Welcome to "Skeleton Key," a scary journey through a haunted house for Archtober. In this terrifying adventure, inspired by horror stories such as The Haunting of Hill House, Poltergeist and It, our players are all members of the same family. The Newell Family. They’ve been contacted by a lawyer, who is the executor (pun definitely intended) of their Uncle Ogden’s estate in Newton, Massachusetts. Each of them have not seen their Uncle Ogden, or each other, for many, many years – not since they were children. Something horrible once happened in that house when they were young, although they can’t remember what it was – something horrible is about to happen all over again. Will our adventurers survive the night? Or will they become the newest otherworldly denizens of the house? Skeleton Key will stream live on Twitch, on October 30 at 7:00 PM EST (4:00 PM PST): https://www.twitch.tv/archaeogaming_collective Artwork by Waldos Akimbo
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When the general public thinks about archaeology they usually think about all of the ways the field has been portrayed in pop culture. Pseudoarchaeology and other pseudoscientific fields play a big role in how a lot of people view archaeology. This includes shows like Ancient Aliens, The Curse of Oak Island, and Hunting Atlantis; all of which are harmful to archaeology and often demean the exceptionalism of humans. In my last blog post (Archaeo-Horror: How Pop Culture Uses Archaeology as an Element of Horror) I talked about how archaeology is utilized in the horror genre and that this comes from pseudoscientific concepts. What most people don’t know is that archaeology can be creepy and spooky without needing to rely on fictional tropes and pseudoscience. I talked to some colleagues about their experiences in the field that left them creeped out, unnerved, and gave them goosebumps. While not all of these stories deal directly with archaeological sites or artifacts, it is important to understand that when you are a field archaeologist you still come across the remnants of human activity that may be modern but are just as informative to human behavior (sometimes in less than stellar ways). So, I ask you to think, why do we need aliens, cryptids, and curses when humans are creepy all on their own? Interview with Dr. Bill FarleyOur first jaunt in creepy archaeology comes from Southern Connecticut State University Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology, Dr. Bill Farley. Bill: One time working on an archaic Indigenous site in Connecticut (mostly chert debitage), we discovered a large, elongated, very clearly delineated soil stain feature. We started to excavate it and eventually started to find the first signs of large mammal bones. First, hooves - then, leg bones, followed by ribs and on and on. Eventually we realized we were meticulously excavating a horse skeleton and a not very old one at that. We were pretty sure what happened was a nearby farmer probably brought his backhoe onto the reservation (where we were working), excavated a hole, and dumped a dead horse into it upside down, then left. It was pretty wild! It was weird and creepy! The bones were all pretty fresh. We guessed from the condition that this horse was probably in the 50-year-old territory. Technically archaeological! Bryandra: I bet. I’ve never excavated a recently buried animal. We found an entire horse skeleton before but it was on the surface. I’m glad what you found was just a horse and not like a recently buried human. Horse skull. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. Horse skeleton. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. Horse hoof with horseshoe still attached. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. Bill: Oh, that’s also creepy! You know actually speaking of that, another creepy experience I had once was finding a refrigerator, no joke, two miles deep in the woods on a survey once. A full size, probably 500 pounds, refrigerator. That creeped me out. How the hell did that get out there? Bryandra: Did you look inside? Bill: NO hahaha! There was either a dead body or a curse in the thing. Interview with Allie ReynoldsAnthropologist Allie Reynolds shared two encounters in the field that could have been a really disturbing find. As field scientists, in the back of our minds it’s not a matter of if we will find human remains but when. Allie: Fairly recently it was an entire duffle bag full of juniper cuttings. Like stuffed to the gills, then left to rot in the sun for several years. Slashed open. What were they trying to cover up the smell with? Weed has been legal for longer than it looked sun damaged. Bryandra: Weird! I swear things like this always make me really worried about finding a murder victim. Allie: SAME. Especially because I’m out here working in the desert in Southern California, and like as a high school student out here my bus passed by a still smoldering body. Like I know what happens out here. A few months before the bag, I was on site and could smell death coming from this cooler just off site. So, I got the monitor to make sure I wasn’t just hallucinating the smell, then we got the super, and one of them opened the lid with a stick. I swear to God I have never been so happy to see a goat skull. Apparently, that’s common and the sheriff was used to it. Sheep skull and attached vertebra. