Through a Glass, Darkly: Part One

On this episode

About this episode

Eight thousand years ago, in a settlement called Çatalhöyük in what is now central Turkey, somebody sat down with a piece of obsidian and began to grind volcanic glass. Black, brittle, sharp enough to cut skin, it doesn’t occur naturally anywhere near there; the closest volcanoes are a hundred and twenty miles east. So someone carried it that far, and then spent hours working one face of it flat and polishing it to a shine.It is the oldest mirror anyone has ever found. We know these things mattered, because we find them in graves. People were buried holding on to them.Here’s the thing, though. If you look into polished obsidian, you don’t see your face. Not exactly. You see a shape. Dark,…