For years, researchers have discussed the educational potential of digital games.  Most recently, this discussion has been framed using the term “serious games” – games whose primary purpose is not entertainment.  It is only recently that these discussions have begun to bear fruit in the form of robust game development and published research. While serious games have been used in a wide variety of contexts such as healthcare, the military, and language training, there are far fewer instances of games being used to teach archaeology & cultural heritage. This is unfortunate, as there are many commercial digital games that are only too happy to use archaeology, in one way or another, as the basis for their gameplay – most often resulting in simplistic, inaccurate, or unethical portrayals of the human past, archaeology (as a discipline), and archaeologists (as practitioners in that discipline).  There is no reason whatsoever that archaeologists and other cultural heritage professionals could not use digital games as a powerful tool for public outreach, education, and engagement.

It is in this context that this talk will explore how public archaeology (and archaeology in general) might best take advantage of digital games in order to more positively impact the public’s perception of the human past. We’ll look at the current state of the commercial games (with an emphasis on archaeologically inspired games), serious games, and explore the ways in which serious games can be used to engage and educate the public around archaeological issues.

In an age of post-modernist anthropology and post-processualist archaeology, Trigger refused to abandon his deep commitment to theoretical empiricism. By the same token he always found a way to walk an intellectual line between the intractable archaeological post-processualists/post-modernists and the older school archaeological processualists/empiricists. His seminal book History of Archaeological Through very consciously traced the roots of archaeology as a discipline to the politics of power.

His book The Children of Aataentsic (1976) was a revolutionary study of the Huron because it not only situated the Huron at the center of a reconstruction of the past, but also depicted them as a “living, breathing population who were not merely the sum of their pot shards, but active participants during a process of colonization.” (http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/39/04/trigger/) Trigger’s ability to contextualize early cultures within European interpretations both predicted and contributed to the current thinking about including minorities who are outside the power centers of Western thought.

For me, he work in Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptian archaeology was the very model of what I wanted to do: solid field archaeology presented in the context of exciting and forward thinking archaeological and anthropological theory. In a field where many of the current theoretical works in anthropology and archaeology somehow seem intellectually inaccessible (or, at the very least, inapplicable ), Trigger’s work somehow always managed to balance excitement, wonder, and theoretical complexity.

Trigger leaves the archaeological community with a wealth of books and papers (both published and presented). His publication record, which continued up until the day he died – is unparalleled. I have no doubt that he work will be used, cherished, and revered by the archaeological community – both by students and by professionals – for many many years to come. There is little doubt in my mind that Trigger will take a place among those who shaped the discipline of archaeology.
To learn more about Trigger’s legacy, check out McGill’s announcement ((http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/39/04/trigger/) of his death as well as his entry on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_G._Trigger)

The second big find was that of a lower/middle class cemetery.  Beyond the fact that that the cemetery has about 33 individual burials, there is absolutely no additional information available.  While cemeteries are pretty common (relatively speaking) in Upper Egypt (in fact, for those who don’t know, much of chronology that is used by Predynastic Egyptian archaeologists today is derived from material recovered from Upper Egyptian cemeteries by Flinders Petrie at the end of the 19th century), cemeteries in Lower Egypt are nowhere near as common.  Both geographical and regional climatological factors often result is very poor preservation of cemeteries in Lower Egypt.  So, this cemetery (obviously depending on its state of preservation) could be a very big deal. 

The third big find was that of a cache of 65 items in (or around) a Dynasty 0/Dynasty 1 ceramic vessel.  Most of the items in the cache were ivory figures (apparently hippopotami) or small faience vessels.

The final find (and it’s a big one) was of two wooden statues.  Both statues were of nude men, and features lapis inset eyes.  The statues themselves were pretty big (one was 70cm and one was 40cm).  The announcement doesn’t speak of any associated material that could indicate an exact date for the statues, but they are obviously Predynastic in nature (though, that is definitely a huge time frame).  There is some confusion in the actual announcements about the statues – one says that the statues were found wrapped (or partially wrapped) in gold foil, while another announcement doesn’t actually speak about the discovery of the statues, but instead speaks about the discovery of the gold foil itself.

To read more about the finds (and frankly, there isn’t much), check out the post on Andie Byrnes’ Egyptology news blog.