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. Bryandra: Oh weird. People do weird things with dead animals. Being a Southern Nevada archaeologist, I can relate. Bad things happen in the desert. I’ve only had one run in with a fresh body, but I have heard so many stories from other ‘ologists about finding shallow graves and plastic storage tubs with remains in them. Allie: Apparently, it’s like a post cookout issue. I guess people are afraid that the butchered animal will be mistaken for a human so they dispose of them weirdly like that… in a way that makes them seem suspiciously like a human body dump. Bryandra: Interesting. Yeah, I would definitely be more inclined to think you’ve dumped a human body that way than a butchered animal. People are so interestingly bizarre. Interview with Dr. Rebecca DeanDr. Rebecca Dean, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Minnesota Morris, shares an unnerving tale that not only puts a pit in your stomach but reveals some of the real dangers archaeologists potentially face when in the field. Rebecca: Working along the Arizona/Sonora border, I was very glad to learn that drug smugglers often use baby strollers for transport and that there were not a lot of migrants with young kids abandoning strollers in washes because they just couldn’t carry them anymore. I’m glad that Dr. Dean only found a stroller and did not have an unwanted encounter with drug smugglers. There is a real danger of potentially running into illicit activities when you’re in the middle of nowhere. On top of all of the other safety concerns that comes with doing fieldwork, we always make sure we are not alone and that someone knows where we are. We don’t want to become a part of someone else’s creepy field story. Interview with EmmaArchaeologist Emma talked about how some artifacts found at sites can give her fellow archaeologists the creeps. If you have pediophobia (the fear of dolls) you may find this exceptionally terrifying. Emma: I personally take a lot of delight (despite other's horror) in finding porcelain doll pieces. Super common on late nineteenth century sites, especially in urban areas. Shovel test pits almost always yield at least one and the low-level creepiness is a delight. Bryandra: Finding dolls is always super creepy. I have not found any porcelain dolls, but I’ve found Barbie dolls. One of which had her head impaled on a stick inside a rock alcove. My PI also helped record a site several years ago that has infamously become known as the Doll Massacre site by local archaeologists. It was a dump site where someone or multiple people dumped hundreds of dolls, from baby dolls to Barbie dolls. Sprinkled throughout I’ve shared some of my finds and encounters (including some of my personal photos), but my truly creepy field story is finding a summoning triangle. During a survey for a project on reservation land, not far from a main access road into a state park, our tribal monitor stopped and my field director radio'ed me: "You better come take a look at this." I leave my transect line and head over to where my colleagues are standing to find several white rocks, rocks that do not belong, spread out into an alignment and then a more detailed cluster in the middle of the alignment that formed a circle within a triangle. A Triangle of Evocation or Triangle of Solomon, the top of the triangle aligned to point west. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. At each corner of the triangle there was a large stone with writing/glyphs painted on them. West of the triangle was another larger stone that also had writing. One of the solstices had just past and it was clear that the stones with writing were marking the cardinal directions. A smaller stone at the west point placed to form the interior circle had a red dot painted on it. Outside of the triangle, with the lone large stone to the west, was another smaller stone with another red dot painted on it. These stones were aligned with the sun rise. In the middle of the circle was a crystal fragment. It was clear that it was not old, and therefore not an archaeological feature that needed to be recorded, but it definitely gave us pause. Jokes were made daring each other to stand inside of it, but naturally none of us were that stupid to actually do it. We puzzled over it for several minutes before moving on. Corner stone with writing. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. Corner stone with writing. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. Corner stone with writing. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. Corner stone with writing. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. Smaller stone at the western point of the triangle, facing east towards the sunrise, with a red dot painted on it. Image by Bryandra Owen 2018. When we returned back to the office, we of course had to share this bizarre find with our co-workers. I took it further, asking some sources who practice modern witchcraft, and align spiritually with modern paganism, if they knew what the heck this was. They did not disappoint me. One source informed me that it was a Triangle of Evocation used to summon demons or demonic spirits. It is commonly used in ritual magic and is possibly associated with Thelemic Magick, Kabbalistic Magick, or Satanism. Two potential organizations associated with Thelemic Magick are the Ordo Templo Orientalis and the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn. Aleister Crowley was a member of the Ordo Templo Orientalis and then went on to found the Order of the Golden Dawn. The writing on the stones was up to debate though, with one source indicating that some