Motel of the Mysteries

This book is hilarious. The late 70's United States is accidentally buried under several feet of junk mail, trapping and entombing the entire country for several centuries. Eventually an archaeologist stumbles upon a sinkhole which leads to the discovery of a budget motel. "Do you see anything?" "Yes, wonderful things!..." And so our culture is rediscovered, misinterpreted, lampooned, and utterly skewered in a send-up of the discovery of Tut Ankh Amun's tomb. Requires some actual reading, the pictures are great and I think it's great social commentary (especially since I'm a member of Generation X!)

I had to buy copies to lend to people. My own copy is too well used. This is an excellent commentary on archaeological interpretation. As an archaeologist, I find this book wonderfully amusing.

Book is entertaining and fun. Easy read. Too bad the seller sent a water-damaged copy without noting the extent of damage in the descrption.

I read this book as a boy and loved the art. As a 51 years old man I love the comedy. It's a reimagining of the King Tut exhibit except the exhibit is of "modern" setting in 1979. A great short read.

It's humor/satire in the best tradition - something that pokes fun at (some would say skewers) those who tend to take themselves far too seriously. In this case we're talking about archeologists, but even at that it's limited to those who make too many intellectual leaps from the available evidence. By that I mean those scientists who tend to input too much in the way of fiction or story telling to artifacts. It's done so gently, but the tone is spot on - the same pronouncements done with no doubt whatsoever and yet objectively wrong. We have the benefit here of knowing what the actual truth is, which is where the humor is grounded. Macaulay really has done a good job in this parody of a serious scientific work, so much so that one kind of wonders what the *real* story is when reading, oh, the latest paleontological findings or other similar papers. This isn't to say that all science is wrong - not at all - but only to wonder what if science doesn't necessarily know what it thinks it knows And again, I'm talking about scientists who go a bit too far in their theorizing. I like this book - a lot. It's a fun parody.

An excellent read for anyone who enjoys archaeology and appreciates the speculative nature of many discoveries. Suitable for middle school and up, in my opinion, though obviously your mileage may vary. The illustrations are huge and splendid.

I wanted to love this book. The idea is great. Some of the execution is funny and it's a fun book overall. It's much shorter than I expected. I heard about it on the radio and didn't actually look too closely at the listing - my fault. I think so much more could be done with this idea.

Fun, simple, and clever way to look at archaeology- witty and light but easily invites complex trains of thought concerning on the ways in which temporal and cultural assumptions and biases affect the “facts” and “conclusions” drawn from archaeological finds when studied without definitive contexts- this quick read would be an amazing concluding assignment for an introductory archaeology course with a discussion about the lenses of those researching and recording ancient sites and how they can impact our understanding of human history.

I read this book as an 8th grader and bought it for my son who loves history and archaeology. Very interesting.

I have liked David Macauley's drawings since childhood and stumbled over this while looking for one of his other books. This is an excellent and hilarious satirical take on the interpretation of archeological artefacts. The tone of the prose is just right and on top of the obvious disparity between ordinary items (mis-)interpreted as parts of a funeral cult by future historians, there are lots of a little more subtle jokes spread throughout the text. Never again will I look at an ancient museum exhibit without thinking of this book. This should be well accessible to teenagers, younger children might need some of the vocabulary explained.

Rispetto alle altre sue storie, è meno pulito e lineare. In cambio è molto più divertente e intelligente.

As I tutor I use this book regularly with my classes to illustrate how, when we look at history, we can never know the facts for certain as we can only make assumptions based on our current knowledge. This humourous book shows how easy it could be to misinterpret historical findings to make them fit our current way of thinking or meet a personal agenda. As the saying goes 'history is written by the survivors/victors' so the 'truth' may not be all it seems.

came fast and in super condition. Will definitely recommend this to friends and family. Thank you so much