt,
cinnabar.

You're then going to need
some kind of liquid medium,

which allows it to flow
so that

you can spread it around,
and finally,

you're gonna need some kind
of binder, which will hold it

together once you've applied it
to the surface.

NARRATOR: But new research
has revealed something

completely unexpected.

In 2021, a study was done to
actually analyze

the composition of the red
material on the surface.

They used a technique
which is called FTIR.

This is an infrared technique,
which actually allows

you to detect organic
molecules on the surface

and identify them.

And with this,
they were able

to conclude that there
was protein.

NARRATOR: But it's when
scientists carry out

further analysis
to identify the proteins

that they discover
something truly shocking.

It was both serum albumin
and immunoglobulin G,

both of which are proteins
present human blood.

That deep red color

comes from blood.

Human blood.

NARRATOR:
Who wears a mask painted with

human blood
on their decapitated head?

NARRATOR: The red paint
on this 1,000-year-old mask

is mixed with
human blood.

Who is the decapitated man
buried wearing it?

Archaeologists have found many
simple shallow graves in

communal Sican cemeteries
believed to be

those of commoners.

But the tomb
where the mask is found

is on an altogether
different scale.

Calculations have shown that
it took about two weeks to

20 people to just build
the structure of the tomb.

And a lot more work
went into

making all the objects
that were put inside.

So quite a lot of
economic value,

but also the work
of many people was

invested into creating
the tomb for this person.

NARRATOR: The use of gold
in the mask also gives

us clues about the man
buried in the tomb.

Access to refined gold,
to precious metals seems

to be indicative of
the very highest status.

These are the elite lords
of the dynasty.

NARRATOR: As a member of
this elite group,

the mask's owner would be
at the center of Sican

religious practices.

DODDS PENNOCK:
He would have worn a fabulous

headdress as well as the mask
and gold all over,

and it's quite clear that it's
designed to make a noise

when he moves,
as well as to shine.

It will make this incredible
jingling noise when he moves.

And so this evokes the gods,
evokes divinity.

It takes people outside of
the mundane and into the divine.

NARRATOR: So is
the presence of human blood

on this strange mask part
of a religious ritual?

And is the blood
willingly given?

Or is it taken by force?

In 2011, archaeologists
studying the lost

Sican civilization make
a troubling discovery.

Close to where
the mask was found,

archaeologists have located
over 150 bodies, which were

probably sacrificed in specific
rituals around these temples.

The study of the bones has

shown that there's
no skeletal trauma,

so they were probably
buried alive.

NARRATOR: Bioarchaeological
analysis of the female skeletons

from the tomb
where the mask is discovered

shows they are healthy
before they die.

It suggests they may also have
been sacrificed.

So why did these healthy young
women have to die?

Next to the body of the man

in the center of
the tomb were found the bodies

of two women.

One of them was posed as if
she were giving birth.

And the other one was in
a midwifery position.

NARRATOR: The positioning of
the two women points

to the true purpose of
this extraordinary burial.

DODDS PENNOCK: We believe
that the Sican lord

is being symbolically reborn
into the world,

perhaps reborn as a member of
the ancestor cult,

someone who's moving on
to the next

phase of life to be
worshiped there.

NARRATOR: It explains why
the body of the elite man

at the center of the tomb is
upside down.

It's how he would be born.

There were also
two children buried in the tomb,

and there have been different
explanations to their presence

in there -- they could
perhaps be offerings.

Perhaps they were meant to be
companions for the elite member

of society after
he had been reborn.

NARRATOR:
Why the head of the elite man

behind the mask is decapitated
remains a mystery,

but experts believe the most
gruesome ingredient in

the mask's vivid red paint,

human blood, could be meant
to aid the rebirth.

DODDS PENNOCK: Blood in
Sican culture, it appears,

was tied to fertility
and to life.

NARRATOR: So it seems
likely the blood is intended

to enhance this strange ritual
in some way.

So far, the striking gold mask
is the only one found with

human blood,

but it's also
the only one analyzed.

The discovery is so new
that until other examples

are tested, no one knows if
this mask is a one off

or if painting with
human blood was common

in this lost culture.

Watch this space.

In a museum in Athens sits
a plain-looking ceramic jar,

but this really
isn't any old jar.

This jar is one-of-a-kind --
it has curses,

witchcraft, and magic.