When one seeks to understand the history of the discipline, one is easily confounded by its rich historical legacy. The earliest examples of focused interest are found not in the centuries leading up the to the Industrial Revolution, but from ancient Egypt itself. There are numerous examples of dynastic “historical” works that discuss earlier monuments in much the same way they were to be discussed several thousand years later by the earliest western travelers to brave the Nile passage. Further, the accounts of classical scholars such as Herodotus, Josephus Flavius, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, and Strabo are arguably of equal in historical value as many of the work that is attributed to the “first” Egyptologists. The study of ancient Egypt is not something that can be easily assigned a point of departure. It is, infact, more of a continuum that begins in ancient Egypt itself and winds unbroken to the modern day. Granted, the form of the study as well as its historical context, both of which were responsible for the quality and results of the scholarly focus, was infinitely malleable. It is this interplay between historical context and scholarly study that constitutes the bulk of the question at hand. However, one needs to engage in a discussion of the historical events, personages, and trends that characterize this sometimes intellectual, oftentimes political, frequently ideological, but always captivating scholarly focus that came to be known as Egyptology.

The question, then, becomes where exactly does one draw the line when one wishes to explore the development of the discipline and its influence on the way in which we view ancient Egypt today? The first step that can be taken is to exclude ancient Egypt itself from the discussion. While quite interesting from a historical and epistemological point of view, and definitely worthy of scholarly study, the interest of ancient Egyptians themselves in their own history is somewhat superfluous to the question at hand. On the other hand, the classical accounts of ancient Egypt are quite pertinent as they had enormous impact on the development of Egyptology. From there, one can wind their way through the Medieval period (including both western Europe and the Islamic world), the western European Renaissance, the age of Enlightenment and Exploration, the Age of Imperialism, the Industrial Revolution, and the 20th century. Ultimately, one will be faced with an exploration of how the rich and oftentimes sordid history of Egyptology informs and guides the ways in which contemporary scholars approach the study of ancient Egypt.

Coming Soon: Classical Accounts of Egypt and its Antiquities

Last night, the SciFi Channel premiered Stargate: Atlantis, a spinoff show from their popular Stargate: SG-1 series. The show itself is based on a number of ideas that flow from the same sort of pseudoarchaeological pool that I’ve discussed in previous posts (most notably my three part Atlantis Lost; Atlantis Found? post) Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a sci-fi nut, and thought Stargate: Atlantis rocked (note: and, as of 821/04, I still do). However, I constantly have to work to separate my love of Stargate:SG-1 (and Stargate: Atlantis) as entertainment, and my obligation as an archaeologist to pursue and encourage the ethical and accurate representation of the past.

As a result, I thought I would take some time to muse on of one of the most popular (and addle minded) pseudoarchaeological/psuedohistorial ideas ever to come down the pipe – that, in one way or another, extra terrestrials interfered with the any number of human ancient human societies during their development. And, as with the Atlantean myth, the idea that aliens had, at the very least, a hand in our development, has its roots in the ramblings of one man…in this case, a schmuck named Erich von Daniken.

Von Daniken was born in 1935 in the Swiss down of Zofingen. He studied religious texts at the College of St-Michel in Fribourg. While managing a 5 star hotel in Switzerland, he wrote the first of several books whose premises were based on his own "interpretation" of archaeological sites, historical texts, and non-western religious beliefs and mythologies in order to further his whole "we wouldn’t be who we are if it weren’t for aliens" crap. The book was called Chariots of the Gods (1968), and went on to sell millions of copies. Yup, a millions

Erich von Daniken’s books (he went on to write more after Chariots of the Gods) have been translated into 28 languages, and have sold 60 million copies worldwide. From his books, two full-length documentary films have been produced: Chariots of the Gods and Messages of the Gods. Of the more than 3,000 lectures which Erich von Daniken has given in 25 countries, over 500 were presented at universities. He’s even partially bankrolled a theme park in Switzerland (called Mystery Park) which, as the park’s own promotion material states, "brings together the great mysteries of this world in vivid and realistic multimedia presentations, making them accessible, able to be encountered and experienced by everyone."

So, what is the big deal about von Daniken? Why is he such a thorn in the side of most archaeologists? Well, lets take a look at his thoughts on ancient Egypt as a great example (one of many, I assure you).

