In Conclusion

Here we are, a semester later, and all the wiser for it. Did we learn? Sure. Did we embrace a greater understanding of the bias of media? Certainly. Did a great deal of time get wasted playing these games for research purposes? Probably. Did we enjoy the process? Yes.

Turns out this is just the hedgehog's dream. Real
archaeologists don't find troves like this. The games
lied to him!

So here we are, achieving more or less what we intended. We set out without much more of an edict than, "Go forth and analyze ye how stuff is portrayed in terms of archaeology". We did. And here's what we noticed. First, games and toys love treasure. They love it. The ultimate goal of most games seemed to be to get the treasure, and toys also came with shiny things. We considered it a win when the artifacts weren't gold or jewels. Second, everyone loves Egypt. Based off how often it showed up, one would presume that at least half of the world's archaeology occurs around Giza. Sure, Egypt is steeped in thousands of years of history, but it's not the only place out there. Third, as often as not, archaeology was simply used as gimmick to catch consumers' attention without being actually related to archaeology. We're looking at you, video games. Developers needed a theme, and since everyone loves treasure (see Point #1), just have your player be an archaeologist doing totally non-archaeological things to get it. It works, but is it really needed?

It's all fairly forgivable, though, we decided. The point of games and toys is to be fun, not accurate. Even the ones that are supposed to be educational have to find a balance between the two, although arguably many weren't really trying anyways. There were more than a couple games that we came across that had the information but were so dry that they weren't even worth writing about. Meanwhile, dressing up as Indiana Jones may be fun, but Indy was never known for being particularly good at the non-Nazi-shooting part of his job. But I digress. The point was that most things we looked at had their merits, either to be fun or accurate, and it was the ones that caught the best balance that won.

History may not have actually been this epic, but
with a couple toys, you can pretend it was.

On this last note we leave you: It's hard to get it right, but mostly, any exposure seemed to be good. If kids can get interested, there's hope that they'll, oh, I don't know, maybe go pick up a book and do their own research.

Be an Archaeologist in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft (WoW) is an immensely popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).  The game takes place in a fantasy world called Azeroth, and players can interact with one another through their characters.  One thing you can do in the game is master different professions.  Some of those are: alchemy, mining, enchanting, engineering, tailoring, cooking, and you guessed it - archaeology.  At first, it seemed like a random profession to include, but then it made sense.  The game creators could give the player more back-story on Azeroth in an interesting fashion.  And in the game, players are able to learn more about individual races in the game.

Search, ye will, for fragments of artifacts at the X's.

How does this feature work, you ask?  Here's a quick clip that shows the in-game archaeology process:

It seems like a pretty straightforward procedure - you survey an area to find artifact shards and once you collect enough pieces, you can "solve" the artifact (basically reconstructing it) and then you get a whole piece along with its history.  This profession focuses on the surveying of objects rather than the digging or analyzing aspect.  After getting the item, players can keep or sell it to vendors and museum curators.  This brings up the issue of looting.  Is the player a looter?  This is a little like looting, in my opinion, because you use the artifact for your own purposes only.  There is no higher power to go to after you get an artifact, and you can decide to keep it or sell it off.  However, since WoW doesn't have an archaeology society or whatever, it is impossible to not be a looter.  Speaking of looting, I watched other tutorials on WoW archaeology, and some players refer to the process of collecting a fragment as "looting."  Interesting coincidence there.

I don't think the game-profession teaches players that much about real-life archaeology.  It simplifies the digging and reconstructing processes and likens archaeologists to looters.  However, one thing that I approve of is that nowhere on the official game site do the creators talk about finding "treasure."  I think that's a step in the right direction for game-makers.  And since WoW is so popular, it's a good way of getting people's attention about the field.

Misinfomation - Where is the Truth?

We haven't had a post about an ancient game in a while, and I thought I'd fix that.  But I'm going to mix it up a little and talk about a game that people have brought back from history and are playing again - yes, that's right, the Olympics.

