AP: Sinking oil threatens historic Gulf shipwrecks

From Cain Burdeau at Associated Press, an article about the archaeological impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis (via Boing Boing):

TIMBALIER ISLANDS, La. — Not just flora and fauna are getting caked in oil. So is the Gulf of Mexico's barnacled history of pirates, sea battles and World War II shipwrecks.

The Gulf is lined with wooden shipwrecks, American-Indian shell midden mounds, World War II casualties, pirate colonies, historic hotels and old fishing villages. Researchers now fear this treasure seeker's dream is threatened by BP PLC's deepwater well blowout.

The bridge of the USS Oriskany, off Pensacola, Fla. (AP)

Within 20 miles of the well, there are several significant shipwrecks — ironically, discovered by oil companies' underwater robots working the depths — and oil is most likely beginning to cascade on them.

"People think of them as being lost, but with the deepsea diving innovations we have today, these shipwrecks are easily accessible," said Steven Anthony, president of the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society.

"If this oil congeals on the bottom, it will be dangerous for scuba divers to go down there and explore," Anthony said. "The spill will stop investigations; it will put a chill, a halt on (underwater) operations."

The wrecks include two 19th-century wooden ships known as the "Mica Wreck" and the "Mardi Gras Wreck." The German submarine U-166 and ships sunk by other German submarines during World War II are within the spill's footprint.

The Mica was a 200-year-old, two-masted schooner that sank sometime before 1850, according to a report by the Minerals Management Service. It was discovered about 2,500 feet deep in the Mississippi Canyon during work to lay a pipeline.

In 2002, the Mardi Gras wreck was discovered by oilfield workers in even deeper waters: About 4,000 feet down about 35 miles off the Louisiana coast. The wreck got its name from the pipeline project where the wreck was found: the Mardi Gras Gas Transmission System, a huge deepwater pipeline system.

Read the rest.

Santa Claus lives by the beach

(hispic cafe)

If you grew up in a northern European cultural environment, Santa Claus definitely lives in a cold climate. Reindeer, fur suit, snow, sleigh, Coca Cola, et cetera. Something like the picture above. (Which was taken in July, in Japan, of course.)

So being confronted with the historical St. Nicholas is a bit bizarre. He was the bishop of Myra, today's Demre on Turkey's southern coast. Demre's a flat fairly unexciting agricultural town, one of those places you pass through on the way to somewhere else. But it does have a central attraction: the church of St. Nicholas (and his original burial spot), which got 395,000 visitors in 2009 according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Jenny and I stopped by last month on our way to somewhere with more beach and better scenery.

The church is mostly obscured by this hideous roof, presumably built for 'conservation' purposes.

The choir and altar.

There's been some controversy about the site lately. The Turkish government changed the name of the site from "St. Nicholas Church" to "Father Christmas Museum" (Noel Baba Müzesi) last year, in what some people see as a stab at Christianity. The new name is certainly stupid because what you see is a semi-ruined medieval church with some nice Byzantine frescos. No reindeer, fir trees, or jolly fat men with beards.

The new name of the church made me expect a nonstop Santa Claus kitsch explosion, but there is in fact a totally different kind of kitsch - a long chain of Russian icon shops! St. Nicholas is actively venerated year-round by devout Russian orthodox, and there were indeed women praying at the statue near the entrance to the Church.

A visitor prays to St. Nick.

 

Shops packed with icons and other goodies oriented to the Russian market.

There's also a statue of St. Nick set up by the Antalya Santa Claus foundation celebrating the "International Santa Claus Activities" of 1998. Sounds weird but I'm sure it was fun for the international crowd of youth participants. Am kinda curious what they did! 

This brings us to a less-known story about the Turkish med coast: it's now dominated by Russian tourists, who are famous for wandering around archaeological sites in absurdly scanty bikinis (yes, the men too) and sometimes high heels. It's amusing that Russia should finally get the warm water port the czars dreamed of for centuries - but in the form of Antalya's endless holiday villages.

St. Nicholas is no longer buried in Demre. Some sneaky Italians stole his bones in an undercover operation in 1087 and brought them to Bari, from where they may or may not have been stolen and brought to England, Germany, or Venice. Last Christmas Nezdat Çevik of Akdeniz University, who excavates at Demre, and Antalya Museum director Cumali Ayabakan teamed up to request repatriation of "Santa's Bones" from Bari:

Çevik reiterated St. Nicholas’s remarks in which he said, “I was born here, raised here and I will be buried here.” The professor added that “we should respect the wish of St. Nicholas. The bones should be brought back to his grave in Demre.”