Given Egypt’s widespread public popularity, its no great surprise that von Daniken takes aim at Egyptian culture and civilization as one of the prime examples of the Our Ancestors, the Dummies Hypothesis. He says that “if we meekly accept the neat package of knowledge that the Egyptologist serve up to us, ancient Egypt suddenly appears without transition with a fantastic ready made civilization.” He further describes the accomplishments of the ancient Egyptians as being “genuine miracles in a country that is suddenly capable of such achievement without recognizable prehistory.” For those who have even the most superficial knowledge of ancient Egypt know that there are thousands of years of prehistory (called the Predynastic) which chronicle in which the inhabitants of the ancient Nile Valley (and surrounding areas) developed an extremely vibrant, rich, and sophisticate culture that led very seamlessly to the ancient Egypt of the pyramids and the Valley of the Kinds – the historic ancient Egypt that is so very much ingrained in our collective cultural conscience. There are hundreds and hundreds of archaeologists (including myself) who have spent years researching this very period. I assure you, the ancient Egypt that is so popular today, didn’t just spring up overnight.

So, anyway, what is Von Daniken’s solution to the "archaeological enigma" of the so called “ready-made” civilization springing up “suddenly” and “without transition” in a land with “norecognizable prehistory?” If you were to say from aliens, you would be right.

Von Daniken claims that, by themselves, the Egyptians could not have built the pyramids. Why? Well, because they did not have the tools with which to cut the limestone! Apparently, copper and bronze are incapable of cutting limestone. Further, he asserts that, once cut, the Egyptians could not have transported the stone blocks (some of which weighed more than 2000 pounds), since they had neither wood no rope. Hmm, well, I guess that rope and wood I excavated from a Predynastic household (dating to about 3400 BC or so – about a thousand years before the Pyramids on the Giza Plateau were built) was just a figment of my imagination. Furthermore, he says that, even if they could have cut and transported the stone, it would have taken tens of thousands of individuals to actually build the pyramids, and archaeologists have yet to find evidence of for the buildings that would have been needed to house the workers. Apparently, von Daniken has chosen to ignore both the copious census, logistical, and administrative records that the Egyptians kept (stating the number of individuals involved in the various pyramid building projects) and the massive settlements surrounding the pyramid complex at Giza built to house and support the pyramid workers.

Beyond his unsubstantiated claims about pyramid construction, von Daniken goes on to make many other completely unsupportable claims about ancient Egypt: “How about this one. The height of the pyramid of Cheops (note: the Greek name for Khufu – the Pharaoh responsible for building the largest of the Giza Pyramids was Cheops) multiplied by a thousand million corresponds approximately with the distance from the earth and the sun.” Unfortunately, it does not. When calculated properly there is a difference of more than 2 million miles.

Discussing mummification, von Daniken claims that the process was introduced by extraterrestrial aliens to preserve the bodies of Egyptian leaders who could be reawakened when the aliens was returned. He believed that aliens introduced “the first audacious idea that cells of the body had to be preserved so that the corpse could be awakened to anew life after thousands of years.”

Unfortunately for von Daniken, there are no laser burns on the pyramids, no wrecked flying saucers
stashed under the sphinx, and no resurrected 4000 year old Egyptian mummies (outside of Hollywood of course). Instead, what we are left with is the remarkable evidence of the obvious great ingenuity and toil of the culture of ancient Egypt.

The lesson of ancient Egypt has nothing to do with spaceships or extraterrestrial aliens. On the contrary, the lesson is one of human abilities, intelligence and accomplishment.

What a wanker.

Well, the problem is that it is close to impossible for the public to look at the report objectively. They’ve been so bombarded with outlandish additions to the original myth, (a la Cayce or Donnely) that many (especially the faithful acolytes of Edgar Cayce) might view the report as vindication for their daft pseudo-theories. As a result, any attempt to talk about Atlantis in a serious scholarly manner automatically gets linked with aliens, telekinesis, reincarnation, 8th century flying machines, and extreme diffusion. All of which, when bundled up together, result in one central idea – ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Mesopotamians, and pretty much any other early complex society were too damn stupid to have accomplished the incredible things that archaeologists know they accomplished. The Giza Pyramids…nope, those were built by people from Atlantis. The Sphinx? Nope, Atlanteans there also. Copan? Nope, the Atlanteans did that one also. Oh yeah, and here is the other thing…most contemporary adherents to pseudo-theories about Atlantis would probably tell you that Atlanteans were nice white folks. So, couple that with the idea that the vast majority of early complex societies diffused from Atlantis, and you’ve got one big bowl of bigot stew.. And you wonder why scholars get pissed when someone mentions Atlantis.

