Am I recording? You are listening to Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. Okay, let's vango. Hello and welcome to Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. My name is Lindsay, and it feels really strange to be recording this right now because I wrote this episode weeks ago. Like, like literally weeks ago. But today is the first day that I had both the time and just as importantly the motivation to sit down and record the dang thing. Thank you so much for joining me for episode 16. I had a ton of fun talking about King Tut's tomb in episodes 14 and 15. That for today's episode I decided to stick with a very similar topic: the Terracotta Warriors of Emperor Chin Xu Huangdi, also known as the First Emperor of China. This topic has been on the docket for some time, actually, going back to the very beginning of the podcast last year. By the way, a happy one-year anniversary to the podcast. Very exciting. This is an OG topic that really embodies what this podcast is all about when I started it. Because even though I've always known of the Terracotta Warriors, I never really knew anything about them. And it's funny of how much of that is in our lives. Like we know of something, but we don't really know anything about it. And this was my opportunity to find out more. Those of you who have listened to the other episodes of the podcast will also know that this is not the first time that I have covered terracotta figures. In fact, the first content-based episode of the podcast was on Niccolo Delarca's Lamentation, which is a very different set of life-size terracotta figures. But in many ways, if not always, the terracotta warriors of Emperor Chin are like a thousand times more impressive than Nicolo Delarca's Lamentation. If not seven thousand times more impressive. But you'll have to keep listening to find out why that is. This is the part where I tell you stuff about a thing. Before I do tell you some stuff about a thing, let me say at the top of the episode that I do not know Chinese. I don't know how to pronounce Chinese, I don't know how to read it, I don't know. I don't know anything about Chinese. And I officially apologize to anyone whose ears start to bleed as the result of my pronunciation. As with all great archaeological discoveries, the discovery of the terracotta warriors of Emperor Qin has a most excellent discovery story. In March of 1974, seven farmers were attempting to dig a well in a field in the province of Shanxi in northwestern China. There had been a great drought in Shanxi, and these farmers were desperate for water. So desperate that they decided to attempt to make a well themselves. The men started to dig, hoping beyond hope that they would eventually hit water. But instead, around 10 feet down into the earth, they discovered basically the exact opposite of water. Their shovels hit baked red clay. Curious, the farmers worked to uncover one of the clay fragments, assuming that it was a vase or a pot or something of that sort. But it was not. It was an entire human head rendered in terracotta. Like how freaky was that for them? They found a whole head in the middle of a field. Now the farmers had no idea that there was so much more to be found. Specifically, there was an entire army of terracotta warriors just below their feet. This one terracotta head was just the beginning. The Terracotta Warriors, also known as the Terracotta Army, are a collection of life-sized statues that were made for the burial complex of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China. And by collection of statues, I mean that there were over 7,000 of them. 7,000? That's a lot. Right alongside that of King Tut's tomb by Howard Carter in 1922. See episodes 14 and 15 for that. In fact, the people who were involved in the early stages of excavating the first emperor's tomb took the excavation of King Tut's tomb as a lesson in how not to approach an archaeological dig of this caliber, but more on that in a little bit. If you have never heard of Emperor Chin Shi Huangdi, join the club. I would guess that very few people outside of the specialty of East Asian Studies, or, you know, East Asia itself could really tell you anything about Emperor Qin. As I keep saying though, Emperor Qin was the first Emperor of China, which is nothing to sneeze at, is it? About 2200 years ago, China as we know it today was comprised of seven warring states or kingdoms. The states of Qin, Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhou, and Wei. Pretty sure I got 60% of that pronunciation correct, so pat on my shoulder. Now each one of these kingdoms was separate from the other, and all of them were at war. And these wars went on for a good 200 years. As you might have guessed from context clues and, you know, general attention paying, the man who would eventually become the first emperor of China was from the state of Qin. By 250 BCE before Common Era, the Qin state comprised most of modern-day Gangxu and Shanxi provinces. Now those provinces are in the north-central slash northwest China, but back in the day the area of the Qin state was at the very western edge of the warring states, and what would become the first iteration of a unified China. And I'm using sort of verbal air quotes around the word unified here, because I guarantee you that none of those other six states wanted to be a part of unified China unless they were ruling it. So unified is an abstract term. The future first emperor started his life not as an emperor, but as a lowly prince. Ugh, poor guy. Before he rebranded himself as emperor, our prince