CBR 17 BINGO: TBR, because whenever Sam Kean comes out with a new book, I add it to my TBR
BINGO: Play, Purple, TBR, Diaspora, Culture
In the introduction to Dinner with King Tut, Kean confesses that he always found archaeology to be a bit dry. It should be thrilling, discovering the secrets of past civilizations, but he usually finds archaeological sites to be a letdown, with “scores of sunburned men and women sprawled in the dirt, dusting off broken pot shards with toothbrushes.” But then he discovered experimental archaeology, in which practitioners attempt to actively recreate the past. “They brew Viking beer. They make mummies. They drive chariots, play Aztec ballgames, revive ancient yeast and bake a tangy sourdough that King Tut ate.” If this sounds a bit like historical reenactment, you wouldn’t be too far off. Some practitioners of experimental archaeology are accredited scientists, while others are hobbyists with an obsession.
Take, for example, Janet Stephens, an American hairstylist with a background in theater. Stephens became fascinated with Roman hairstyles after visiting the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and seeing statues of ancient Roman women. She became obsessed with figuring out how the hairstyles were done, diving into scholarly papers on the topic. She was the first to realize that the Romans were sewing the hair into the designs they wanted, upending the hypothesis that the Romans were wearing wigs. Don’t underestimate a hobbyist with an obsession!
Similarly, an Egypt enthusiast from Mississippi named Roger Larsen created a practical experiment to demonstrate that it would be preposterous for ancient Egyptians to have used ramps exclusively for moving the giant boulders needed to build the pyramids (a popular theory). His work shows that the volume of sand needed for such a ramp would have exceeded the volume of the pyramid itself, making the effort impractical at best. Nevertheless, he’s had a hard time getting anyone to listen to his alternative theories because, in his words, academics are closed-minded. He may have a point; to be fair, though, the academics in question deal with a lot of cranks who propose theories like the use of kites or “acoustic levitation” to raise the blocks, so one might understand why they’d be wary of fringe ideas.
Kean dives into experimental archaeology by participating in the practioners’ research. He doesn’t just style hair with Stephens or build ramps with Larsen. He tans a deer hide using the “brain tanning” method, which is exactly what it sounds like. He gets bruised up playing a the Aztec ballgame ullamaliztli, in which you have to hit the ball with your hips. He got a (small) hand-poked tattoo in the manner of 6th century California tribes. He eats weird food, learns to throw an atlatl (a prehistoric spear-thrower), and even trepans a boar head. He puts in the work to really understand the sights, sounds, smells, taste, and touch of history.
As much as I love Kean’s work, Dinner with King Tut is probably my least favorite of his books. This isn’t because of the subject matter, which is interesting, but because he intersperses fiction within each chapter. Each chapter is about a specific time period and culture (e.g., South America, 7500 BC; Polynesia, 1000s BC; China, 1200 AD). Kean introduces the time period and then launches into a little story about a person from that time period facing some sort of challenge (e.g., having to hunt during a drought; playing a game for one’s life in an Aztec arena). I can understand why he did this, as the stories make the information he is presenting accessible. They aren’t supposed to be great works of fiction, but I couldn’t help thinking the entire time “these stories are weak.” I pick up Kean because he’s an extremely talented nonfiction writer. I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of my reading for stories that were, let’s just say, not brilliant.
I recommend this book, though if you are a Kean fan like I am you might be a little disappointed. If you are interested in ancient civilizations and aren’t typically a non-fiction reader, then this might be just the thing for you.