After Donnelly, Easily one of the most influential figures in the pseudoscientific Atlantean movement is Edgar Cayce. Between 1904 and 1910, in a small town in Kentucky called Hopkinsville, Edgar Cayce, first demonstrated his so-called psychic powers. However, unbeknownst to him, his “premonitions” would result in one of the most enduring psudoscientific atlantean myth movements in the 20th (and even into the 21st) century.

A quiet youth, Edgar Cayce was said to take after his grandfather, Thomas Cayce, who had been a famous water douser. While still living in Kentucky, Edgar Cayce went into a self-induced hypnotic trance or sleep when he sought to use his supposed psychic powers. After marrying a woman named Gertrude Smith, Edgar moved to Alabama, then to Texas, where he was involved in a fiasco (which some believe was a scam) in which he unsuccessfully attempted dowsing for oil in order to raise money to build a hospital.

In the late 1920s, Edgar Cayce moved his growing family to the sand hills of Virginia Beach where he dreamed of establishing a curing hospital using his psychic readings. Although the hospital venture failed, Edgar Cayce, who by this time was widely referred to as the “sleeping prophet,” founded the Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE), an organization designed to support and archive his readings.

The documents archived at the Association for Research and Enlightenment headquarters, which eventually numbered close to 50000, were answers to questions put to him by more than 8000 individuals who sought his help. Only after his death in 1945 were the documents actually catalogued by his sons and devoted followers.

Cayce’s archaeological insights were primarily offered to questioners as context for their previous lives – as Cayce was a strong believer in reincarnation. During his life, Cayce had pronounced that a great many of his followers (of which he had actually accumulated many) were reincarnations of citizen’s of Atlantis. In fact, the legendary sunken continent, which entered into western popular culture through two of Plato’s dialogs (remember Timaeus and Critias), was mentioned in more than 30% of his collected readings.

As a result, Cayce documentation, which covers a period of 50,000 BC and 10,000 BC, of the fictional civilization is especially rich – and is also where we find an Egyptian connection. According to the information that Cayce relayed during his self induced trances, he asserted that Atlantis had been a once powerful (and extremely advanced) civilization that had once possessed technology such as laser beams, aircraft, and radios. However, though an unknown series of events, Atlantis had been destroyed. The citizen’s of Atlantis, however, used their crude aircraft to flee the sinking continent to France, Egypt and the Yucatan Peninsula. Thereafter, the technology of the Atlanteans declined quickly, and eventually disappeared altogether.

In Egypt, the Atlanteans made their mark on the civilization by building the Sphinx around 10,500 BC in the likeness of one of their rulers. Cayce predicted that, before building the Sphinx, the Atlanteans who had settled in Egypt had constructed an immense library in the Giza Plateau, which Cayce called the Hall of Records, which contained all of the knowledge of their vastly superior civilization.

As a side note, it’s interesting to remark that Cayce had predicted that a series of great geologic upheavals would occur in 1969 which would precede the reemergence of parts of Atlantis off the cost of the Eastern United States.

In our next installment, we’re going to tie up the discussion, and revisit the issues that set this whole tirade off in the first place
– Dr Rainer Kuehne’s assertion that satellite photos of southern Spain reveal features appearing to match descriptions made by Greek scholar Plato regarding the fabled utopia of Atlantis.

Recently, the BBC news reported that Dr Rainer Kuehne of the University of Wuppertal believes that satellite photos of southern Spain reveal features on the ground appearing to match descriptions made by Greek scholar Plato regarding the fabled utopia of Atlantis.

The Satellite images are of a salt marsh region known as Marisma de Hinojos near the city of Cadiz, and show two rectangular structures in the mud and parts of concentric rings that may once have surrounded them. Dr Kuehne believes the rectangular features could be the remains of a "silver" temple devoted to the sea god Poseidon and a "golden" temple devoted to Cleito and Poseidon – all of which were described in Plato’s Timaeus and Critias dialogs.

Despite the fact that the research, which has been reported as an ongoing project in the online edition of the journal Antiquity, is still very much preliminary in nature (no excavation has been carried out as of yet), it is extremely problematic. Now, when I say problematic, I don’t mean in terms of the research itself. What I mean is that the very nature of the modern manifestation of Atlantean mythology raises a whole host of complex and difficult questions which must be discussed.

First off, there is much debate as to whether Plato was actually referring to a real place when he discussed Atlantis Timaeus and Critias dialogs. Most scholars believe that the discussion of Atlantis was a complex metaphor in or to further Plato’s discussion of the ideal society. This, however, is certainly not the most serious issue.

