Product Description

It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16718 in Books
• Published on: 1979-10-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Review
"David Macaulay . . . is a superb craftsman and an imaginative writer and illustrator . . . His new book is a marvel of imagination and a comfortable satire. He projects a time when our civilization will have been buried . . . As always with Mr. Macaulay's books, wonderfully illustrated." -- Review

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Customer Reviews

A book ALL Archaeologists / Historians should read
If you are a fan of David Macaulay's books about the contruction of such wonders as a Cathedral, Pyramid, City, Mill, etc ... then you will really enjoy this book about future archaeologists / explorers "discovering" the burried ruins of an American motel room in the 41st century ... and the miss-identification of just about every item found.

I think that this is a book that every archaeologist / historian should read because it perfectly explains the traps that we may fall into when trying to explain the past using present day knowledge and sensibilities.

The events portrayed in this book show the reader just how easy it is to make a mistake ... even when one's best intentions are at stake.

Then again, it is a David Macaulay (always great) and it is funny! Especially the Museum Gift Store items displayed at the end of the book.

A funny send up of a scholarly subject.
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!

Funny Book Easy To Read Good For All Ages
Recently, I have come across one of the books that I had a whille back and I was really excited to read it. The book is called Motel of the Mysteries and is written by David MacAulay.

In this book the story starts in the present where the whole intire Northern American Continent is covered with an avalance of junk mail. Instantly killing everyone, there is not much known about the 'Yanks' from then on. That is untill the year 4022 where an amateur archeologist finds himself at the entrance of an ancient 'Usa' burial site.

This book is interesting to read because the reader is left to wonder how much do the 'experts' of today really understand about the ancient civilizations. It is a very cute book and isn't that hard to read so a young reader could enjoy it as well as an older one. Overall I think Motel of the Mysteries is a funny book and should be read by anyone interested in history and humor.

- Cole