My Grave Goods (or, How I'd Mess With Future Archaeologists)

I know this is supposed to be a very serious assignment on what sort of grave goods we'd like in our graves, and how we'd like to be remembered, but given limitless options (and money to pull it off) I don't think I'd be able to resist having fun with it and messing with the minds of future archaeologists. Here is a brief list of the things I'd want buried with me:

- Laid over the grave, a stone tablet inscribed with the words: "Here lies Queen Jennifer, who lived to the auspicious age of 1042. She is descended from the royal line of King Arthur, upon his emigration to Canada in 498 A.D. Aided by the royal wizard, Gandalf, she defeated Voldemort and brought peace to the Kingdom of Hyrule, as foretold in the Sacred Texts."

- A silver flask in my left hand. Engraved on the flask are the words: "This the actual true Holy Grail. Awarded for winning the Dance Dance Revolution (and Jousting) Competition of 2012." Inside the flask should be traces of intoxicating drink (possibly gin).

- In my right hand, a golden Nintendo Wii-mote inscribed with the words: "Ye Royal Sceptre."

- On my head, a golden circlet incribed in elvish with the words: "One ring to rule them all."

- A scattering of coins embossed with my likeness would be placed inside my boots.

- Then, just to really confuse them, I would be dressed in a monogrammed nylon track suit.

- My casket would be shaped like a TARDIS.

Imagine the chaos when my tomb is discovered hundreds of years from now! Who was this richly ornamented queen? Where are the sacred texts referred to on the stone tablet? Why does her royal sceptre require AA batteries?

There would be lively debate among Jenniferian scholars about whether I was literally or symbolically descended from a British mythological king who may or may not have existed in post-Roman Britain. Remaining fragments of Lord of the Rings, and the Harry Potter series would be poured over in humidity-controlled rooms by experts in white gloves, looking for any mention of me. Someone would publish a paper on my true age according to the skeletal remains and radio-carbon dating, flying boldly in the face of traditional scholarship's acceptance of my given age of 1042. Someone else would publish an article hypothesizing that I was a priestess and an earthly representation of the triple-aspect goddess, Galadriel-Zelda-Guinevere. A pop-science magazine would reprint the article with the spin that I may have had *~magical powers~*. Someone would speak in a symposium about how the coins in my boots were placed there so I could purchase foot rubs after my long walk to eternity.

In short, I would go to my grave assured in the knowledge that my practical joke will employ generations of future academics... at least until they find this blog entry.

Treatment of the Body: Additional thoughts

I know I've already blogged about treatment of the body, but I've had some additional thoughts about it that I'd like to get down.

My grandpa is still alive. He lives in a nursing home in Victoria. But as he get's older, more and more of his friends, acquaintances, and former neighbours and coworkers pass. A few years ago, my grandpa's friend Herman passed away, and Herman's family chose to have his remains cremated. My grandpa reacted to this with visceral horror. He's still talking about it years later. "They burned him," he says, "like an animal." He insists that it isn't what Herman would have wanted, and he made my mother and my aunt promise that they wouldn't cremate him when he died.

My grandpa grew up in a very small town (honestly, I don't know if it meets the population requirements to be called a "town", but that's beside the point) in northern Manitoba. His family was made of 2nd generation German-Russian immigrants, and (at least as long as they'd been in Canada) they were all farmers. I suppose that if any farm animals died of disease or were attacked by wild animals and killed, their meat could not be used and they were burnt, so that's why he equates cremation with the treatment of animal bodies instead of humans. 

His family was raised in the Lutheran church, too, but I'm not sure if that helped to shape his views on cremation. According to Wikipedia, "...in Finland, the Helsinki Lutheran Parish Union built its first modern crematorium in 1926" [source]. Even so, decisions made in European cities about the morality of cremation may not have had much effect on the opinions and beliefs of those in, say, farming communities in northern Manitoba. It would be interesting to see what the people who still live in my grandpa's hometown think of the practice of cremation today.

In contrast, I've grown up in cities, and I've had access to a high school education and beyond. I don't have a problem with cremation... in fact, it seems almost "polite" to take up the smallest amount of space possible once you are no longer living. My husband and I have a friend who died overseas, and returning his body to Canada would have been prohibitively expensive, so his ashes were at his funeral along with a Power Point presentation full of pictures of his life projected onto a big screen.

As an interesting aside, my grandpa and my late grandma had photo albums full of pictures of funerals... including pictures of bodies in open caskets. Apparently this was a normal thing to do where they lived and at that time. I can't even imagine bringing a camera to a funeral today! I think I'd be squeamish about having pictures of my loved ones' corpses on my digital camera.

Treatment of the Body

There are two "alternative" burial methods that I find particularly interesting: Space Burial and Memorial Diamonds.