Over the past 150 years or so, the Atlantean legend has become embedded in out pop culture as "faithful believers" layer increasingly outlandish extensions onto the myth. Visitors from outer space, alien breeding programs, time travel, telekinesis…the list goes on and on. The problem is that the current Atlantean mythological discourse has a frightening subtext (beyond its superficial silliness) that is not only damaging to our collective (and infinitely supportable) understanding of the human past, but also intrinsically racist in the way it portrays many early state level societies (an idea which Dr. Kenneth Feder has referred to as "Our Ancestors, the Dummies Hypothesis" in his book Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology).

The thing is, in order to fully understand the reasons why Atlantean mythology has become so amazingly fraught with problems, we need to cast our eyes backwards and take a look at its (surprisingly long) historical lineage:

Ignatius Donnelly

Perhaps one of the first modern (19th Century) figures to influence the modern pseudoscientific Atlantean movement was a fellow named Ignatius Donnelly. Born in 1831, Ignatius Donnelly studies law and eventually went on to become one of the youngest lieutenant governors of Minnesota. He later went on to serve several terms in the federal House of Representatives, and ran twice for the Vice President of the United States.

By all accounts, Donnelly was an exceptional individual – a voracious reader who collected an enormous body of information covering topics such as world history, mythology, and geography. Clearly, as we’ll see, he was somewhat less than selective in his studies and seemingly incapable in his research of discriminating between the meaningless and meaningful.

Donnelly is the father of modern Atlantean studies and, as some have aptly put it, his book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (first published in 1882), is the "bible"” for the belief in the legend. His position as a patriarch of Atlantean lunacy also places him as the father of a particular branch pseudoarchaeology which holds that all early state level civilizations originated from Atlantis. Interestingly enough, and having nothing to do with Atlantis, in his book The Great Cryptogram, Donnelly also claims that Sir Francis Bacon wrote all of William Shakespeare’s works.

Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is am amazing piece of inductive scholarship. While being close to obsessive in his collection of "facts," Donnelly had very little scientific or skeptical sense. His approach was totally indiscriminate – he never met an absurd theory about Atlantis that he didn’t like (or include in his book). He begins the book by asserting that he will prove that the Atlantis story told by Plato in the Timaeus and Critias dialogs is not a legend, but "veritable history;" that Atlantis "was the region where man first rose from a state of barbarism to civilization;" and that it was the source of civilization in Egypt, South America, Mexico, Europe, and North America. Donnelly’s argument is a confusing morass of disconnected claims and ostensible proofs. He does little more than enumerate supposed evidence. Nowhere in the book does he ever try to test his various hypotheses.

The primary fallacy with his so-called theories lies in the fact that he uses cultural comparison in order to prove the truth of the Atlantis story. He maintains that "if we then prove that, on both sides of the Atlantic, civilizations were found substantially identical, we have demonstrated that they must have descended one from the other, or have radiated from some common source."

This argument for the significant role of diffusion in cultural development was common in anthropology in the late 19th and early 10th centuries. The presumption was that cultures are basically uninventive and that new ideas are developed in very few or even single places. They then move or "diffuse" from these source areas. Donnelly was a staunch diffusionist. However, rather than Egypt, Sumer, or some other early state level society, he believed that the common source of all civilization was Atlantis. In his attempt to prove this idea, he presents a series of artifacts or behaviors which he finds to be identical among civilizations of the Old and New Worlds.

In these comparisons, Donnelly presents what he believes is the clearest evidence for the existence of Atlantis:

1.Egyptian obelisks and Mesoamerican stelae are derived from the same source.

2.The pyramids of Egypt and the pyramids of Mesoamerica can be traced to the same source.

3.Ancient cultures in the Old and New Worlds possessed the arch.

4.Cultures in the Old and New Worlds both produced bronze.

5.Civilizations in both the Old and New Worlds were dependent on agricultural economies for their subsistence. This indicates that these cultures were derived from a common source.

Ever hopeful of the legitimacy of his argument, Donnelly ended Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by stating:

We are on the threshold. Scientific investigation is advancing in great strides. Who shall say that one hundred years from now the great museums of the world may not be adorned with gems, status, arms, and implements from Atlantis, while the libraries of the world shall contain translations of its inscriptions, throwing new lights upon all past history of the human race, and all the great problems which now perplex the thinkers of our day.

Lets leave it at that for now. Tomorrow I’ll talk about Edgar Cayce – easily one of the greatest contributers to the Atlantean lunacy.