Motel of the Mysteries

An intriguing book that spans a wide age range for interest. Macaulay writes and illustrates a story about a futuristic fictional archaeology team exploring an ancient building, only the ancient building is a motel. What is most fun about the book is seeing how objects that are familiar to the reader might be described by someone without an understanding of their purpose. A fantastic book to enjoy on its own, but it's also a great one for teaching presuppositions, limited knowledge, the limits of history (and record keeping), and so on.

A gentle poke at American culture of the mid twentieth century, and a hysterical take down of the whole academic history, archeology and cultural anthropology methods used to analyze and interpret discoveries. Lot's of subtle digs here - the lost motel from the country of Usa is the "Toot 'n' C'mon" and the discoverer is Howard Carter ... interstate highways become Nazca lines for aliens and desk lamps statues of the great god Watt. The illustrations are wonderful and the humor is very dark and very dry. Read it and laugh til you cry.

This is a clever little book that pokes fun at archaeological interpretations, particularly how quick they are to attribute items they aren't sure of to some sort of religious purpose. There are a lot of parallels to Howard Carter's excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt, and the "archaeologist" of this book is in fact named Howard Carson.

In this generously illustrated book that takes place in the future, North America is already destroyed, having been buried beneath junk mail over 2,000 years ago. Howard stumbles upon an old motel room with a couple of bodies in them, and he interprets everything through a very wrong lens. The most base, disgusting, or mundane items become ceremonial and sacred (the bathroom is the inner sanctum, show more for example). Yet the items Howard finds are not only there to criticize fast, lazy answers in archaeology--they sometimes reflect poorly on modern priorities. For example, the TV was an altar and the remote a way to stay spiritually connected to it. They shine a light in the room to see not glints of gold, but glints of plastic.

Written in 1979, Motel of the Mysteries is fast becoming a relic itself and interestingly will need more and more interpretation itself. While most items it mentions still exist, some are obsolete and references are made to items that are less and less familiar to us (such as corded phones, the concept of banging on the top and sides of a TV to get it to work, and a list of old cars with animal names that are no longer produced). Yet it makes a timeless point and is so short I would have to consider it an essential archaeology book. show less

An illustrated novella telling the story of archaeologists in the far future excavating the North American country of Usa. Focuses on a "burial site" (a motel room) and illustrates and speculates about all the artifacts found within. The speculations are wildly off base. I think this is meant to be a commentary on modern life and the way we idolize things we shouldn't? Not sure. The commentary about archaeology itself was obvious but seemed more jokey than satirical. It kind of missed the mark for me (and felt a little dated--maybe because we idolize different things wrongly now or in different ways than we did in 1979 when the book was published?). It was mildly amusing, and the way the illustrations and the text played on one another show more was fun. But I have to say I'm somewhat bemused. show less

This book addresses scientific questions and techniques of creating inferences from limited evidence. It takes the view of a post-apocalyptic ethnographer or anthropologist trying to look back at the late twentieth century world and to identify just from the artifacts that have been left behind, and the condition and locations in which they were left, who we were and how we lived. The extensive use of inference both acknowledges the challenges faced by real anthropologists and archeologists and provides a means for insightful satire of some of the vices of the time period.
Dark without becoming overly grim this is an excellent exercise for readers of all ages to but some academic distance between what they know about day to day life and show more what would really actually be obvious to an outside observer. show less

Humorous with little flairs of satire all over, but ultimately the joke wears thin fairly quickly. Thankfully, this is a quick read with fun illustrations.

This is a sweet, funny, and light book with amazing illustrations -- I read it in one sitting while in a hammock in my backyard. It reminded me of A Canticle for Leibowitz in terms of misinterpretation of the past (which is our present), only Motel of Mysteries is much shorter and with pictures. This would have been a fun book to read with my kids.