The first Olympic revival game organized by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) was set in Athens in 1896.  The iconic symbol Olympic rings were designed by Pierre de Coubertin between 1912 and 1913.  I find it a little weird that different sources have conflicting dates on when the design was created.  And I can't trace each claim to its original source because none of the articles listed their sources.  Hence why there is so much misinformation floating around the world...  Along this line, when I was doing research on the Olympic rings, I stumbled across a funny story.

In 1936, the Olympics were held in Germany.  The president of the organizing committee for that year's Olympics (Carl Diem) had the interlocked rings carved on a stone block and placed at Delphi as a prop in the torchbearer's ceremony.  The stone was never removed, and years later, authors Lynn and Gray Poole observed the prop and published  that the rings were a symbol from Ancient Greece.  Again, there was a conflict of information on the origin of the authors.  I read sources that said they were American and others that said they were British.  In doing some research, I found an obituary for Gray Poole that placed her as an American.  I could only find a Wikipedia article on Lynn Poole that placed him as an American as well.  However, I don't know how reliable Wikipedia is in this case, since their article on the Olympic rings claim that the Pooles were British.

See?  The word "Olympic" is included in the title.

The Pooles were said to publish the error in a book called The History of the Ancient Olympic Games.  Most articles that cited the book left out the word "Olympic."  Leaving out even one word of a book title makes the book different.  I have to wonder if any of those authors even bothered to look up the book.  They would have immediately noticed their error.

In trying to learn about this one aspect of the Olympic Games, I had nine browser tabs open to do additional research.  It was difficult to locate reliable sites and even more difficult to trace where different authors got their information.  The spread of misinformation must stem from people not thoroughly researching the topic and not listing their sources.  So then, how sure can anyone be of the information they get?  If nonfiction writers like the Pooles were fooled by the Delphi rings and published their finding in a book, their readers were misinformed and the misinformation could spread by word-of-mouth.  The bottom line: question everything.

Sources:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2005-08-29/news/0508290043_1_poole-mrs-kensington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Poole
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/08/the-origin-of-the-olympic-rings/
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/olympics/games.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/qi/9472902/QI-Quite-interesting-facts-about-the-Olympics.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_symbols#cite_note-aldaver-3
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-boris-and-the-olympic-rings-of-truth/10825
http://ethicalnag.org/2012/07/20/more-myths-of-olympic-games/
http://www.amazon.com/History-Ancient-Olympic-Games-Poole/dp/B005U8M6TK

Do Re Mi Archaeology

Yesterday I was sitting around listening to my music when Indiana Jones's theme popped up. Naturally, this is an awesome song, but for all its catchiness, it's more about adventure than archaeology (although I'm sure that if it had lyrics, they would be about both trowels and muscle chests). This did get me thinking about actual archaeological songs, and quick Google search later got me to this:

(Skip to a minute in if you just want to get right to the lyrics.)

This is a song by Wintersleep, titled, funnily enough, Archaeologist. I can't say I know exactly what it's about, but the fact that there is mention of a winged boy "stained by the fire and clouds" has some thinking that it's Icarus's body. The repeated refrain of "belly of the whale" also makes me think of the story of Jonah and the Whale. So it looks like the song might have to do with certain mythologies, but that's really neither here nor there.

The band Wintersleep, being vaguely archaeological
by sitting outside.

What is here and there is that the song also contains a critique of archaeology. This comes up in the second verse where after the body is shipped to London they "discard the rotted parts". If the boy is Icarus or some other mythological character, it comes across as rather cold to be so disinterested in the whole body. Even if the body is just any old boy, there could be quite a lot to be learned from an old body that's been digesting in a whale's gut for some time. The whole song has a lamenting quality to it, despite its rather rocking tempo, as if it's upset about the fact that with all their focus on the facts archaeologists sometimes forget that they are still digging up dead people. Unlike the usual portrayal of archaeologists as dashing adventurers, here they come off as more distant and scientific. It's an interesting twist, and not necessarily any more correct than the former line of thought, but I'm all for taking things in new directions that aren't usually seen. So bravo, Wintersleep, bravo.

Also, the catchy tune doesn't hurt either.

Who Cares About Learning When It's This Cute?

Kota the Triceratops!

In our first post, we made a big deal about the distinction between archaeology and paleontology and claimed that the purpose of this blog was not to discuss dinosaurs...

