Motel of the mysteries
by David Macaulay · first published 1979
66% recommend34% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Illustrated satire in which a future archaeologist digs up a 20th-century motel and treats it like a pharaoh's tomb, misreading toilets and TVs as sacred. Funny jab at over-interpreting ritual in the past.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
An arch and witty tale purporting to be the dissertation of some future archeologists' discovery and exploration of the "Toot and C'mon Motel" (any resemblance to a Holiday Inn and the Egyptian pharaoh is entirely intentional.) In the process, they get just about every detail wrong, surmising it to be a necropolis - does the "Plant That Would Not Die" symbolize eternal life or… wait a minute, isn't that just the ubiquitous plastic philodendron in every room? - and along the way cast doubt on what we really think we "know" about ancient Egypt. It's all enhanced by Macaulay's detailed and meticu
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David Macaulay's "Motel of the Mysteries" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108831.Motel_of_the_Myst...) satirizes this bias, with archeologists from 4022 inspecting a modern day motel room and uncovering the "holy" toilet. It's a gem.
on “British Museum realises 'vase' is in fact an ancient mace-head upside down” ↗You would enjoy "Motel of the Mysteries" by David Macaulay. Basically, a future archeologist discovers a buried motel room and begins speculating about it's true purpose. "judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob,…
on “Someone in the Kalahari Collected Crystals 105,000 Years Ago” ↗There’s a fun 1970s book “Motel of the Mysteries” by the brilliant illustrator David Macaulay with this basic premise. A single motel room is discovered underground by future archeologists, who proceed to interpret everything as if entering Tutankhamen’s…
on “A sorceress’ kit was discovered in the ashes of Pompeii (2019)” ↗Debate about whether or not artifacts are for ritual purposes always reminds me of a wonderful book by David Macaulay called "Motel of the Mysteries." [1] The publisher's description gives a good sense of it: "It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in…
on “Ancient kids’ toys have been hiding in the archaeological record” ↗Motel of the Mysteries is a great book for imagining what people in the future will think about what we leave behind. https://www.amazon.com/Motel-Mysteries-David-Macaulay/dp/039... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/07/15/i...
on “Berlin Gold Hat” ↗See also Motel of the Mysteries -- a YA-level book, lavishly illustrated -- about a far-future society uncovering an early-80s motel and interpreting it as a burial complex, dedicated to the tiling-god Mica and dating from the height…
on “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema (1956) [pdf]” ↗If you enjoyed this, check out David Macauley's 'The Motel of the Mysteries'. This illustrated book describes the interpretation of a motel as excavated by archaeologists in the year 4022: http://www.amazon.com/Motel-Mysteries-David-Macaulay/dp/0395...
on “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema (1956) [pdf]” ↗I agree that when people talk about ancient civilizations, they tend to make things up, often assuming religious symbolism where none may have existed. David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries is a fabulous satire of that tendency and everyone should read it. But I also think calling Stonehenge a motte and bailey fortification is missing the mark. That's an easy enough interpretation that,…
on “Stonehenge Begins to Yield Its Secrets” ↗See also David Macaulay's 'Motel of the Mysteries: https://wearethemutants.com/2017/12/06/david-macauleys-motel... An extract: http://sultanaeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Motel...
on “Miner's “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” (1956)” ↗If you enjoyed this, you might also like David Maculay's "Motel of the Mysteries", which imagines a 41st-century archaeologist attempting to interpret a 20th-century motel (and getting it hilariously wrong). > Perhaps the single most important article in the chamber was the ICE (No.…
on “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema (1956)” ↗You might be able to laugh over the well illustrated satire 'Motel of the Mysteries' by the excellent illustrator David Macaulay.
on “Animal painting found in cave is 44k years old” ↗Hah yes! See also Motel of the Mysteries, for a kids' book take on an excavated motel in a far-flung future, or Body Ritual Among The Nacirema [0] for the anthropologically-minded dental hygiene enthusiast. [0] https://www.sfu.ca/~palys/Miner-1956-BodyRitualAmongTheNacir...
on “Why isn’t British ‘sleaze’ called what it is?” ↗Reminds me of “Motel of the Mysteries” by David Macaulay [1], who also wrote “The Way Things Work.” It tells the story of a future archeologist who unearths a motel and goes about completely misidentifying the purposes of various motel artifacts,…
on “Nacirema” ↗I recommend Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay, which explores this concept by having a future archaeologist investigate a motel from the 20th century and arrive at extremely bizarre conclusions.
on “The mysterious doodles hidden in a 1,300-year-old book” ↗A humorous take on this is David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries https://onlinecampus.fcps.edu/media2/Social_Studies/WHGII_20...
on “Mayan ball game scoreboard thought to be over 1k years old found in Mexico” ↗