NARRATOR: Now, using
digital imaging technology,

we can examine the artifact
inside and out.

It's become known
as the cursed chicken pot.

It's about
4 and 1/2 inches high,

with a spherical base
5 inches in diameter,

and a handle on one side.

MacDONALD: At first glance,
this is a rather unspectacular,

unglazed brown pot,

like many thousands
of others found

in archaeological sites
in ancient Greece.

NARRATOR: But magnify it,
and it suddenly stands out,

because it's covered in
faint inscriptions

in ancient Greek
scratched into the clay.

This was clearly something
done for a significant reason.

NARRATOR: And inside the pot,
things just get even weirder.

There was actually
a head of a chicken.

NARRATOR: What does the writing
on the outside mean?

Why is there a decapitated
chicken head inside?

Is this pot really cursed?

NARRATOR: This weird clay pot
covered with inscriptions

is discovered in the Agora
of ancient Athens.

ALTAWEEL: The Agora of Athens
is one of the most prominent

marketplaces, industrial places
of really the classical world.

Athens, in this period, is one
of the greatest cities on Earth,

and the Agora is
at the heart of it.

MacDONALD:
The Agora was a civic center,

a place of governance,
of meeting, of remembrance,

a commercial area,

the center of the ancient city.

NARRATOR: In 2006, a team of
archaeologists are digging in

an area of the Agora

once used by the craftspeople
of ancient Athens.

ALTAWEEL: They're excavating in
the Agora in this building

that's in the heart

of the commercial area,
and they come across a fairly

simple-looking jar.

NARRATOR: The jar dates to
between 325 and 270 BCE.

And at first glance,
it looks

like any old piece of
Greek pottery.

In fact, oftentimes,
we just pick them up

and sort of throw them
in the bucket

without much thought,
because these things

are quite common, right?

So we didn't expect this
to be that fascinating.

NARRATOR: When the
archaeologists look closer,

they realize there's something
about this jar that is

very odd indeed.

There's actually lots
of writing on it.

There's about at least 30
or so names that are legible.

There's even more names
than that.

NARRATOR:
Examining the pot further,

the archaeologists spot
another strange clue.

The only two words
that we can still make out

that aren't individual
names are the words "we bind."

NARRATOR: All very weird, but
not exactly groundbreaking.

It's when the archaeologists
look inside the jar

that things start to turn
really bizarre.

ALTAWEEL: There was actually
a head of a chicken found,

and some parts of the body
scattered into the jar.

NARRATOR: And if that
wasn't strange enough,

the chicken isn't even
the oddest thing hidden inside.

The jar has a nail that goes
through it that is pierced from

the top,
and it goes into the base

but doesn't shatter the jar.

NARRATOR:
There is no way the nail can

have pierced the delicate clay
material by accident.

The brittleness
of a material like

terracotta, fired clay, is
absolutely notorious.

I don't think
you embed a nail

into a piece of terracotta
just for fun.

If you want to pierce it in
some way, you can't do it

by hitting it.

You've got to be much more
subtle and effectively

wear away, drill through,
very, very gently,

to ensure that you
don't get the beginnings of

that crack,
which will give you weakness.

And so this was clearly
something done for

a significant reason.

NARRATOR:
And it just gets weirder,

because there's something else
in there

alongside the chicken
remains and the nail.

ALTAWEEL: A small coin was found
at the edge of this nail,

not legible, so it's --
it's been erased

so that you can't tell
what period

or what king was even
referred to,

but it seems to be of a kind
of small denomination.

NARRATOR: Why would someone
stuff this strange

combination of items
into this pot?

If we zoom in on this
digital reconstruction,

can closer inspection of
the strange markings on

the surface help explain
the pot's true purpose?

PLUMMER SIRES: The key
to understanding the pot

is in the names that
are inscribed.

Although today we can
only make out

about 30 individual names,

it is very possible that,
when the pot was made,

up to about 55 names were
inscribed on the surface.

NARRATOR: But it's not
the names that tell us

what this jar is for.

It's the other text experts
have spotted,

the words
[speaking ancient Greek],

ancient Greek for "we bind."

There's every reason to
believe that this combination

of pot and sacrifice

and iron nail
are part of an act of

dark magic,

a binding curse
known as a katares.

NARRATOR: Could this weird pot
really be cursed?