Space burial is exactly what it sounds like. Well, maybe not exactly... you don't really get buried, of course. Instead, a loved one can have some of your cremated ashes launched into orbit. It's pretty cool! Deceased Star Trek alumni Gene Roddenberry, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, and James Doohan had all chosen this option for their remains. It isn't even all that expensive... according to one source I found online, the starting price to have a "symbolic" (read: minuscule) portion of your ashes sent into orbit is only $695. Not bad! And sort of a touching final frontier for those above mentioned Star Trek personalities who helped popularize many of the ideas we have about space travel today.

But perhaps launching your loved ones into space seems a little too distant and you'd like to keep them closer to you? If so, the carbon in the cremated remains can be compressed down into diamonds! I think it's a really neat idea. Maybe your atoms can continue on as a piece of heirloom jewelry that's passed along in the family. Maybe if enough generations in a family adopt this method, someone can inherit a sparkly diamond tiara containing all of their ancestors! And there's the added benefit that your Aunt Mildred's ashes won't end up all over your carpet when the cat knocks over the urn on your mantle. (Of course, there's still the risk that Aunt Mildred-turned-into-a-diamond-ring might end up in the U-bend of your bathroom sink.)

Here's a video I found on the subject of Memorial Gems while I was searching:

Liminality, the Dead, and the Undead

Another anthropology class I'm taking right now is The Anthropology of Zombies, and it's interesting to see the overlaps in content between the zombie class and our class about Funerary Archaeology. In particular, I've noticed that there has been significant discussion on the concepts of Rites of Passage and liminality in both classes. In our archaeology class, we've talked about funerals as a rite that helps individuals move from the realm of the living to the afterlife, and helps communities and families move forward through their mourning. What I've found particularly fascinating in the zombie class, however, is the idea of this liminal period being suspended indefinitely. Instead of passing naturally from a state of life to a state of death, zombies are perpetually "betwixt and between." And in their state that is both and neither living and dead, they are monstrous to us.

Image from AMC's "The Walking Dead" television series (2011).

Yikes. An NYU student is assigned an ethnographic study of Occupy Wall Street and mass-emails her objections to EVERYONE.

From the article:

At around 3:17 on Wednesday morning, every student in NYU's Department of Social and Cultural Analysis received a bizarre "open letter" to NYU President John Sexton, from a student who claimed she'd been "forced" to do an ethnographic assignment on Occupy Wall Street. It was 2,800 words long, oddly typeset, and quickly followed up by another five equally eccentric emails. Someone sent us the full set of emails, which everyone at NYU—and elsewhere—was talking about. Want to read them? 

The background, from what we can tell, is this: Professor Caitlin Zaloom assigned a class to do an ethnographic study of Occupy Wall Street. One student, Sara Ackerman—who objected to being "forced," in her words, to interview "criminals, drug addicts, mentally ill people, and of course, the few competent, mentally stable people"—did not like this. She seems to have complained several times, eventually attempting to confront NYU President John Sexton at Bobst Library; and when he (according to Ackerman) sent her to the "Mental Health exchange," she let fly with the early-morning "open letter."

Read more at the source...

Source: gawker.com [The Crazy Department-Wide Emails That Everyone At NYU Is Talking About]

Best Thing of the New Year: 3-D Virtual Tour of Lascaux

In celebration of the discovery of the Lascaux cave complex and it's influence today on our knowledge of prehistoric art, the Ministry of Culture and Communications in France has updated the website for Lascaux to include a three-dimensional virtual tour. Visitors to the website can travel from chamber to chamber in the caves and view close-up, high-definition images of the paintings from almost any angle.

Since the caves were closed to the public (due to moisture and fungal contamination) in 1963, this website is the only chance that many people will have to view the famous cave complex.

Still image from the website of cave art located in the Axial Gallery.
© Ministre de la culture et de la communication

Indiana Jones doesn't work here...

...and neither does Dr. River Song. But that's okay. Real archaeologists may not get into gun fights so often or outrun giant boulders, but that doesn't mean that real archaeology isn't exciting.

I've started this blog because I'd like to share some of the real world archaeological articles, pictures, and video clips that I find fascinating, as well as some of my own thoughts. I hope that you'll find them interesting, too.

It's going to be fun!

Click for magical moving image!
Image: Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
©LucasArts

But how can you say "trust me" when I don't know anything about you?

Fair enough! I'll share a little about myself. My name is Jennifer and I'm a mature student, returning to university to finish my anthropology degree after a 10-year absence from academia. I enjoy reading, hiking, and spending time with my 3-year-old daughter. I write a weekly column for a popular feminist blog, and I am a regular contributor to a podcast on intersectionality and geek culture.