Çevik has also urged state authorities to take steps to contact their Italian counterparts. “The ministries should work to move the bones back to Turkey.” The scholar also emphasized the significance of St. Nicholas’s grave in terms of tourism and said that the number of tourists visiting the church in Demre will drastically increase when the bones are returned.

It's interesting that here, repatriation is not tied to sentimental concerns about colonialism or the spirits of the ancestors, but rather to the chance to generate cash from tourists. As repatriation becomes more mainstream, it also seems to be attracting preposterous proposals like this.

Recently the Koç Foundation - run by Turkey's richest industrialist family - has taken over some aspects of site management at the church. Judging by this sign, the former funders - the World Monuments Fund and the Samuel H. Kress foundation - have suffered a damnatio memoriae. I'm dying to know the back story on this one.

WMF WTF?

Kartoon Korner: the suffering of ancient librarians

In case you ever get tired of carrying that laptop around, think of the suffering of the Assyrian librarian.

A cartoon by Mehmet Akgün, part of the 2010 submissions for an annual archaeology cartoon contest held at the Burdur Archaeological Museum, Burdur, Turkey.

A Brief Lesson in Hieroglyphs: Lost Hieroglyphs Explained

As Archaeopop's resident Egyptologist, I present: Lost Hieroglyphs Explained!

Here are three images from the tv show Lost: 1) the word that pops up when the timer in the hatch runs out; 2) a drawing of the hieroglyphs that were later carved by the Lost art department team; and 3) the same hieroglyphs from picture 2, as they appear on a set from Lost. I'll give the translations, but I'll also explain the functions of the individual signs themselves, just in case any readers out there are clamoring to know.

Image #1: This is fairly straightforward, since the word is spelled correctly in hieroglyphs and all of the signs are facing the proper direction. These five signs, read from left to right, spell the ancient Egyptian word "sudja", which means "die". [For the specialists out there who would like the technical transliteration from Egyptian to English, the best I can provide is swd3, since this blog does not come equipped with a transliteration font.] The first sign represents "s"; the second "w" (which we pronounce here as a "u"); the third sign is a biliteral, meaning it stands for two consonants - in this case, the sound "dj" (just one letter in Egyptian) and "a" (which I know looks like a vowel, but it's an aleph, and therefore a consonant); the fourth sign represents "a" but is not pronounced separately, since its purpose here is to reinforce the "a" in the previous biliteral; and the fifth sign is a determinative, which is a sign that has no phonetic value at all, but clarifies the meaning of the word. It is this determinative, in fact, which tells us that the intended meaning is "die", since the word "sudja", when spelled differently, can also mean "to make healthy"!

Images 2 and 3: This inscription comprises two words - the top row is the ancient Egyptian word "nis" (in transliteration, njs), meaning "to summon", and the second row is the Egyptian word "nedj" (in transliteration, nd [second d]), which means "protection". However, these words are not as straightforward as that in the previous image, because the people from Lost actually wrote the hieroglyphs backwards. In other words, the hieroglyphs are facing to the left, which means that they should be read from left to right, but this results in gibberish. The words must instead be read from right to left (which is perfectly fine, since hieroglyphic text could be written in either direction), but the hieroglyphs are facing the wrong direction for right-to-left reading. This is somewhat similar to writing "nommus" instead of "summon" and "noitcetorp" instead of "protection". Although some ancient Egyptian religious texts were intentionally written with hieroglyphs facing the wrong direction - called "retrograde" texts - it seems unlikely that the artists for Lost would have employed this technique, unless the expert they consulted actually gave them the words in retrograde to begin with.

Here is a video in which the folks at Lost incorrectly believe that these signs represent the word "grief":



So, the top row from right to left: the first sign stands for "n", the second sign for "i", the third sign for "s", and the fourth is a determinative.