Did the ancient Greeks
even believe in magic?

NARRATOR: It seems this ancient
Greek pot containing parts of

a dismembered chicken, a nail,
and a coin, is cursed.

But do the ancient Greeks
really believe in dark magic?

ALTAWEEL:
We think of ancient Greece as

being a society of logic,
of reason,

but actually, magic,
superstition, were quite common,

creating spells and potions
and even prayers

against your enemies or people

you just want to have bad
things happen to.

NARRATOR: Curses are used
for a whole host of reasons.

MacDONALD: It was used for
business purposes.

It was used to
settle lawsuits.

It was used because of hatred,
and in some senses,

different sorts of magic were
used for love.

NARRATOR: In ancient
Greek society, it seems

everyone's in on magic
and curses.

MacDONALD:
We know that in some cases,

city states actually
commissioned certain acts

of magic.

Also, certain laws prohibited
acts of magic.

So therefore, this was a system
that was broadly believed in.

NARRATOR: These spells often
take the form of a curse tablet.

PLUMMER SIRES: Normally,
they would have been written

on a lead sheet, inscribed,

folded, and pierced
with an iron nail.

The curse tablets would have
then either been buried with

a deceased,
because they believed

the dead person could carry
the message quicker

to the gods,
or they would have been

placed somewhere where

the target of the curse
would have frequented.

NARRATOR: Maybe the chicken pot
is some kind of a curse tablet.

It has names,

so it indicates individuals
which you want to

curse, potentially.

We bind indicates
that this object

is somehow pointed towards
these individuals,

that the power of the curse is
bounded to these individuals,

which is typical of
curse tablets.

NARRATOR: The coin found inside
the jar also supports this being

a curse.

The coin could be paying

the gods, effectively,
to carry out the curse.

So, in a sense,
you have to always do

a little bit of sacrifice to
get the curse that you want.

So the coin is part of
that sacrifice.

NARRATOR: But ancient Greek
curse tablets don't normally

use animals.

So what's its purpose?

The chicken is what holds
the entire curse together.

The commissioner or
commissioners of the pot would

have tried to imbue
the helplessness

and the inability to protect
itself that the chicken had

onto the intended targets.

NARRATOR: And the chicken itself
is significant, because

chickens originally come to
Europe from distant Asia.

MacDONALD: The chicken
is still an exotic animal

in ancient Greece,
and as an exotic animal,

it was particularly well
suited to sacrifice.

It was something
out of the ordinary.

NARRATOR:
But if this is a cursed pot,

who was it aimed at?

We know that the pot was found
below the floor of the Agora in

a workshop,
and we also know

that the curse tablets,
or curse pot in this case,

they were usually buried where

the intended targets
would frequent.

So it would stand to reason
that this pot or this curse

has something to do
with competition

within the trading guilds.

NARRATOR:
What kind of curse is being

put on these craftspeople?

ALTAWEEL: Oftentimes,
when you do curses

with many different names,

it's usually a judicial case,
because there's lots of

individuals involved.

NARRATOR: There are lots of
examples of curse tablets

used to affect
the outcome of a lawsuit.

ALTAWEEL: The argument that
this is a kind of curse pot,

if you will, against
a competitor is supported by

the fact that curse tablets were
already used in this area.

So having something like this

as another example is
not surprising.

NARRATOR:
Studying the names inscribed

on the jar also
provides a clue.

PLUMMER SIRES: About a third
of the names inscribed

on the pot belonged to women,

which is actually
really interesting.

We do know that lawsuits were
not uncommon during this time,

and these types of curses would

include not just
the opponents in the --

in the court case, but any
witnesses or supporters

of the opponents.

This might explain why there
were so many women's names.

These could have been
the wives, mothers,

daughters of the cursed men.

NARRATOR: But did the curse
actually work?

MacDONALD: We'll never know
whether or not

the curse of
the ancient Agora worked,

and we're not even
really sure what it was trying

to affect -- was it trying
to end the business,

or was it trying to actually
harm the people who might have

worked for
a particular business?

But, in a sense,
that doesn't matter.

What it tells us is about

the strength of belief in
magic in ancient Athens.

NARRATOR:
Is this innocuous-looking pot

really a curse carrier
designed to inflict magical

harm on the names scored into
its surface?

Dark magic is
the only theory proposed

so far that holds water.