So we're going to be talking about Barcus today. And we just want to put a trigger warning at the beginning.
We're going to be talking about sexual content, drugs, right?
The nonconsensual sex. There's a lot of sexual content and a lot of like really drug relevant stuff.
So and, you know, themes of historical homophobia.
Andrea? Yes. Those are just so viewer be, Larry.
Yeah. Hello, my name's J.C. Cattle and I am the project curator for Beyond the Binary.
And I I'm here with two of our amazing community, Creighton's,
who are going to talk about and a couple of items I've been researching and curating the exhibition.
So, Harry and Cam, can you just tell me firstly who you are and what attracts you to become community curators?
And I'm Harriet Hovick. I am a museum studies graduate.
So I've been involved with clear museums before.
And I was it did classics at my undergrad. So I've always been into quick school stuff and it's just seemed like a really great project.
Again, vulvas. I was really excited to have the chance. Thank you.
I'm Cameron Wallace. I am an archaeology student, but I tend to focus a lot on queer theory in general for my research.
And I'm also looking to do the museum focussed work in the future.
So I for that, this was a really good opportunity to try and get involved.
And because it's right up my alley. Q And I need, I think, creating these objects together, haven't you.
So, um, can I just ask, did you know each other before or have you. Did you meet for this process.
Yes. This process. And how is that been like. I'm okay. Researching and writing.
Have you written your interpretation together. Which is fantastic. Yeah, it's been really good.
It's been really nice to have someone to bounce ideas off. Yeah, definitely. It's sort of message at one.
I am like, what's your first here?
Q Well, I'm not sure you hardly ever see ticks. I know you've got latest. Let's talk about.
So you can go for it. Tell us tell us about your Jackson and I will listen and learn.
OK, so we're going to talk about Marcus today.
We're going to talk about Baccus slashed diagnosis slash Lehnberg, because you know,
all the names here the has used over time because as with all sort of ancient deities, it's all very mixed up.
Yeah, very much like an amalgamation. Very, very old guy.
Yeah. So start with where he's from, like, you know, the origins of him.
Yeah. So he's kind of considered like an eastern God because he tends to have roots in like the Middle East, like the Naree.
He's kind of area. And he's like considered to have come to Greece and Rome from the east.
Yeah. I think there's like evidence for the coast on ISIS dating.
Well, we got to the Mycenaean period in 14th century B.C., so.
Yeah, you know, a long time before I ask Lathan's room.
Yeah. Like, truly Định. You got. Yeah. Much more ancient than lots of the other more well-known gods of the great pantheon.
Yes, exactly. Like his mythology as well is quite interesting because he actually links very well
to the concept of like queer identity through the mythology surrounding his birth.
What basically happened is, as a son of Jesus, he was born from an affair, as always.
And when Herer found out about the affair, she tricked she tricked back, says Mother IN2, having Zoove show her his true form.
But that killed her. So while Barcus was able to be saved and sewn in to the thigh of Zus until he was full term, like finished incubating.
Yeah, it was very weird. But he sprung guy from Zusi, his thigh, and he is considered to be twice born because of that,
which kind of fits into themes of rebirth that tend to link to like transgender themes.
As well as there has to hide him from Hera.
He was sent to live with his maternal aunt. I know. And was raised as a woman tha like his early years, like he he grew up raised as a woman would be.
And even then after like the the pop was found out, he was sent again to live with women, he was sent to live with nymphs.
So. I've just come here or.
Oh, I'm sorry I interrupted you. No, no.
It's important to know. So here was the wife of Zus.
She is the wife. She's the sister. Wife use because. Well, Greek mythology is complete.
Oh, yeah. Very complicated. But she was also the goddess of like marriage.
The family, that kind of thing was an idea because it's pretty consistently cheated on her.
Yes. Many are not impressed. Which is fair enough.
Yeah. Worse than EastEnders. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Modern Stone Bocker. Yes, sir.
So yes, sir, denies this has a really interesting narratives to do towards like non binary and transience because like,
say, he was like twice born and then he was raised as a woman.
And then later on he became a sort of non binary figure.
Yeah, I should just say we're using him pronouns because the vast majority of the sources do that, which is why.