of the writing looked like Kana (a Japanese script) and some looking like a form of Arabic. While my second source found some references within a book on witchcraft to the Triangle of Solomon, stating they had seen some of the symbols before but that the writing is often unique to the individual(s) creating the summoning triangle. The purpose is so that outsiders cannot use or reverse the incantation. It was and still is unclear which group, order, or sect potentially created the summoning triangle. It was even speculated that it could have been created by just a group of folks out messing around in the desert. However, the consistency and repetition of some of the symbols in the writing and the presence of a crystal in the center of the feature are strong indications in favor of this being a legit summoning triangle. Based on my one source, the crystal would have been used to gather and focus the power/energy being summoned. In any case, the person and/or persons who made the triangle trespassed onto tribal land. They were likely non-Indigenous people who were falling into the fictional trope that tribal land holds some supernatural force that can be harnessed a la Pet Sematary. This year the project that survey was for is starting construction. We were notified that a crew had come across this summoning triangle and were rightly concerned. While we assured them that it was not an archaeological site and they did not need to worry about destroying it, the crew that came across it refused to touch it or do any thing with it. It will be interesting to see if the feature remains standing out of pure superstition, eventually becoming old enough to be considered archaeology. Further Reading:
Twenty-five years after the deadly Cordyceps virus breaks out in the United States, you happen to come upon the ruins of what was apparently a coffee shop at the ground level of a skyscraper in Seattle. While looking for whatever scraps and resources you can find (items that help you craft your weapons and health kits), your young companion Lev stumbles upon a graffito painted on one of the walls of the shop. The mural depicts a pair of cat-headed humans dancing with each other. Surprised, Lev comments: "Cats… Dancing cats… People from the old time were weird." The mural of the dancing cats. (Source) The PlayStation exclusive game The Last of Us Part II (2020, Naughty Dog) is the sequel to the immensely popular and critically acclaimed The Last of Us (2013, Naughty Dog), a third-person action-adventure survival horror game where you traverse a world that is full of zombies sorry, 'infected.' The Last of Us Part II (TLOU2 for short) continues the instantly classic story of Joel, Ellie and many others who are forced to survive in a world where you’re not only constantly looking over your shoulder for infected heading your way, but also in a world that’s been torn apart by different factions of survivors, each with their own ideologies. There’s the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), for example, or 'Wolves' for short, an anti-government organization fighting (literally, and violently) for better living conditions; at the same time, there’s the Seraphites (or Scars), a religious cult preaching for a return to nature now that the world has changed so drastically, and who don’t shy away from executing their enemies to free them of sin. To say that these survivor factions don’t make it easy for one another is the very definition of an understatement. The different characters in TLOU2 are therefore constantly busy: they’re patrolling the area, making sure there’s no infected around, searching for resources, or they’re on a quest, out for revenge. Like its predecessor, TLOU2 is a very tense game, constantly putting the player in terrifying situations and not refraining from the more than occasional and ever so genre-appropriate jump scare. Still, there’s moments of solitude and quiet, and it is primarily those moments that I wish to discuss in this blog post. What is striking in those moments, as evidenced by the quote by Lev that we opened with, is the very ‘archaeological’ way in which the characters often treat their game world. Ellie in the Last of Us Part II. (Source) Let me get one thing out of the way first: I am not saying that the characters in TLOU2 participate in any kind of actual archaeological science. At no point during the game does Ellie apply for university grants, nor does she ever prepare for a dig, and had there been any usable shovels in the game, they would have been used for much more violent purposes than archaeology. However, as this post aims to show, these characters are sometimes depicted as looking at their world in a way that is not that far off from archaeology, at least as understood as the study of the past based on the analysis of material remains. Let’s illustrate this with another example. At one point during their voyage in Seattle, Ellie and her friend Jesse happen upon the Seattle Conference Center, still decorated with posters for the "2013 Comic Expo," apparently a Comic Con-like event last hosted during the year of the virus outbreak (to clarify: TLOU2 itself takes place in the year 2038). Since Jesse and Ellie are younger than 25 and were born in the post-outbreak world, they’ve never experienced a comic book festival like this, so they’re unfamiliar with such a phenomenon. Therefore, Jesse asks "What’s up with all these posters?" "It’s a bunch of comics," Ellie notices, and she asks "Wait. What was happening here?" Ellie’s