Sunday, January 28, 2024

Motel of the Mysteries

Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay

I read this after hearing Eric Cline refer to it in his lectures on archeology. In this book, an area of the contemporary United States has had a cataclysmic event occur. A few millennia later archeologists discover a pristine motel. They make all sorts of inferences about it. They assume it is a burial chamber for the elite. Things like TVs, remote controls and toilets all have religious aspects. A toilet seat is seen as a fine piece of jewelry.  It makes us wonder how many wrong inferences we are drawing when excavating sites. Are we over assuming religious purposes? How do we know what is valuable or important?

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