Well, we lied.  Sorry.

This little Playskool triceratops game was too cute to resist.

I was looking for archaeology-inspired children's games when I stumbled upon the Playskool website.  This company produces all sorts of plastic paradises for kids.  However, none of the games or toys were strictly archaeological.  

This Kota Adventure Game is clearly aimed at young children (mainly preschool-aged), but I found it so adorable that I had to write about it!  In this game, Kota the Triceratops follows the mouse around the screen in search of glowing leaves.  The goals of this game are simple: collect all ten leaves, and win a trophy!  Then move to the next level and start gathering again.  Complete with tribal background music and great sound effects, this little triceratops crashes into rocks, tramples over grass, and runs into coconut-trees!  Who knew dinosaurs liked coconuts... 

Even though this game is inspired by paleontology and not archaeology, like other children;s toys we've examined, this game also portrays an extremely simplified version of the ancient world to the public.  The game presents a happy world where Kota runs around (usually bumping into things).  Young children can enjoy this simple game that is easy to win and not possible to lose.  Aside from teaching what a triceratops looks like, there is no educational content to this game--but with a target audience of five-year-olds, the instructional qualities of the game are probably not one its primary goals.  While the game is cute, simple, and fun, it doesn't largely distort this presentation of the dinosaur era.  Check out the Game!

I want one!!

Aside from offering an online game, Playskool also markets Kota as an automated toy!  I thought this large, moving dinosaur was hilarious, and, if I'm being completely honest, probably would have been my dream as a child.  Clearly this company has found some success drawing toy inspiration from ancient worlds and coordinating their games and toys.

Poster Stuff

It seems that we've neglected the category of "stuff" in our blog.  Not anymore!  Let me show you some archaeology-themed posters.  Fine Art America has quite a selection.  The posters feature beautiful shots of ancient ruins, such as the Colosseum and Machu Picchu:

There's also posters with ancient objects, like Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese terra cotta soldiers, and cave paintings:

And then there's posters that don't seem to have anything to do with archaeology...

Oh, Fine Art America search engine.  I wanted posters on archaeology.

And why would people want to buy these?  People who would purchase these could be hanging them up as art or using them to remind them of their travels.  One thing that people probably aren't doing is thinking about these places or objects from an archaeological perspective.  People don't normally look at their posters and use them to study the past (at least, I think they don't).  But people are somehow drawn to the past, whether they feel a special connection or are just intrigued.  Whatever the reason, people continue to buy and companies continue to make money.

Stuffed Animals--Indian Jones Style

Looking back through our blogs, I realized that we have yet to talk about archeology-related stuffed animals.  A little bit of research quickly revealed a reason for this—while dinosaur dolls are easy to find, plush toys directly related to archaeology are much harder to locate.  However, I found it very interesting that a Indiana Jones toys search yielded much different results…  

  

The collectables are clearly hot commodities:
The Limited Edition Kermit is worth $69.99, and the 
Indiana Jones Mickey Mouse Adventurer sells for $49.99.

Not quite a plush toy...
but still very entertaining:
Indian Jones Mr. Potato Head 
and the
Taters of the Lost Ark!

Although this set of dolls is very diverse, they all share a couple of key features.  The first, and most important item is Indiana Jones’ classic fedora.  No archaeologist is ready for research without this vital piece of headwear.  Most of these toys are also adorned with a gun or whip, handy for hunting down troublesome artifacts. To me, these accessory choices represent the use of marketable gimmicks used to relate these otherwise random dolls to the public’s glamorized depiction of an archaeologist.  

This leads me to the second similarity I noticed.  Almost all of these dolls are characters from other sources.  Mr. Potato Head, Kermit the Frog, and M+M’s alike are symbols of other toys, TV shows, and candies.  These pictures all show these separate characters dressed up to play the part of Indiana Jones.  Although there are many plastic action figures available, I only found one plush version of the actual Indiana Jones that was not a costumed character from another source.  

These examples show how companies use public interest in a particular topic to market their existing toys by reintroducing them in new costumes.  Indiana Jones is much more appealing to general public than a traditional archaeologist.  These commercialized toys reflect marketing tricks that control which plush toys are available to the public.