interest is piqued, as she’s a big comic book fan herself: throughout the game she (i.e. you) is also constantly looking for comic book trading cards to add to her collection. Jesse suggests that this might have been "[a] gathering for people who were really into this stuff? Like you, basically" at which Ellie replies "We were born in the wrong time, man." The 2013 Seattle Comic Expo. (Source) What we see here is that the characters are looking at the ruins and remnants of a world they don’t know. As the Lev quote showed, whatever was done by people before the year 2013 (i.e. before the outbreak), is now a part of a distant history referred to as 'the old world.' While Ellie and all of the other (young) characters travel through locales that are instantly recognizable to us, the audience, the characters are disconnected from everything they see. They haven’t ever seen hordes of people line up for a comic book event, nor have they seen painted pictures of feline people. There’s a big sense of dramatic irony in these situations, where the knowledge of the audience stands in an uneven or ironic relation to the knowledge of the narrative characters. But we also see that the characters use the things they see as visual information in order to make informed suggestions about what life in the past was like. They ask questions and reach hypotheses on the nature of the old world. This, in a sense, is archaeology: it’s using the remaining material culture as evidence for knowledge about the human past. The dramatic irony of this situation is sometimes enhanced when the characters get stuff wrong: for instance, not knowing the word 'aquarium,' some characters initially refer to the aquarium as a 'fish zoo,' based off a word they do know. (They also debate what a seal looks like, having only seen one once.) It shows that ‘studying’ the past (or at least trying to understand it) is something that interests the characters. The fish zoo. (Source) What’s also interesting is that almost all of the places you trek through in TLOU2 are places where humans typically used to come together. Apart from a few suburban areas, most of the game levels include hotels, hospitals, offices, coffee shops, bars, a synagogue, a record store, a ferry boat, a bank, and so on. This contrasts with the situation the characters are in: a long way from home, the characters are primarily alone. They’re small compared to the big, vast world that, despite its large and immensely detailed appearance, is and feels empty. On your adventure in Seattle you’ll also find many objects that are tellingly called "Artefacts" – a further reference to archaeology and, also, history. These Artefacts are usually letters or other kinds of documents that were left behind by people before they evacuated, ran, or worse. They tell the stories of what happened to those people and, by extension, they tell the history of that world. For instance, in the Hillcrest suburb of Seattle you’ll find several letters referring to a man named Boris. After a couple of letters, you’re able to reconstruct what happened to him, his friends and his family: when the Wolves took control of Seattle and ordered the citizens to relocate into the city stadium, Boris’ friend Uli tried to convince him to stand up to them, believing their ways were too oppressive and dictatorial. However, when the Wolves killed Boris’ daughter Sofia, Boris (himself described as a master bowman) retaliated by attacking Wolves soldiers and transports, much to Uli’s discontent. After a while, Uli conspired with other people from the neighborhood, and planned to turn Boris over to the Wolves in exchange for a safe passage to the stadium. Boris learned of their betrayal and created a plan of his own: after drugging them, he carried them into a garage full of virus spores, leaving them to their fate. Ellie later comes across this garage, and she’s able to tell that these infected are Uli and the neighbors because she has found and read these Artefacts. The Artefact "Boris’ Confession" (front and back), one of the letters Ellie finds. Boris writes to his friend Yolanda what he’s done to Uli and the others. (Source) Apart from humanizing the game world and persuading the player that this was a world where people actually lived once, these Artefacts serve as sources through which the human past is told and recollected. Games studies has described such stories as "embedded narratives" (Jenkins 2004: 126): they’re stories that are "prestructured but embedded within the mise-en-scene awaiting discovery." In this way, Jenkins (ibid.) writes, the game world becomes a "memory palace," and it is these memories that are recollected by the characters in TLOU2 and that inform them of the stories behind the ruins. So, in between all of the sneaking, smashing and shooting, the characters of TLOU2 take the opportunity to get to know the history of the forgotten world they live in. Again, I’m not saying they engage in explicit archaeological practice, but the perspective they take towards the game world is remarkably similar. The characters wish to understand the world they live in but which they’re also disconnected from, and in their quieter moments they often try to hypothesize what life in the past must’ve been like, based on the material evidence they encounter. References: Jenkins, H. (2004). 'Game Design as Narrative Architecture' in N. Wardrip-Fruin & P. Harrigan (eds.), First Person. New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge, London: The MIT Press, 118-130.