Yeah. I mean, I guess it's up to interpretation, but yeah, it's just I mean, all of the gods, you know, gender is a wild concept really.
Even not like a. Yeah. Powerful beings. Yes. Especially for fertility.
God. Slike like he was. Because that's very much like a more fluid situation and lots of his presentation in art.
You know, also reflects his non binary nature.
Like very often [INAUDIBLE] be like typical effeminate poses, half smooth legs, long, long curly hair flowing grey.
Yeah. Yeah. And there's also quite a lot of composite statues of him, which is a female heads on male bodies, which is cool.
And also a couple of like paintings where he's like him and a woman are in the painting and he's mirroring her pose.
So I get, you know,
later in Temptation's play a lot with the fact that he is non binary and sort of incorporate his fluid gender identity and which is.
Which is very cool. Yeah. Yeah.
And as well as being sort of non binary gender. Yeah. So wasn't heterosexual.
No. As the the majority of the Greek. Well the majority is the right word with lots of Greek gods.
Let's. Yeah. As was common and as was common. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
He had lie in myths. At least he had male lovers like Adonis, the really handsome youth and the softer Seita and Pelosse.
Yeah.
And also one of my favourite stories about him was he once made a journey to Hades and he was guided by a shepherd, a human shepherd awesomeness.
I'm pronouncing that right. Who said, yeah, yeah.
I'll guide you. But if you sleep with me afterwards and demonises agreed and guide you to the after to the afterlife.
But unfortunately, he died before dawn. ISIS could fulfil his promise.
And so afterwards down, ISIS went to the tomb of present positiveness.
Created a wooden phallus and ritually fulfilled them for us here.
Which is just incredibly extra dedication and dedication.
I'm not sure if that was for that person, if I were you.
So Yessiree is very much not straight. Yeah, very much known.
Hornery. Very cool. Queer figure. Yeah.
Does also kind of links to like between this and the story of hermaphrodites.
So in of its metamorphosis,
he talks about the story of hermaphrodite earths in links to why Bucha should be respected and why the gold should be respected in general.
Hermaphrodites was a young man who was beloved by a young woman.
However. He was not in love with her.
In a very unfortunate way, she attempted to rape him and while she was doing this act, she prayed to the gods that she would never part from him,
which caused the gods to fulfil this promise in a way that wasn't particularly pleasant.
Hermaphrodites, and that they fused their two bodies together so that they would become like an intersex being.
And obviously, while this is like put it into negative connotations,
this kind of myth might kind of be a reasoning behind the existence of intersex people in a way that is linking reality to mythology and.
And what about the cult of ISIS? Oh, OK.
The goals are fairly whack. Yeah. The call is very weird.
First things first is the the call of like Barcus Andien, ISIS and every name that he had was it was a mystery call.
So there's not a whole surviving literature on it.
And most of it is from the male perspective, which we should always take with a grain of salt.
Lots. The events. Female only. So, yeah, it was it was like a very female predominant call.
And those white female tended to be people who weren't necessarily the main part of
society cause it wasn't really a mainstream cult until like the late Hellenistic period.
So for like the majority of its time, it was a make mystery, very not mainstream call that not many people were part of.
So those who were kind of like outcasts of society.
But what we do know about this call is that there was a lot of usage of potent drugs within it because barfs was the God,
not only of like partying and why. And then that kind of thing.
He was also the the god of madness.
So through the usage of these drugs and some of these drugs which affected sexuality, like people would be driven to like at a frenzied ecstasy.
What is quite interesting and maybe slightly odd is that a lot of these drugs
were hired via the vagina and the anus through the use of medicated [INAUDIBLE].
So, like, it would be free the anus for men and for the vagina for women.
We know this because this was a very common theme in mystery cults, but also because in Virgil.
He describes a lacto the fury goddess who was a and to have applied snake venom as a drug to a mortal queen's biological pocket,
as it was referred to under assault, not yet as it was referred to him in order to drive this queen into this frenzy.
And vipers as well were associated along with Bathurst's.
It's part of the reason why a lot of the duties associated with the worship were young
women who had never been pregnant but were somehow able to provide breast milk,
because this is thing that I find very interesting to learn.
Apparently, viper venom can stimulate the mammary gland in order to produce breast milk without needing to be pregnant.