was known as Chow Cheng. Chow Cheng was born in 259 BCE to the king of the Qin state. Most of what we know about his early life is pretty damning. Or really anything that we know about his life in general is pretty damning, given that the dynasty that came after him, the Han Dynasty, is the one that wrote the history of his reign, and naturally was highly critical of him. From everything that I have read, I get the sense that Emperor Chin was a pretty terrible human being. But that was pretty run in the mill for a person of his pay grade back in the day, and let's face it, even today. And he was also most definitely what I call an odd duck. Most of what we know about Emperor Chin's early life and reign comes from the writings of historian Sima Chin. Sima Chin was a historian of the next dynasty that came after Emperor Chin's dynasty, which was the Han Dynasty. Sima was the one responsible for establishing one of the most damning stories about Emperor Chin that would affect how he was remembered in history. The Emperor Chin was not actually the son of the King of Qin. It is alleged, alleged, that the King of Qin got with the Emperor's mother while she was pregnant with the child of a rich merchant, which then allowed her to claim that the child was the king's even though he was actually the son of the merchant. Schemes on schemes on schemes on schemes. If that were true, if the future emperor of China was actually the son of a concubine and a merchant, that makes Emperor Chin not even a child of the king. It is impossible to say whether or not this is actually true. It happened 2200 years ago and Mari Povich was not there to do a paternity test. Mari, Mari, Mari. Whether Emperor Chin was or was not the legitimate heir to the Qin state doesn't really matter. Because Chinese history largely remembers him in a negative light as being an illegitimate despot. It also doesn't matter because he did turn out to be the first emperor of China. So doesn't change the trajectory of this story, but it is, you know, I don't know, but a fun fact, but it's interesting. The historian Sima Chin gave us more than just the emperor's alleged birth story. We get much of his life story from Sima Chin, and it goes a little something like this. The future first emperor was the presumed alleged, maybe son of the king of Qin. The king died when his son was only thirteen years old, but future Emperor Chin nonetheless ascended the throne to take his father's place. Over the course of the next 20 years, Emperor Qin takes down each one of the other six warring states one by one until he is king of them all. He thus renames himself from Chao Cheng to Qin Shi Huang Di. Qin, for the fairly obvious reason that he was the king of the Qin state. Xi, meaning first, and Huang Di, a new term that combined Huang, which meant splendid or shining, and Di, a name typically given to divine figures and specifically one of the five emperors of Chinese lore. We now translate Huang Di as emperor, but in reality the term means so much more than that. The emperor took the name of Huang Di because he believed that he was more than just a man born into a specific set of circumstances that allowed him to rule. He believed that he was a descendant of the divine kings of China's past. Mm-hmm. And the word Huang Di represented the idea of him being both divinely chosen and divine in his own right. But we don't actually have a word in English to properly encompass that, so Emperor shall do. Despite having a bit of a bad rap in the history books, Emperor Qin and his dynasty accomplished quite a bit during a relatively short dynastic reign. The Emperor ordered administrative reforms, he abolished feudalism, and his rule is even associated with connecting a bunch of previous walls throughout China to make you guessed it the first version of what we now know as the Great Wall of China. As I mentioned earlier, Emperor Chin was a bit of an odd duck. In particular, he was obsessed with chasing immortality, like hardcore obsessed due to a deep-seated fear of death, which seems very strange for a man so familiar with war. But hey, you do you. Emperor Chin was so obsessed with the idea of immortality that he actually sent expeditions of hundreds of people to find the elixir of immortality. None of those people returned, probably because, one, they died, and two, they knew that if they returned empty-handed, they'd be executed, so they ran ran ran far away from there. The emperor was even known to kill off scholars who weren't able to provide him with elixir of life. Where is Nicholas Flamel when you need him? For a guy so obsessed with immortality, it might seem ironic that Emperor Chin began to plan and build his burial complex even before he became the first emperor of China, though I think it is safe to assume that work picked up on the tomb after Emperor Chin became, you know, the Emperor. The design of the tomb was thus: to create a city underground, complete with palace, rivers, and an imperial guard. No big deal, right? The idea behind the design was a fairly simple one. The underground tomb was intended to be a reflection of Emperor Chin's life above ground. The carrying out of that goal, however, entailed building an entire city below ground. Now we are talking a legit city that included an outer wall, an inner wall, a series of palaces, and a big ol' hill that marks the emperor's place of burial. I have found varying measurements regarding how much space the complex covers, all of which are very off from one another, but the outer walls of the underground city at least are about a