Content Warning: Human Remains, Death, Human Decomposition (NO IMAGES) When spooky season (a.k.a. October) arrives, it’s accompanied by an enormous increase in advertisements and other media featuring human beings in various stages of death and decay. Have you ever noticed this trend? It reflects the American attitude that dead people, and death generally, are to be feared if not avoided entirely. Death is arguably the most natural part of our lives, so why are we so afraid of death and dying? In particular, why do we find human remains so frightening? In the United States, this can be partially explained by the way that the funeral industry works. At some point in our lives, most of us will be responsible for post-death care for a loved one, but I’ll summarize it here for those of you who aren’t familiar with this process. Upon a person’s death, medical staff typically take the person’s body to a morgue or other holding location (if death happens at home, this usually occurs after 9-1-1 is called). The person is later transported to a funeral home, where a mortician or other specialist prepares the person’s body for viewing by friends and family. Often this includes embalming, as well as applying copious amounts of makeup to make the person look... well, less dead. Then the viewing and funeral or cremation occur. Notice that as part of the standard practices of caring for and preparing the body for burial, the deceased’s loved ones are not involved in the process. Practically speaking, when our friends and family members die, we often don’t see them again until their viewing or funeral, at which point they will have been dead for several days (at least) and will look different because of normal postmortem changes within the body. Now, tack that onto the fact that most people die in the hospital or in hospice these days. This means that we aren’t heavily involved in our loved ones’ end-of-life experiences OR their post-life experiences. As a result of this system, Americans have exceptionally little exposure to the dying and dead human body. You may be familiar with the following phrase: We fear what we do not understand. American death and burial practices weren’t always like this, of course. Before modern embalming practices were invented and widely adopted, families prepared their loved ones’ bodies for burial themselves, and typically also buried them themselves. This would have had to happen all within a few days, since without embalming the body experienced normal rates of decomposition. Embalming did not become popularized until after the death of Abraham Lincoln, whose body was embalmed with the specific reasoning that then it could travel the country by train so that he could be mourned by the entire country. Yes, that really happened. An illustrated depiction of a scene of Lincoln lying in state. (Source) If you’re familiar with the concept of a "wake," this is a leftover term from when family members stayed awake all night with the body of the deceased after their death. These people were the ones responsible for washing and dressing the dead for their visitation and funeral - and, by the way, visitations (what we now tend to call "viewings") were held in the home of the deceased. I mention this to point out that it used to be completely normal, and even expected, for family members and/or close friends to spend time near dead people, and even to physically interact with them. The normalization of hospice care, embalming, and other aspects of the funeral industry have effectively removed the need for family and friends to directly care for their dying and deceased loved ones. The first time I ever went to a funeral, I was 10 years old, and it was the first time I had ever seen a dead person. I didn’t think the person looked "normal," but I wasn’t sure why. Turns out people naturally change after their deaths, and so of course they look different in death than they did in life - but no one had ever talked to me about that as a child, so I didn’t know. I was terrified of dead people as a kid, which is super ironic since I turned out to be an osteologist, or someone who studies human skeletal remains. Because we aren’t forced to interact with the dying or the dead, we avoid even talking about it. How does this impact our familiarity with and understanding of the processes of death and dying? It makes us afraid, because we are so unfamiliar with them. I want to make a special note here that "recently" deceased people are not usually used in horror tropes. This is because these are the dead people that we are most familiar with. When you think about classic horror scenarios involving the dead, are they usually fully intact individuals who look (mostly) like they did when they were alive? Nope - usually these people are partially decomposed, like zombies, or completely decomposed, like undead skeletons. These are the dead that we typically have even less familiarity with, because most of us have never seen a decomposed dead person in real life - so they are even scarier than "normal" dead people. Skyrim's Draugr are some of the most recognizable video game undead. (Source) In the field of archaeology, some of us work regularly with the dead. Usually this is in the form of people who have been dead for a very long time, so they are completely skeletonized, although some archaeologists work in places like Egypt or Peru where mummies are common. More than once, I’ve told someone that my job involved handling skeletons, and was met with