So this is good. A new concept. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. But it's kind of.
Associate with Nonmarried. Virgin women.
But I suppose it's like Virgin back then, kind of man not married to a man.
So obviously lots of room for interpretation there, I suppose.
But yeah, like, obviously, aside from the obvious kind of more sexually charged aspect as well,
like the medicated [INAUDIBLE] and batteries and things which words cause like a sexual frenzy within the call.
We would very much linked to like sexuality and such. Another part of the quote wash, it was because Diane, ISIS himself was very non binary.
He was a god of duality. During court worship.
Gender roles were generally inverted, so men would act as women did and women would act as men did,
so women would be like hunting, whereas men would not be doing that.
It was very much like a. I suppose given society standards at the time, it is very much like a topsy turvy kind of cold.
Yeah, I think it least with what you said about, you know, the fact that it was women and sort of people on the outskirts of society.
Yes. Lower-class people who were really enslaved people, foreigners who were really attracted to the cult because it is a chance,
you know, in this very strict, rigid society, it was a chance to break free. Which is why he's so grateful, like breaking the.
Beyond the binary, you know, because that's his whole deal. Basically, I like I like we just said, breaking the binary.
I thought we should be breaking the binary. Yeah.
And it's obviously this this sort of caused quite a lot of anxiety around around the scope because in classical,
you know, classical Greece, classical Athens was very strongly patriarchal and women's roles are very controlled.
So, yeah, I stayed in a house that couldn't leave without a chaperone.
I had I had to because that can can own property, can invest, can inherit property.
And so within this context, the idea of women who left the house, they had the hair and covered and, you know, wild.
Quite often it's said that they they like hunted animals, like comes out and sort of torn apart with their bare hands.
You know, like this whole sex, drugs, rock n roll, you know. Yeah.
Atmosphere was very scary to men of the time.
And that's reflected in, you know, the way that it's presented by men like one of the one of the most well known examples is their bucchi,
which is a tragedy by your footy's that was actually performed at the city, Dionisio,
which is a city festival in honour of doen ISIS, where they carry giant Dodo's through the streets.
And just to stay on theme and form tragedies and such a place.
And this this tragedy was about King Pantheist, king of thieves who refused to accept an ISIS, you know, as a God who refused to allow his worship.
And so so the punishment is not done. ISIS drove all of the women out of the cities to come and worship him.
And, you know, they were up on the hills tearing their hair running around.
And King Plenteous basically gets very, very fostered by this and worked himself into a frenzy imagining what these women are doing.
It's about compendious is like ingrained issues and anything else.
So he comes up with a bright idea to disguise himself as a women, to go and spy on them because it just, you know,
just to cheque that everything was fine, see no reason for wanting to spy on them because it's a tragedy.
It ends very badly. And that confronts his mother. The queen was one of the women who'd been driven mad.
And in the end, she actually rips her son apart with her bare hands because she's driven more by ISIS to to sort of get revenge on this and to,
you know, to emphasise that he should be being worshipped.
Yeah. Wow. This is indicative of the attitude of men towards in that it was very scary, you know, very out of control and very terrible.
And, you know, they really wanted to control it. I think I'm going to get to Roman times, like with the bacchanalia bacchanalia.
This gets even worse. Yes.
Like Livi, who's a Roman historian, he talks about it and he says the the like the his the hype basically spread like a plague.
And he said it attracts the plebeians, which is the word for the like the lower less planful plus.
And. We all remember that scumbag is a.
So it's the plebeians, the women, the young, the his quote, the morally weak and the effeminate men.
So, you know, obviously it was still attracting people on the outskirts of society.
And Livi sort of worked himself into a frenzy, talking about the orgies, the murder, the, you know, everything about it.
And this contributed to the fact that in 106 B.C., they the Senate passed a law that basically banned worship of Barkus.
You had to have official permission to do it. You couldn't be in groups of more than five, you know, lots of restrictions,
which probably people think it was more to do with their fear of social organisation because,
you know, it was the the lower classes who had much less power than them.
But you know what? Also, there were more of them. So as with all societies.
Yeah. The people in power are scared of people rising up.