half mile by 1.5 miles, though some archaeologists have suggested that the complex is even larger, like 20 square miles big. Regardless of specific numbers, this project was huge, and its total realization would ultimately never come to fruition, but the result is nonetheless stunning. A project of this magnitude required major manpower, and the first emperor had the means to command it. At one point, it is thought that over 700,000 men were working on building the tomb. To put that into perspective, no city in the world at that time had a population of that size. That's how many people were attempting to make this massive tomb happen. It's a good thing that Emperor Chin started planning early because he died in the year 210 at the age of 49. At that point, his tomb had been under construction for well over two decades, but it was still in the process of being built when he died, and it would remain unfinished for the rest of time. No one can really say what the emperor died of, but there are some theories, including one that claims the emperor was ingesting mercury as part of a get a mortal quick scheme that surprise, surprise, had the total opposite effect. The Emperor left behind fifty children. Yes, 50, 5, 0, including about 30 sons. One of Emperor Chin's sons ascended to the throne. He had been essentially handpicked by the late Emperor's advisors as an easy target to control. But it turns out, though, that Home Fry was crazy ineffective. The dynasty that Emperor Chin claimed would last 10,000 years lasted only four more. It was then stamped out due to popular revolts and uprisings. In Chinese history, it was believed that rulership was divinely sanctioned by something called the Mandate of Heaven. When a dynasty or state or empire began to struggle, it was believed that heaven had withdrawn that mandate. Heaven, it seems, had turned its back on the Qin. The Emperor's body was laid to rest beneath Mount Li in present-day Shanxi province. This marks the proverbial center of the tomb complex that, once again, was the size of a small city. The burial mound is now 114 feet high, but you know, 2,000 years ago it was even taller. In the decades following Emperor Chin's death, there was some anxiety that his enemies would attempt to loot or desecrate the tomb. But one does not build a tomb for over three decades without some security features, which so happened to include, allegedly, the mass slaughter of those who built it to prevent them from sharing the secrets of the tomb. Our best source for information about the tomb is once again Sima Chin, who wrote about the tomb within a century of its construction. And now I'm going to read you Sima Chin's description of that tomb. Now this is a translation, so it's slightly stunted, but I do want to read it in its entirety. Quote: In the ninth month, the first emperor was interred at Mount Li. When the first emperor first came to the throne, the digging and preparation work began. Later, when he had unified his empire, 700,000 men were sent to Mount Li from all over the empire. They dug through three layers of groundwater and poured the outer coffin from bronze. Palaces and scenic towers for a hundred officials were constructed, and the tomb was filled with rare artifacts and wonderful treasure. Craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows primed to shoot at anyone who entered the tomb. Mercury was used to simulate the Hundred Rivers, the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, and the Great Sea, and it was set to flow mechanically. Above were representations of the heavenly constellations, below the features of the land. Candles were made from fat of manfish, which is calculated to burn and not extinguish for a long time. The second emperor said it would be inappropriate for the concubines of the late emperor who have no sons to be set free, and he ordered that they should accompany the dead, and a great many died. After the burial, it was suggested that it would be a serious breach if the craftsmen who constructed the mechanical devices and knew of its treasures were to divulge those secrets. Therefore, after the funeral ceremonies had completed and the treasures were hidden away, the inner passageway was blocked and the outer gate lowered, immediately trapping all of the workers and craftsmen inside. None could escape. Trees and vegetations were then planted on the tomb mound such that it resembles a hill. That description is from chapter six of Simichin's Records of the Grand Historian. And while it contains magnificent descriptions of what might be contained within the tomb, it's also horrifying to think that the second emperor, the son of the first emperor, had all of the emperor's wives killed and all of the craftspeople interred in the tomb along with the emperor's dead body. The thing that I don't quite understand is that Simichin is pretty specific about the location of the emperor's tomb. It wasn't like King Tut's tomb, of which there was absolutely zero record. Simichin basically tells us where it is. I can't say for sure why the tomb went untouched for some 2,000 years. Maybe Simichin wasn't as specific as it seems he was, or maybe no one wanted to disturb the tomb. Maybe people just forgot about it. