October 23, 2014

"Archeologists Dig Up Sphinxes From DeMille’s 'The Ten Commandments' Buried Along Central California Coast."

I love that headline. It's absurd and yet true, literally — because the stuff from the movie really was buried and in need of meticulous excavation of the archeological kind — and more deeply — because it's making me think that all those ancient Egyptian monuments were melodramatic, crowd-awing  spectacle of a piece with Hollywood.

17 comments:

Rumpletweezer said...

How much of this stuff is going to confuse the hell out of future archeologists?

Saint Croix said...

That's my nickname in my Sunday school class, Demille. I guess because he's a filmmaker from North Carolina and did these big religious epics. I've never actually seen any of his movies. Does anybody have any favorites?

BarrySanders20 said...

Speaking of truthful absurdities, I wonder when they will carefully excavate the Obama's Roman columns (or were they Greek?) from the heady days when he was still the Messiah who could kiss any woman he pleased without any backlash.

Drago said...

Rumpletweezer said...
How much of this stuff is going to confuse the hell out of future archeologists?

The real confusion will start when Crack reappears to inform us that these sphinxes were actually created 2,000 years ago by advanced North American Black societies that were later crushed by the invading white man.

Crack has gone the full "Black Athena" route. Which, by the way, is standard teaching in every "African-American" studies program...including the one at UW-Madison.

glam1931 said...

Considering they'e fragile constructions of lathe and plaster, I don't think future archaeologists will be fooled.

furious_a said...

A wrecked, still-radioactive Statue of Liberty was discovered on the cliffs just north of Atlantic City.

Those maniacs. D*mn them all to hell.

Jim said...

That is meta. So is the shelter that was built in 1932 to protect Casa Grande in AZ. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places. What if they built a shelter to protect the shelter that protects Casa Grande. It's shells all the way up and turtles all the way down.

Rumpletweezer said...

Archie Waugh said:
"Considering they'e fragile constructions of lathe and plaster, I don't think future archaeologists will be fooled."

What if they graduated from Harvard?

mikeski said...

"A wrecked, still-radioactive Statue of Liberty was discovered on the cliffs just north of Atlantic City."

...and then it launched into space.

Michael in ArchDen said...

Saint Croix, you can't go wrong with "The 10 Commandments" starring Charleston Heston. It's the obvious choice, but still a very strong movie.

glam1931 said...

Rumpletweezer, ya got me there!

traditionalguy said...

Go for it. Sand dunes near Santa Barbara need to earn their keep.

Saint Croix said...

thanks, Michael!

What about the original version? Not as good?

Anthony said...

They've actually known about that junk for years and this isn't even the first time excavating it (search for 'archaeoblog demille' for some of my posts/links) .

It's kinda neat from a historical perspective -- preserving some Hollywood heritage and all that -- but I'm not sure how archaeologically significant it is.

They did a cheesy sic-fi movie about it a few years ago called "Sands of Oblivion" which is entirely forgettable save for the presence of the utterly captivating Morena Baccarin.

Sam L. said...

Rumpletweezer @ 12:36 for Comment Of The Day!

Christy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Beach, hyper symbolic sculpture emerging from the sand...
furious_ got it...Planet of the Apes.