And so it was probably, you know, more to do with this fear of social organisation, of those who have been disenfranchised, finance of power.
It was a very sort of fight, the man kind of whole.
And you don't get to get much more the man than Imperial.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's time to bring back the go of the rope.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
Well, speaking of that big box, live animals.
I love her tearing medicated doctor. But modern interpretations of Pakistan, ISIS.
Yeah, you know, a big part of, I think, why we're aware of them and interested in him.
I suppose everyone has kind of heard of Percy Jackson, the book series, this young Gödel Child book series, which takes place in modern day New York.
And essentially what it is, is that the gods are still around and they're still having children.
And it follows this guy, Percy Jackson, whose father is Poseidon.
And it's talks about just like them doing like classical heroic quests, essentially a modern day.
Yeah. In the modern day. But it kind of has led to a resurgence, I guess, of like modern interpretation of like the Greek and Roman gods.
And in one of the kind of spin off books of the past, Jackson's areas, which is about like the Greek gods.
It talks about and ISIS and his links to gender identity.
It goes into the story of birth and how he was raised and very plainly on the page
says diagnosis can be a god of like people who are questioning their gender.
People who are intersex, that kind of thing for children's books, areas.
That's amazing to have, you know. And that's kind of brought it back in to thought that, oh, well, if people are thinking this now,
maybe they're thinking about looking at stocks of classical stuff, is digging through,
you know, a lot of very unpleasant like with the myth of hermaphrodite. Yes.
You want representation. You have to peel back the layers. Very unpleasant stuff.
And so it's nice to have it in a modern context.
You know, that actually acknowledges and yeah, like, I feel very strongly with things like queer stuff in the past.
And, you know, people can argue, oh, wouldn't it be the same back then?
Or they wouldn't have thought of it back then. And it's like, really?
There's no reason why not. Yes. There's no reason why people wouldn't connect to these deities, you know, thousands of years ago.
Yeah, the same way as we do today. Just because they didn't have the same labels doesn't mean that these people didn't exist yet.
Yeah. And, you know, we've had hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years of hetero normative says,
normative narratives talking about it, which makes it seem impossible that they could have existed.
And actually, I think now, you know, yeah, people are starting to feel kind of in a period where people,
like, fully starting to dig into it and do that research scientist question assumptions.
So there's two particular Baccus objects in the collection that you're writing about.
Say that both terracotta figures, you think sewing earth so quite smooth and beautifully like vehicles,
few to able to tell this really interesting symmetry that kind of spirals out into.
Like we said, reallocated, vacated due to unpleasant myths and all sorts of things when he puts to me.
So what do you think the importance is if I'm telling this story?
Why did you want to tell this story in the period this resample in Oxford?
Is it important to tell? Yes, it's definitely important to tell you something that I have been told a lot.
As someone who is non binary is that my identity didn't exist in the past,
like it's only sprung by it because of like the Internet culture that we're living in.
It's it's not a real identity. It's something that is very new, which is I know how a lot of people, like a lot of people, are told this.
It's it's and then it's kind of your view in your face like, oh, no, we've we live in a binary society.
It's always been a binder. Sadaat Society. How dare you imply overlies?
My goal in life is to counteract that is it's very much like, no, we've always existed.
I can show you countless examples of how we've existed. So maybe don't think it's so important.
Like interspace like the Pitt Rivers. Yeah.
Because in museums, people I think often go to museums, look at stuff in cases and think, oh, that is a fact.
That is history. That is indisputable.
So I think it's so important to have in places like that that hold so much weight and so much history to have very explicit representation,
to sort of be like I actually think twice about this or look at this, because,
you know, throughout the collections has got so much stuff that has resonance.
And it's just about sort of changing the way that you look at the stuff, I guess, and thinking about it.
Yeah, I think when we first started doing the. Such projects. Couple of my mom told me this morning.
We've met before. But I was told by a couple of colleagues that this might be bothering, says just not any material.
That's nice. I'm not going to find anything. And very quickly, working people like yourself and I'm AM and all sorts of people.
It's become really clear that actually it's the best, best question to ask is what can't be good and what isn't relevant to queer history
is actually everything that we say potentially has a relevance to someone.
Yeah. Thank you for reaffirming that. Yeah. Where everyone is and how.