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Ultimately, though, I am under the impression that there was general knowledge that an emperor was buried in the area, but that no one knew just how extravagant his tomb would be or how to enter it. And no one, like literally no one knew about the Terracotta army. Even Sima Chin, the ancient historian I just quoted, never mentions it. Mind you, Simachin was writing about 100 years after the first emperor died, but still, if Sima Chin didn't know about the warriors, you best bet that no one else did either. That is, not until 1974. Those seven farmers who had just gone out to dig a well had no idea that they were actually digging towards the assembled clay army of China's first emperor. An army that had stood guard over the underground necropolis for over 2,000 years. Unfortunately, the emperor had never anticipated an accidental breach from above, nor did those farmers expect what they found buried in the dirt. When the farmers found that first terracotta head, they knew that something was up. Duh. All of them had heard stories, of course, of local villagers uncovering terracotta heads and other body parts before. But those stories were old, and the thought of digging up a man's head, even if it was in terracotta, was not uh a typically pleasant thought. Even so, at least one of the farmers had the sense to call the local authorities who dispatched a curator from a small nearby museum to check things out. That man's name was Cho Heng Min, and he was the first professional on the scene. Chow arrived and quickly put together, literally and figuratively, what the farmers had found. The fragments added up to two full figures, the likes of which Cho had never seen. Each figure stood at five feet ten inches tall, a set of warriors rendered in remarkable detail, including individualized faces, armor, and clothing. He knew that he had found something remarkable, but that only led him to panic. He was faced with a choice. Did he report the statues to the government or should he keep them a secret? This was 1974 China, when Chairman Mao was still in charge and the Cultural Revolution was still in the works. The Cultural Revolution was a movement in China that was intended to strengthen and legitimize communist rule. It did this by purging the country of many long standing traditions, customs, And culture. This included widespread persecution, the spread of political propaganda, and the complete government takeover of education. The revolution also saw rampant iconoclasm or the destruction of images from China's cultural past. Ancient Buddhas and temples and tombs were all defaced, damaged, and even eradicated. This wasn't always the case, though. Sometimes the government supported archaeological digs as a way to learn about the past and utilize the information they gleaned to support the communist agenda. The elaborate tomb of China's first emperor would show how little regard the elite had for the common people, even in the earliest days of Imperial China. But the fact of the matter was that you couldn't know either way what was going to happen. It was for that reason that Cho, the curator who realized what lay beneath the grounds of Shanxi Province, was hesitant to alert the higher government authorities about the discovery of several terracotta soldiers, fearing that they too might be eradicated. Cho decided to attempt to hide the figures, to wait to alert the world of their existence until the cultural revolution had slowed and the destruction of traditional images had stopped. Unfortunately for him, a reporter caught wind of this extraordinary find just a couple months later and reported it to communist officials in Beijing, who descended upon Sanxi. Thankfully, there was no smashy smashy of the terracotta warriors. In fact, the opposite happened. The officials provided a team to launch a large-scale excavation of the site. What they found would be perhaps the greatest archaeological discovery since Tutankhamun's tomb in the early 1920s. The excavation of the site is still underway even today, and it will be for decades, if not centuries, in the future. Now for the warriors themselves. When I first delved into the topic of the Terracotta army, I was under the very false impression that the soldiers were each the same, just thousands and thousands of clones. But that was absolutely not the case. And shame on me for assuming it. As if making thousands of life-size terracotta warriors wasn't enough of a flex, the artisans who created the terracotta army produced soldiers that were unique, varied in hairstyles, armor type, military specialty, and even facial hair. I have also read that the face shapes and physical characteristics of many of the figures can be pinpointed to different ethnic groups within China that would have all comprised this new empire under Emperor Chin. Some of the soldiers were even found wearing actual armor and bearing literal weapons, not clay stand-ins, but the real thing. To boot, the soldiers were then painted, which allowed for additional individualization. There is still so much that we do not know about the making of the terracotta warriors, but there's also a lot that we do know. Not least of all is that they, you know, exist. But first things first, the soldiers were created by a series of at least 11 workshops. We know that because each terracotta warrior was stamped with a character that denoted its workshop origin, presumably for quality control. Much like an assembly line today, each one of these workshops deployed labor divisions that created one part of the soldier. Those parts were then joined together to make the entire warrior. The warriors were assembled piece by piece from foot to head. The feet and lower legs of each warrior are solid, thus giving the figure a solid base on which to stand. Then the upper legs, torso, arms, and head would each be added one at a time using slip or