The second row, from right to left: the first sign is not an ankh. It's a spindle, but that's not significant here. What's significant is that it is a biliteral sign that stands for the two consonants "n" and "dj" (again, dj is one letter in Egyptian). The second sign is also a biliteral that usually stands for "nu", but when it's combined with the previous sign, it also represents the letters "ndj". Much like Arabic and Hebrew, hieroglyphic script did not write short vowels (like "e"), so we have to insert the "e" in the pronunciation. Thus, ndj = nedj.

So there you have it.

World of Warcraft Introduces Archaeology Profession

World of Warcraft, the world's largest online multiplayer role playing game (MMORPG), will soon release the third expansion pack for the game, 'Cataclysm'. In Cataclysm, players revisit WoW's world of Azeroth after it's been scrambled by cataclysms brought on by the advent of a dragon lord. The über-dramatic trailer shows a post-apocalyptic atmosphere and radical climate change, while magazine previews suggest a number of gameplay tweaks.

WoW Cataclysm: there be dragons.

One of the tweaks has implications for those of us who love old stuff. Though the core of WoW is monster-killing and questing, players can also add professions that allow them to earn money, create artifacts, and experience the virtual world in different ways. In 'Cataclysm' archaeology joins alchemy, blacksmithing, fishing, mining, first aid, and other skills as a possible profession for players.

This addition fits with the premise of Cataclysm: since much of the old world of Azeroth was transformed or destroyed by the advent of the dragon, there will be ample areas to search for ancient artifacts. eurogamer.net got a preview of the expansion:

WOW's landscape is studded with ruins, and you'll be able to search these for artefacts - narrowing down your search within marked regions, rather than using nodes like mining. You'll uncover fragments which can be assembled into artefacts for the pure pleasure of collection and completion, as well as - for lore-junkies - filling in gaps in Azeroth's history. You'll get some loot too... But the main point is to add texture to the world and a new avenue for box-ticking comfort gaming - as well as, quite appropriately, to document the past of a virtual world that has begun to change before our eyes.

The idea of documenting the past of a virtual world from within it is really intriguing. Normally I would be critical of this old-fashioned stochastic model of social change (one big event changes everything), but I think dragon attacks get a pass. This is what the 'Archeology Journal' where you record your finds will look like:

(WoWarchaeology.net)

WoWwiki summarizes what you can do as a World of Warcraft archaeologist:

• Intended as a casual profession for players to enjoy in their "downtime".
• Focused on locating, piecing together, and appraising artifacts unearthed by the Cataclysm.
• Interacting with an artifact you find is similar to other gathering professions. It has been specifically stated that you will be able to track both Artifacts and your regular "tracking" for gathering professions. Instead of tracking individual nodes, you will instead search marked regions.
• Artifacts will go into a new artifact journal instead of your inventory.
• Placing an artifact in your journal will allow you to "study" it and progressively unlock new rewards.
• Unlocks unique rewards such as vanity pets, mounts, and other "toys", with occasional rare quality weapons or armor.
• Players will be able to read ancient runes found amidst ruins and in dungeons to provide themselves and other players with buffs.
• Some items and discoveries will be heavily geared towards expanding the game's lore, filling in plot holes, and documenting the history of the world as it was before the Cataclysm. Players will reportedly be able to compile what amounts to a lore database.
• A mock-up of the Archaeology interface is presented as a hand-written journal, with a listing of artifacts, relics, and related reagents and tasks, as well as artwork and a description for each relic. Artifacts are also given a "black market value", indicating that they can perhaps be sold for profit. There has been an indication that your journal may come with some form of "mini-game" to study findings.

Over at Blizzard Games, there seems to have been an internal struggle about the 'social relevance' of archaeology. Archaeology was originally intended for release with the now-defunct 'Paths of the Titans' expansion (scrapped late last year), where it was going to be more integral to the storyline and to character development. In 'Cataclysm' its role has been reduced to more of a collecting game independent of the plot, which drew a mixed review from IGN UK:

Originally, Archaeology was going to help advance players along the Path of the Titans, but with that gone, it is now a profession more keyed towards the casual player base. It functions as a collectible meta-game that rewards players with mostly cosmetic items. We were told, though, that players would be able to sometimes get something not only functional, but powerful from the profession. We're not sure how we feel about the change it has undergone quite yet.