a response that my work was "creepy." We don’t need to view the dead as "scary" or "creepy" just because they’re unfamiliar to us. After all, they’re people, too. In popular media, like movies, books, and video games, the dead are often represented as bad guys or are used to create some sort of frightening atmosphere. By incorporating the "dead people (and animals) are scary, which means they are bad" trope into popular representations of death and dying, we reinforce our terror of being in the position of dying or being dead. Frankly, there’s also a huge problem in archaeological media with "othering" (which one of our guest bloggers for this month also discusses in her post here). Often, the "bad," "scary," or "dangerous" dead are those dead whose danger explicitly comes from other cultures. Consider the Orientalism associated with the title villain in "The Mummy;" American horror’s obsession with zombies (whose whitewashed origins actually come from the Voodoo religion); the Indian burial ground trope in Pet Sematary; I could go on for a long, long time. Of course, there is an equally weird (although less common) American fascination with the dead, at least by some. Mortician Caitlin Doughty has amassed a huge following in the U.S. for her death-focused lectures and books like Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, and every once in a while there’s a news story like the one where a New Orleans woman illegally stole human bones from a cemetery for witchcraft purposes. This uncanny interest in death and the dead is likely due to the same problem as America’s fear of death: we simply don’t have enough exposure to understand what we’re dealing with. In the grand scheme of things, our avoidance of death is partially a matter of convenience. It’s certainly easier, in a sense, when we don’t have to handle all the particularities of postmortem treatment and funeral arrangements on our own. But it seems to be taking an interesting toll on the American psyche, in that it’s resulted in a full-stop terror of our own deceased loved ones. My advice is to remember that we’re all human in the end, and that for the most part, I don’t think the dead are out to get us. Additional References:
In this episode, we talk with Matthew Baxter and Dr. Karen Stollznow about their investigations of the Myrtle Plantation in St, Francisville, Louisianna. How many ghosts did they find, and how were they able to sleep through the night? Find out on this very spooktacular Archtober episode!
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When thinking about archaeology most people think of the Indiana Jones films, the Tomb Raider or Uncharted video games, and novels like James Rollins’ Sigma Force series. These stories generally fall into the action and adventure genres, sometimes crossing over into the world of sci-fi. Archaeology in pop culture is usually presented with there being something mystical behind every artifact and archaeological site. Archaeology as a plot device is not exclusively used for a good adventure story, in fact, archaeology is one of the most common tropes used in the horror genre. From ancient "evil" gods, to cursed relics, to awakening the dead, horror and archaeology seem to go hand-in-hand. Before we proceed further into this world of Archaeo-Horror, be warned: there are potential spoilers for horror films, video games, and literature. I will do my best to avoid major spoilers, but some may be unavoidable in order to address the role archaeology plays in the story. Waking Up Ancient EvilThis is probably the most common use of archaeology in the horror genre. So much so that parody news blog The Onion wrote a whole article about it (see Archaeologists Tired of Unearthing Unspeakable Ancient Evils). Some things that come to mind when you think about this trope are probably mummies, possibly demons, an ancient god, or some form of cursed monster. In a lot of ways this trope falls into the common theme of the "other." Most of these stories take place in other countries, unfamiliar to ourselves, where the characters likely are not originally from either. They are being immersed in a culture that is not theirs, and sometimes the scariest thing is to be in a place far away from home where you have never been before. Scene from the 1999 film The Mummy with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hannah. From Universal Studios. (Source) The Mummy, in its various iterations, is likely the first movie you think about when you hear, "archaeologists wake up an ancient evil," even though the characters technically are not archaeologists. While the films, especially the superior version with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, are packed with action and adventure, they are scary. A cursed undead creature, who once was a human, is awakened to wreak havoc on the souls that disturbed him. This is an antagonist frequently utilized in Archaeo-Horror. The recently released video game Forewarned, described by many as Phasmophobia for archaeologists, is a good example of this. You and three friends can play a team of archaeologists investigating ancient Egyptian temples and tombs. The game will be the focus of one of the ArchaeoGaming Collective’s live streams for Archtober, and if you tune in, you will hear all of us vehemently state that this is not real archaeology, and it’s more like Tomb Raider. The reason for this is because one of the main features of the game is to basically loot the ruins. Your presence