like a clay paste that joined the pieces together. Certain aspects of the warrior, such as the head or the fingers, were made using molds, but there was a high degree of individualization that also went into creating each warrior. For example, the head of a warrior might have been made from a clay mold, but then a craftsperson came in and hand sculpted facial hair, hairstyle, and any other kind of distinguishing features. The figures were then dressed according to their military rank, including archers, cavalrymen, general foot soldiers, and military generals. Most of the time those quote-unquote clothes were made of clay, but other times the figures were actual pieces of armor. Once the figure was done, it had to be baked, and that would have happened in something called a kiln. K-I-L-N kiln. What's strange is that archaeologists have yet to find a kiln or oven on site that would have allowed for the baking of these life-sized figures. Now there had to be one, because no one in their right mind was going to put that much work into something on site just to ship it out for baking, only to have it be shipped back. Like that doesn't make any sense, and there is way too many chances for breakage. So there must have been a kiln on site. We just haven't found it yet. After the figures were fired, they were then painted. Painting added an additional level of individualization to the figures, including eyes, skin color, hair color, etc. Unfortunately, much of that original paint is now gone. But it's crazy to think about what these clay dudes would have looked like when they were freshly painted and placed in that tomb. It must have been an incredible sight. 7,000 plus individualized figures standing at attention. This project was unlike anything that had ever been undertaken before. And I would gander to say unlike anything that would ever be done again. As of 2007, and I apologize, I don't have any data for anything since then, but as of 10 years ago, only about 2,000 terracotta warriors had been fully uncovered, and archaeologists are still working to recover the rest. And that's just counting the soldiers. Alongside the soldiers, archaeologists have uncovered dozens of bronze and wooden chariots, alongside hundreds of terracotta horses, all of which were put in formation alongside the soldiers. There were also performers, acrobats, and servants included throughout the complex as well. I have a supremely hard time wrapping my mind around just how extraordinary these figures are. And if these figures are this stunning today, you can only imagine what they would have looked like 2,000 plus years ago. Imagine being the right-hand man to China's first emperor and one day getting the instruction that not only does he want you to build him a magnificent tomb, but that he also wants 7,000 individualized clay soldiers as part of that tomb. Like, can you imagine being that dude personally? I would rather get tasked with finding the elixir of life than building these 7,000 statues. Thank you very much. The Terracotta soldiers were found in a series of three pits. And I hate that word. Now we call the pits pits because it's an archaeological site, but that might make it sound as if the soldiers were just chucked into a pit higgledy piggledy, which was not the case. The soldiers were instead carefully arranged in military formation in a series of what now look like trenches. Once upon a time, these trenches were brick paved halls with walls made of wooden beams and planks. So, you know, quite nice. There is also a fourth pit on the site that didn't have any soldiers in it, which makes archaeologists believe that the emperor intended to fill that space with even more warriors, but he died before that work could be carried out, thus leaving the pit empty.
SPEAKER_00We all fell into the name that show.
SPEAKER_01Not a single one of the warriors uncovered to this point has been found whole. Every single one of them has been damaged in some way, shape, or form, which has required archaeologists to piece them back together bit by bit. Some of the warriors were in as many as 200 pieces. The damage caused to them was likely the result of the caving in of a roof that originally covered them, which seems to have collapsed as the result of a fire. As I'm sure you can imagine, the terracotta did not stand up well to collapsing wooden beams. Terracotta is, after all, a catch-22 material. It is malleable in the hands of an artisan, but fragile and prone to breakage, especially when, I mean, you know, flaming beams fall on top of it. The fire may have also wasted away the pigment that originally covered the surface of the terracotta, but the fire had little to no effect on the terracotta itself, which by the very nature of its material, you know, being baked, can withstand incredible temperatures without degradation. As I was researching and writing this episode, and even right now, as I'm sitting on my couch recording it, I can't help but think about the final person who looked out over this sea of terracotta sculptures when they were freshly painted and positioned, taking one last look before turning away, probably not knowing if or when the tomb would ever be reopened again. Like that that person. There was someone who last looked at these things when they were all so lifelike. It would have been bone-chilling. The mausoleum of the first emperor has been under constant excavation since 1974, and the process has only scratched the surface of what is under the ground. Only about 2,000 of the estimated 7,000 terracotta warriors have been uncovered, and no