Bayesian archeology
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The first two panels of yesterday's SMBC:
The last two:
Back in 1979, David Macauley's Motel of the Mysteries had a much longer story to tell about archeologists' presuppositions. Macauley's plot loosely satirizes the work of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann in excavating Troy, and also echoes Howard Carter's excavation of Tutankhamunn's tomb.
It's 4022, and the amateur archeologist Howard Carson falls into the site of a buried motel, landing in front of room 26, whose "Do Not Disturb" sign he interprets as indicating a holy burial site.
Opening the door, Howard Carson saw "wonderful things", just as Howard Carter did in 1922 when he first peered into King Tut's tomb:
Perhaps the single most important article in the chamber was the ICE (No. 14). This container, whose function evolved from the Canopic jars of earliest times, was designed to preserve, at least symbolically, the major internal organs of the deceased for eternity. The Yanks, who revered long and complex descriptions, called the container an Internal Component Enclosure.
Of course the motel's name turns out to be Toot'n'C'mon :-)…
Among the artefacts revealed is the "Sacred Urn":
This most holy of relics was discovered in the Inner Chamber. It was carved from a single piece of porcelain and then highly polished. The Urn was the focal point of the burial ceremony. The ranking celebrant, kneeling before the Urn, would chant into it while water from the sacred spring flowed in to mix with sheets of Sacred Parchment.
Here's Carson re-enacting this part of the ceremony:
He's wearing the "Sacred Collar":
This article was worn by the ranking celebrant at the final burial ceremony. It is made of the highest quality plasticus, and the workmanship was unequaled. Experts date this collar at A.D. 1979, making it one of the earliest collars ever found. The two hemispherical projections on the solid portion of the collar were apparently merely decorative. The two spiral connectors shown were used to secure the Collar to the Urn after the ceremony.
Carson's wife Harriet is also depicted wearing the Sacred Collar:
Harriet, too, began to feel the strain. In her only recorded outburst, she kicked her way into the lab and insisted that she be allowed to wear some of the priceless treasures. Carson, who was recording what appeared to be impact marks on the top and sides of the altar, realized the urgency of the situation and gave in. For the remainder of the day, Harriet proudly strode around the site wearing the Sacred Collar and matching Headband. She also wore the magnificent plasticus ear ornaments and the exquisite silver chain and pendant.
This picture is an explicit echo of the famous 1873 photograph of Sophia Schiemann wearing Priam's Treasure:
You should read the whole thing — and also the Wikipedia pages for Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann, which lay out some extraordinary Gilded Age history that was mostly news to me.
Note: If you're puzzled about why the cited work is "Bayesian", it's because "Bayes' Rule" tells us how to combine prior probabilities (i.e. preconceptions or background assumptions about what is more or less likely) with empirical observations, in order to make a decision in the face of ambiguity. Or see here for a slightly more mathematical explanation, with examples.
J.W. Brewer said,
November 9, 2024 @ 8:54 am
In a perhaps similar vein, a 1978 anthology titled _Archeological Essays in Honor of Irving B. Rouse_ includes a contribution by the prominent Mayanist Michael Coe (1929-2019) titled "The churches on the Green: A cautionary tale." (Now available freestanding on academia.edu and perhaps other online sources.) It imagines future a archeologist excavating the ruins of New Haven five thousand years hence (the radioactivity having died down by then) and trying to figure out w/o intelligible-to-him contemporaneous explanatory texts the meaning, purpose, and function of the three 19th-century structures lined up side-by-side on the Green that those of Coe's generation (and mine) familiar with the city knew to all be Protestant churches with various subtle differences in their theological and ecclesiological histories. Using a bunch of methodologies for inferring social/cultural practices and historical narratives from material remains that were in vogue among archeologists in the 1970's, he generates extremely wrong results.
Rob Grayson said,
November 9, 2024 @ 11:04 am
For an amazing fictional example of what future humans might make of rediscovered relics of their distant past, read Russell Hoban's 1980 novel Riddley Walker, which is also of linguistic interest.
Mark Liberman said,
November 9, 2024 @ 11:09 am
@J.W. Brewer: The whole anthology is available here, apparently open; and I've extracted the cited chapter here.
@Rob Grayson: See "Folk etymologies and eggcorns in Riddley Walker", 12/2/2004 — though unfortunately, most of the links have evaporated from the internet. Now that the Wayback Machine is back, we can find them there, for example this one or this one…
Rob Grayson said,
November 9, 2024 @ 11:24 am
@Mark Liberman: Thanks for the links. I should have guessed that Riddley Walker would have been mentioned on LLog at some point!
Joshua K. said,
November 9, 2024 @ 3:46 pm
And I'm reminded of the following XKCD cartoon:
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/late_cenozoic.png
bks said,
November 10, 2024 @ 7:58 am
And the anthropologists:
https://www.sfu.ca/~palys/Miner-1956-BodyRitualAmongTheNacirema.pdf
julian said,
November 10, 2024 @ 6:11 pm
My partner had a first career as a historical archaeologist. At a conference once we were listening to a speaker describe his dig at the site of a long-demolished early colonial homestead. They were trying to establish the exact position of the building. He was excited because they had discovered a scatter of broken glass in particular place that made him think it had fallen from a attic dormer window. This was an important clue about yada yada. It all seemed a little far-fetched.
I whispered to my partner, "Or maybe the demolishers were carrying the window across the yard to the truck when one of them tripped."
N. N. said,
November 15, 2024 @ 5:12 am
@Mark Liberman: The anthology is not open, you just went there from the IP address of an institution that has a subscription.