within the ruins, however, awakens an ancient spirit called the Meji. Like in Phasmophobia, you need to collect evidence to figure out which Meji it is. Once you know that, you can enter the inner tomb where you collect an artifact that you will need to take back to your jeep in order to "win" the game. However, the Meji will do everything it can to stop you from leaving the ruins. While viewed as the antagonist, really the Meji is just trying to protect the archaeological site from being looted. Arguably one of the most terrifying stories is The Exorcist, originally a novel written by William Peter Blatty that was adapted into the iconic film in 1973. This story usually doesn’t come to mind when you think of archaeology in horror, because the story predominantly revolves around the demonic possession of 12-year-old Regan MacNeil. The first image that comes to mind is most likely the iconic scene from the film where Regan’s head spins 360 degrees and she projectile vomits over the entire cast of characters attempting to exorcise the demon residing inside of her. However, the story starts with Catholic priest, Lankester Merrin, on an archaeological dig in Iraq excavating the Upper Mesopotamian city of Hatra. Hatra is a real city in Iraq and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site was among several important Assyrian sites vandalized by the Islamic State, with some of the ruins being completely demolished, in 2015. Father Lankester Merrin (portrayed by Max von Sydow) in front of the statue of Pazuzu in The Exorcist (1973). From Warner Bros Pictures. (Source) The opening to The Exorcist story is very important because Merrin and his archaeologist colleagues unearth a sculpture of Pazuzu, an Assyrian god who has links to the underworld but also is considered the king of the wind demons. Pazuzu shows up in a lot of horror stories, and it’s not hard to understand why - he is a scary looking creature. The reveal of the sculpture and statue of Pazuzu is a foreshadowing and to affirm this omen of things to come; as Merrin stands before the god, a gust of wind blows through the site. As the story progresses, we learn that it is Pazuzu who has possessed young Regan and that Father Merrin has a long history with the demon god. Pazuzu remains the main antagonist throughout the entire Exorcist series, and the history between Pazuzu and Merrin is the focus of the two prequel films, Exorcist: The Beginning (released in 2004) and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (released in 2005). Scene from the trailer for The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes video game, showing an underground cavern with a giant statue of Pazuzu. From Supermassive Games. (Source) Pazuzu will also be making an appearance in the third installment of The Dark Pictures Anthology series, House of Ashes, developed by Supermassive Games. In the trailer for the video game released last month, we get glimpses of underground ruins and a giant statue of Pazuzu. The game releases on October 22nd, so not too much is known about the plot. However, it is clear that the story revolves around the U.S. conflict in Iraq and that soldiers find the underground ruins. In Supermassive Games tradition, it is clear that not everything is what it seems and perhaps there is a real Pazuzu living in the ruins. The example of Pazuzu as the "ancient evil" being awakened I think is an important one. He is a god of an ancient culture. Like his counterparts around the world, most gods and goddesses linked to the underworld are often depicted as frightening beings. Gods, goddesses, and other supernatural beings that either are not part of Western culture or are non-Christian, are frequently utilized in order to create fear of other cultures and religions. The role of Pazuzu as the demon that possesses a white American girl and the role of a Catholic priest as the hero is indicative of a long history of demonizing non-Christian gods and spirits in an attempt to make the people who worshipped or believed in these gods/spirits an "other." This process of "othering" led to wars, genocide, and forced conversion. In fact, the destruction of Assyrian sites in Iraq and Syria are the direct result of the "othering" process. The Islamic State justified their vandalism and destruction of archaeological sites because these were "false idols." Cursed Objects and ArtifactsWhile not always necessarily directly connected to archaeology or archaeologists, objects are one of the things we look for when documenting an archaeological site. We refer to these objects as artifacts, but they were often ordinary tools or possessions of the people who left them behind. Every object has a story and can tell us something about the people to whom it belonged. Due to the connection objects have to people, there are strong beliefs about what that could mean for people who take things that are not theirs. The 1982 film Poltergeist comes to mind when you think about how the disregard for past people, their belongings, and their remains causes a person to be cursed. In this case it is enacted by supernatural entities linked to the people buried beneath the new home the Freeling family have moved into. Unbeknownst to the Freelings, the developers who built the Cuesta Verde housing development built the neighborhood at the location of a former historic cemetery. The developers claim they relocated all of the remains and reburied them in another location. This is proven to be a lie when during the