one has even touched other areas of the site. Now part of that is out of respect. Desecrating an untouched tomb is no small thing, even for archaeologists whose craft depends on that kind of action. But from a professional standpoint, the archaeologists knew what they were up against, and they've seen the damage that hasty work can cause. The excavation of King Tut's tomb stood as an example of how detrimental it can be to open a door that hasn't been opened in 2,000 years without the proper safety nets in place. There is so much that is lost when one feels the need to rush in archaeology, and this particular team of archaeologists knew and know that it will probably take decades upon decades to fully excavate the first emperor's tomb. That is, if the tomb is ever actually fully excavated. In addition to the sheer size of the complex, which is huge, there's also the very tricky rumor that there may or may not be rivers of mercury running through the complex. Now, obviously, that could just be a story passed down to us from Simachin, who I quoted earlier. But archaeological testing has shown that there is an increased presence of mercury around the site. And ain't nobody gonna go messing with mercury, okay? If Simachin's description is correct, one might also expect to find the remains of hundreds of thousands of craftspeople whose lives were taken to protect the secrets of the emperor. Mass graves have been found in the area, but given the amount of manpower required for an undertaking of this caliber, I think it's safe to assume that there are more bodies to be found, be it craftsmen, the emperor's wives and concubines, and the emperor himself. This is all to say that we really have no idea what lurks beneath the ground near the Emperor's tomb, and we want to be careful, not just because of the things you might find, but because of the people who are involved in the process. Also, you know, there might be curses. I'm just gonna throw that one out there. The Terracotta Warriors have become a symbol of China and Chinese heritage, and rightly so. In addition to the ongoing archaeological efforts, the Chinese government built an entire museum on the site that people can go visit today. The experience includes an exhibition hall where you can look out over one of the pits of terracotta warriors. Now I have never been to China, very sadly, much less this museum, but the photographs are insane, and I sincerely hope that one day I will be able to see the warriors in person. We can all dream, can't we? If we aren't lucky enough to visit China, then maybe we can hope that one of the exhibitions featuring a few of the terracotta warriors will someday come to a town near us. That might be the closest that many of us get to seeing these incredible works of skill and craftsmanship and ambition in person. In the meantime, archaeologists are working to get the Terracotta army back on its feet so that the warriors can protect their emperor once again, as they have been doing for over 2,000 years. That is where I will bring this discussion of the Terracotta Warriors to a close. I have had so much fun researching this episode, and I hope that you had a delightful time listening to it. As always, I will post all of the images related to the episode on the podcast's website, stuffaboutthingspodcast.com. And there there really is something else, so you should go take a look. I have also posted some reading materials for you, including many links to articles at National Geographic and the Smithsonian, which include all sorts of excellent pictures that are under copyright, and therefore I cannot post to the website. But the links and uncopyrighted images will be up there for you to look at. That's stuffaboutthingspodcast.com. As for Gus Corner this week, Gus is good. He is turning six on April 22nd, so happy birthday, my dearest Gus. I love you. You're the best. Gus is also still very sneaky, and this week he managed to sneaky sneak his way into three more famous paintings. These include Vincent Van Gogh's The Bedroom, a fresco from Pompeii's Villa of the Mysteries, and a portrait of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, and Edward VI by a follower of Hans Holbein. Gus got myself and our dog nephew Ziggy to participate in that last one. So go check those out. You can laugh at me as Jane Seymour. At least I have my head. As for me, corner, I have already got a topic picked out for the next episode, and I am very excited about it. But that will be up um when I can manage. I'm doing my best. I have got a supremely busy April ahead of me, and the only thing that is keeping me going right now is the promise of Game of Thrones on April 14th. So, you know, it's a small things in life, right? I also want to take the opportunity to tell you that I supremely appreciate all of the emails that I've been getting lately from listeners. It is incredible to know that people are actually listening, and I genuinely truly appreciate people taking the time to reach out. If you would be so kind, I would absolutely love it if you left a review for the podcast on iTunes. Please and thank you. That is all from me today. I thank you so much for listening, and I also send a big thanks to FreemusicArchive.org and hooksounds.com for the royalty free music featured on the podcast. The first song that you hear is a version of Bob's Brandenburg Concerto number four by Kevin McLeod. And the second John Tear tune is one called Success Dreams. Thank you once again for listening. I appreciate you, and I hope that you take the time to look at something beautiful today.