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Summary: I'm an archaeologist...love the book!
Review: This book pokes definite fun at my career but I still love it. It reminds us to be mindful of our conclusions and it's funny to adults and children. I had a prof read it to my class during undergrad and the class was laughing out loud.
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Summary: Watch out archaeology, Macaulay's on the loose...
Review: This book provides a delightful, fast-paced, and breath taking account of discovery and amazement that parodies the discovery of King Tut's tomb in ancient Egypt. In Macaulay's book, a hapless amateur archaeologist participating in a walk across a once-inhabited North America stumbles across the archaeological find of a life-time -- the "Toot-N-Come-On" Motel. And things escalate from there. Keep an eye out for the "great alter" that is the central point of the "main burial chamber." Great fun, great times.
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Summary: A Gem!
Review: This book should be required reading for anyone interested in archaeology or history. It will make you think while simultaneously making you laugh out loud. Egyptology buffs will particularly enjoy the inside jokes.
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Summary: A funny send up of a scholarly subject.
Review: This book was actually a gift from my Mother who knows I enjoy things archaeological and historical. Since she's more than a trifle eccentric and has a marvelous sense of the absurd, I've a sneaking suspicion she was poking a little fun at me--which is something I probably need once in a while for my own good. The Motel of the Mysteries is a wonderful send up of the fields of archaeology and history. It's aim is doubtless to entertain, at which it's vastly successful, but over and above that the book makes quite clear what archaeology legitimately can and cannot do. I think it also points out that what is taken as "The Reality" of the past is often as much a function of current cultural biases and of the personal motives of individual researchers as it is of what actually occurred in the past. (This was made quite clear to me when I saw Knossos on Crete for the first time and realized that a great deal of imagination had gone into the reconstruction of the "Minoan" buildings there). My favorite parts of Motel were Archaeologist Carson's interpretation of the hotel bathroom as the inner sanctum of a religious structure and the subsequent depiction of his assistant--ala Heinrich Schliemann with the Trojan treasure and Leonard Wooley with the Ur III treasure--wearing bathroom accoutrements as religious paraphernalia. The author also pokes fun at museums and at all of us, when he includes a collection of "Souvenirs and Quality Reproductions" available for sale at the end of the book. My favorite is the coffee set based on the "sacred urn" (toilet). Goodness knows I've purchased my fair share of quality reproductions on my travels throughout the world! This should be suggested reading for every college history and archeology major and required for those seeking degrees over BA in these fields!
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Summary: Motel of the Mysteries
Review: This is a great science fiction book for children or adults. It is set in the future year of 4022 AD. The United States of America was destroyed in the past by a flood of junk mail and has now become a ruins that is visited by tourists. A scientist vists this site know as USA (ooh-sa) and accidentally falls through a hole into what he interprets as a burial chamber (a hotel room). He interprets everything he sees as some religious object (i.e. the TV is the Great Alter before whom the dead are placed on an alter). It is very entertaining and rich in vocabulary.
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Summary: Very Funny!!
Review: We read this book at school and its really good! Its hard to understand if you are a kid under 10 because it uses archological terms. The pictures are REALLY funny and its good to read if you are studing the Egyptians or Howard Carter.In my opion it is one of the best books ever writen!!!!!!!!!
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Summary: What a hoot!
Review: We, a group of teachers, found it hilarious. What a delightful parody of archeology and North American society. This is a great beginning for students to look at other aspects of society that they could satirize. It points out one of the problems with the scientific method. One can prove just about anything one would like, if there exists a preconceived theory. Nicely done.
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