climactic end of the movie, human remains and coffins are being forced out of the ground around the Freelings home. The entities are only satisfied once the Freelings have fled and their new home is sucked into an interdimensional portal. Classic ghost stories like M.R. James’ short story A View from a Hill also uses this concept of cursed objects. The story revolves around a pair of very special binoculars, and when one of the protagonists, Fanshawe, looks through them it provides a view into the past but also reveals specters. Fanshawe begins to have nightmares and is disturbed by things he cannot see after his use of the binoculars. It is later revealed to Fanshawe by Squire Henry Richards that the binoculars were made by amateur archaeologist Baxter who used the bones of men killed by hanging in its construction. Looking through the binoculars is literally looking through the eyes of the dead men whose bones they were made from. There are consequences to Baxter’s actions and the ghosts of the hanged men take their revenge on him. It is made clear that Fanshawe is now suffering from attacks by these same ghosts. In order to bring peace to the spirits, Richards buries the binoculars, putting the bones of the dead to rest and ending their cycle of revenge. Sometimes cursed artifacts have greater consequences than just affecting the individual(s) who have taken them. In the first Red Dead Redemption video game, there is a stand-alone expansion called Undead Nightmare. This extra content for the game revolves around John Marston having to fight zombies. The entire world of Red Dead Redemption is plagued by a zombie apocalypse. As Marston, you need to figure out how this happened and how to fix it in order to save your family. As you progress through the storyline, you learn that the apocalypse was potentially caused by con artist Nigel West Dickens and treasure hunter Seth Briars. Both men deny their involvement, but Briars tells Marston he suspects it has something to do with the Aztecs. Marston travels to Nuevo Paraíso, Mexico to find out if there could be some truth to Briars’ suspicions. He discovers that it’s not just the territories in the U.S. affected by the zombie apocalypse, but it has also affected Mexico. Marston learns from Mother Superior Calderón that a woman told her that Abraham Reyes, a character John Marston helps in the main storyline, is responsible for the apocalypse. Marston seeks out this woman and saves her from a zombified Reyes. The woman tells Marston that Reyes caused the zombie plague when he stole an Aztec mask from a tomb and was turned himself when he put on the mask. With the help of the woman, who reveals herself to be the Aztec goddess Ayauhteotl, Marston is able to return the mask to where it belongs, ending the zombie apocalypse. John Marston fleeing a zombie horde in Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (2010). From Rockstar Games. (Source) While these are just a few examples of how archaeology can be utilized in horror, there are a ton of other stories out there that are worth watching, playing, or reading. Ultimately archaeology as a horror trope can have a lot of negative connotations, such as the demonizing of other cultures and their spirituality, and perpetuating pseudoarchaeology. There are lessons to be learned though through Archaeo-Horror which can be used to educate the public on the importance of protecting archaeological sites. The idea that disturbing archaeological sites could have dire consequences was a way that many cultures tried to protect their heritage and prevent looting. In at least some of the examples given in this article, the "evil" entities are trying to protect their remains or cultural items from being stolen or disturbed. Although these stories did not always protect sites and artifacts from being looted, there was a fear that you could end up with a cursed artifact. There are examples of looters returning stolen artifacts for this very reason. Maybe it’s just a guilty conscience causing torment within the looter’s life, or maybe, just maybe, the spirits of those who the objects belonged to would not rest until their artifacts were returned.
Spooky Archtober has begun, and in true form, I want to BLAME LOVECRAFT!
So let's catch up, with a great Archaeological Fantasies episode from last year about... blaming Lovecraft for Pseudoarchaeology! On this episode, I take to the airwaves myself to tell you all what I think of H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu mythos, the impact that it is had on society as a whole, and how the elder gods are going to devour us all. But seriously, let’s talk Lovecraft and his unintentional impact on what we call pseudoarchaeology, it's far reach into the world of ancient aliens, and his use of archaeology in his writing to create horror.
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Archtober 2021 Starts Now: A Month Long Celebration of All Things That Go Bump in the Night10/1/2021 Welcome to day one of Archtober, a month long event sponsored by Archaeological Fantasies, Paranormal Archaeology, and the ArchaeoGaming Collective! Each week, you can look forward to spooky archaeology, anthropology, and folklore-related content written and produced by members of our community. Whether that be archaeology presented in horror media, the anthropology of dark myth and folklore, or maybe even a spooky tale or two from the field... You'll find it all here throughout the month of October! Or rather, Archtober! |