To translate a little bit: in the original conception, collecting artifacts was the key to understanding past events. Players would need it to advance, in other words to achieve their goals in the game's present tense. The Cataclysm version, by contrast, seems to be centered around collecting and trading interesting objects for the fun of it, with limited career applications - a hobby, rather than a profession. Here's a Blizzard employee talking about the original version:


Don't worry, I don't understand the bizarre WoW-speak either (the free trial was really fun, but I never got deeper than that), but it shows you how deeply concepts derived from archaeology are embedded in the game's specific culture.

Of course, the details are scarce as yet, since Cataclysm won't be released until this fall. But it's clear that contemporary debates between archaeologists and collectors are being reflected a strange mirror here as Blizzard decides whether archaeology is a way of understanding the present by telling stories about the past, or just a collection of pretty things that can be sold on the black market.

Of course, you might be asking why archaeologists should care about a video game. First, the numbers: WoW has almost 12 million players worldwide. If a significant number of them are going to spend time looking for artifacts in ruins and putting together puzzles about the past, that's hundreds of thousands of people doing archaeology - or thinking they're doing archaeology. What they're doing, and the way the discipline is portrayed, has a long-term public significance.

Second: videogames have been one of the world's main cultural activities for a generation now. A lot of people - youth, but also adults - spend as much or more time playing games as they do reading, listening to music, or socializing with friends. Whether you like that fact or not doesn't matter. If thinking about videogames tempts you to deliver a pious lecture about the superiority of books and board games, you're willfully ignoring reality. Videogames will become more pervasive - the relevant question is what people are learning in games and how it affects real-world attitudes and behaviors. For archaeologists, it matters if players think that looting relics out of ruins is all the profession is about, and carries no consequences.

So, when will we see a real collaboration between archaeologists and videogame designers? Or do readers know of any successful examples? When will UNESCO add videogames to the intangible heritage list?

Archaeololz: Egypt is in Arabia?

In case you didn't know this already, Egypt is in Arabia. Clearly. Look at this marquee!

I believe that's Tutankhamun up there doing PR for this nightclub/bar in Thessaloniki, which of course also features bellydancing. Sort of a one-stop shop for orientalist tropes! Spotted a couple weeks back on a frappé-fueled day trip to get my Turkish visa.

A Brief History of Social Games

From game designer John Radoff comes a great poster that combines seriation and typology of social games, from knucklebone divination to XBOX and MMORPGs (via Kotaku).



Click on the image for a printable full-size version.

There's a lot to like here from the archaeologist's point of view. Radoff understands that sociocultural change is multilineal - in other words, it's not a question of one thing leading to another in a tidy sequence, but of multiple influences combining to spark changes in cultural forms. He's also captured a lot of forgotten pastimes, like play-by-mail strategy games, that were destroyed by the advent of the internet. One thing that is missing is a sense of spatial or geographical causality: i.e. how exactly do Go, Senet, and Leela connect to Monopoly historically, besides having some similar cognitive or gameplay aspects? Correlation does not imply causation.

I'm also a little curious why, given the elaborate historical paths he devises, why the modern social network games are all grouped together indiscriminately at the bottom - it gives a hint of the teleological fallacy, as if all of history was somehow a prelude to Mafia Wars, music pets, and the big-boobied princesses that are apparently the entire population of Evony. To be fair I don't think that's Radoff's point exactly - he's starting from contemporary social gaming and working backwards, rather than trying to show some kind of causal connection. (He probably could have shown this better by putting the modern social games at the top!)

Anyway, that's me being kind of hard on what's really a fun historical chart. Radoff includes a historical essay that makes some good points about the role of D&D in the evolution of social game culture:

1974 was perhaps the most important year in modern game history; this is when Dungeons and Dragons came to market. It integrated the ideas of abstracting tactical combat along with storytelling and a unique social aspect in which individual players used their imagination and creativity to contribute to the ongoing game. From D&D, you can trace a history through early mainframe computer games, to MUDs (multiuser dungeons) to MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft. Meanwhile, many people were looking to engage in asynchronous games that wouldn’t require groups to gather at set points in time, giving rise to play-by-mail games. The earliest implementations of online PBM games (aside from their manifestation as play-by-email games) were BBS “Door” games. Trade Wars is probably one of the most famous; and I wrote a game in this market called Space Empire a long time ago. A lot of these play-patterns are similar to what you’ll find in current Web-based and social-network games.

Read the rest!