It sounds to me like you've actually really enjoyed doing the research and they tell.
Tell me a bit more about how you've done it, how your process has been. I think it's helped with us that it's been collaborative.
So, yes, so much more enjoyable because we do just like talk about it for a long time.
We could do that. You mean to talk about it?
And then an hour later and we just talk about 30 jokes written down the name, that book, the Percy Jackson I'm Gonna Fire.
It is really good. We got a library section in the exhibition, so we should definitely fill it up.
If I like the the the original series wasn't very.
But then, like, he got clearer and clearer in his books, like I really liked that about him,
like wrote Disney until I publish it with like the Yes is normal straight guy.
And then all of a sudden yes. Everything is saying what really like guru of the time.
Yeah. Really like chocolate. I like the way and the idea of Poseidon having a Uncle Percy as well.
Is there anything else you'd like to share about?
I'm like I think that you might have gotten say anything additional about what you've been doing as a community curator or anything to you.
I think another thing about doing the research and stuff is it's regal because a lot of
it is sort of classic academic research and a lot of time trying to find out the potter.
Who's that one? What does this touches us from? And, you know, tracing back to that.
And then also it's you can go beyond that and yeah, look at, you know, like children's books and also like,
you know, personal testimonials of queer people and what this means to them.
And I think it's a cool thing about doing like queer theory where research is that, you know, you can get you can meld the two.
It's like very strict academic disciplines. Yeah. Like one thing that like you wouldn't expect to be able to use in, like,
kind of academic research is the one thing I do is I go on websites and I'll be like top 15 queer God.
It's like like it's a it's a very good starting place really, because it's got like the little bits of information.
It's like, well, did you know this? And it's like I didn't know that I can link it to that.
So it's quite nice because obviously those kinds of things are written by queer people or allies.
So it's like you kind of like, well, yeah, I can I can, like, get behind that interpretation.
Yeah.
And it's nice having you being able to look at it and then go back to the roots and, you know, back it up and to look at source and stuff like that.
Like yes. Like retracing the pier. It's what I really love about you, your written interpretation and what you've talked about today.
So relate Spook's. Why I would. And I think that's so important. And so I'm of course rigorous, academia's important to.
But as you know. By academics. Yeah. I think it's so important to make this kind of work relatable and of value to all sorts.
People are coming in off the street. I'm in Oxford. We have massively diverse populations.
So we have highly educated people. We have people who are much more kind of self educated.
But I think you you work. Can I speak to everyone? That's really exciting.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to finish off with one question.
What would you like the legacy of this to be? So I'm in.
I don't know if these objects that you're voicing by on permanent display, I can't remember, but they're.
What would you like the story? It's really like these stories be told more permanently in the galleries.
Like how? And I think I know your answer. It probably is important.
So what what should be the outcome of this work to think of back to normal, to think that's normal in inverted commas?
Two things go back to how they were before. Or do you see these kind of narratives being explored more, more in-depth?
I actually I did my master's dissertation on quiff. Um, I was perfect for five.
Yeah. Yeah. We need to have your decision. Yeah. Yeah. Like definitely.
Yeah, definitely. Of permanence. I think I you know, I think projects like this is special.
Lots of times when that. Right. Not this one but around History Month, instruments and stuff have as I think E.J. Scott said,
the security of the museum translated supercool is like it's important that,
you know, crimsons pop up and then they don't pop down like, yeah, I think it has to be integrated in a meaningful way.
Yeah. I mean, like one thing I found, especially around like Pride Month and stuff is the.
He says will be very like fish, visibly like, oh, yes, we support.
We support gay and trans people. We are going to. Yeah, we're doing all that and as soon as the month.
And it's like it's never happened. And it's like they don't do anything to back it up.
So I think it's really important for permanence because then it shows that like, no, this isn't just a trend.
This isn't just trying to get bonus points. This is us making a change.
I think that's reflected in the permanent labels. If they're implementor stays or possibly or do you guide or another sort of guide or trial.
This is great. What I do, I take this bit of the interview and take it to the rest of my colleagues.
Right. Let's do this. I have spoken. Amazing.
Thank you so much. It's really, really lovely to see how you both look about what you've been doing.