General Hubbub Surrounding an Individual Artifact

[orari]

Artifact Question:
There is the artifact. That's one thing. The other thing is the "general hubbub" that surrounds an artifact. What is the weirdest hubbub you have ever known to occur or thought was occurring around a particular artifact? I'll start just to give you an example of what I mean.
Several years ago, I had a newspaper article published about my research on portable petroglyph stones found in the Middle Cumberland region of Tennessee. All of a sudden, I started receiving numerous photographs of rocks from people who thought they might have found a portable petroglyph stone. In most instances, these were just large, amorphous rocks like folks bring to this forum sometimes. Well, I was very busy with a work project at that time and did not have a lot of extra time to answer back right away---although I love to answer questions about artifacts for people.
One particular person sent me a picture of a rock that she felt sure was a petroglyph stone, and she mentioned that she was planning a trip to the Gulf Coast. Okay. People go on vacation trips to the Gulf Coast all the time---no big deal. I was not able to answer back for several weeks, but I sensed growing impatience from this person over that period of time. Then I received a really insistent note that big plans were underway, the Gulf Coast trip was finally on and ready to go, and she really needed to know about her rock right then and there. So, I agreed to open up the old e-mail and take a close look at the photograph of the rock and write back. As it turned out, the rock was just an amorphous slab with no petroglyphs on it. So, I kindly wrote back and took some extra time to explain that it was not a portable petroglyph stone and to explain why in terms of what I could see or not see on the rock. People deserve a sensible explanation. Later that day, I got what seemed like an emotional and crest fallen note of disappointment and disillusionment about the rock and how it had been so important that the rock be a real petroglyph stone. No one came right out and said it---but it finally dawned on me what was probably going on with that amorphous rock.
This person probably felt certain that her amorphous rock was a valuable petroglyph stone. She probably thought it would be worth millions of dollars. An answer was needed from me right away so she could hastily sell the stone, temporarily pocket all that money, and use it to buy all of the airline tickets, tropical real estate, and abundant luxury items that she had been carefully planning for weeks---in other words---she viewed the amorphous rock as her key to a carefully organized and planned "whole new way of life" that was just a whisper away from reality on the Gulf Coast---and the whole thing was most likely based on her premature and perhaps delusional emotional investment in an ordinary rock. hmy:

[JoshinMO]

Wonder what the vacation had to do with it. Guess she just wanted to use you a little.

[gregszybala]

Well there is an extreme I haven't seen. Amazing what some folks will see, want to see and expect out of a rock.

[rmartin]

I will probably get scolded for bringing this up. I was lurking here before I joined and got a lot of laughs Over this one :crazy:  :rolf:  :crazy:  :rolf:

http://www.arrowheads.com/index.php/forum/best-of-the-best-threads/9946-clay-tablets

[arrow719]

rmartin wrote:

I will probably get scolded for bringing this up. I was lurking here before I joined and got a lot of laughs Over this one :crazy:  :rolf:  :crazy:  :rolf:

http://www.arrowheads.com/index.php/forum/best-of-the-best-threads/9946-clay-tablets

  That thread was before my time here so I never saw it. All I can say is good grief!  :crazy:    :rolf:

[JoshinMO]

He aint even posting them.   :laugh:

[Hoss]

Ray I was thinking about the same thing Clay Tablets  :rolf:  :rolf:  :rolf:
Orari that very insightful observation.

[SDhunter]

rmartin wrote:

I will probably get scolded for bringing this up. I was lurking here before I joined and got a lot of laughs Over this one :crazy:  :rolf:  :crazy:  :rolf:

http://www.arrowheads.com/index.php/forum/best-of-the-best-threads/9946-clay-tablets

  Like Jack said way back then,  Good Lord,  this keeps coming back like a bad penny.      I remember that thread like yesterday.  Hard to believe it was 3 years ago.

[orari]

rmartin wrote:

I will probably get scolded for bringing this up. I was lurking here before I joined and got a lot of laughs Over this one :crazy:  :rolf:  :crazy:  :rolf:

http://www.arrowheads.com/index.php/forum/best-of-the-best-threads/9946-clay-tablets

  That's exactly the kind of story I was looking for!!!  I love the esoteric and hilarious in archaeology---like the famous Cardiff Giant, the so-called Davenport Tablet, the Bat Creek stone, and the "ancient pygmy race of Tennessee."

[Kyflintguy]

That thread is just hilarious, yet painful at the same time. Authenticating from photos is hard to do, but obvious fakes are always going to get called out immediately by anyone who is knowledgeable.  What gets me is those weren't even his,  he was defending someone else's fakes :crazy:

[clovisoid]

There was a time when it was perfectly legal to dig and collect in Guatemala, and I was going there regularly on business anyway so I'd add on a couple of days at the beginning and end of every trip and have some fun in the dirt.
I was never much of a buyer of relics down there, but I speak Spanish fluently, I knew some local Quiche workers in the capital from some small villages who put me in contact with cousins of cousins, and I got to spend some time playing Indiana Jones.  After a couple of trips most of the sellers figured out I just wanted to find celts and pots, and wasn't interested in high dollar pieces, so they just me left alone.  I'd run into them every once in a while in town, buy them some beers, and hear pretty cool stories about big pyramids -and- temples.
I kept hearing a story about a large jade figure that someone in another village had found, but it was too big to move so the digger covered it up.  (That's actually pretty common tactic among diggers all around the world if they are worried something might get stolen.)  The next trip the jade figure was a boulder, the next trip it was almost life sized, the next trip was that some European had chartered a plane and have given the finder and his family citizenship in some country, etc.  After about a year of hearing about this statue, I finally got to see it in the collection of a local wealthy collector.  It was a little green-stone carving, pretty cool, but nothing like the rumors.

[Hoss]

The Pygmy race?  was that a five K race? :rolf:  :rolf:  :rolf:  I never heard of that one myself.
We have had all kinds on here Orari It is the hardest thing to explain to someone who shares a picture of a flint fish hook or chipped flint Thunderbird and claims my Grandfather found it in our pasture. IT just never goes well.  People tend to side with family rather than facts. I do not know how many times I have heard " My grand father dug that in such and such place."  I had a guy get really mad at me because I told him his Obsidian modern knapped  Fanciful Dalton ( it was 1 and 1/3" wide and 3" long thin as a cracker no bevel to blade edge at all made all wrong in my opinion never mind the obsidian not being found in GA..)" His claim it was from GA. But he stuck to his guns his daddy found it in the bean field and I was a very bad man for calling his daddy a liar.!
This stuff happens all the time because people tend to believe what they want to believe and not the facts. It is like the best story teller gets through to more people than a good well written archaeological journal would.

[orari]

Hoss wrote:

The Pygmy race?  was that a five K race? :rolf:  :rolf:  :rolf:  I never heard of that one myself.
We have had all kinds on here Orari It is the hardest thing to explain to someone who shares a picture of a flint fish hook or chipped flint Thunderbird and claims my Grandfather found it in our pasture. IT just never goes well.  People tend to side with family rather than facts. I do not know how many times I have heard " My grand father dug that in such and such place."  I had a guy get really mad at me because I told him his Obsidian modern knapped  Fanciful Dalton ( it was 1 and 1/3" wide and 3" long thin as a cracker no bevel to blade edge at all made all wrong in my opinion never mind the obsidian not being found in GA..)" His claim it was from GA. But he stuck to his guns his daddy found it in the bean field and I was a very bad man for calling his daddy a liar.!
This stuff happens all the time because people tend to believe what they want to believe and not the facts. It is like the best story teller gets through to more people than a good well written archaeological journal would.

  Thanks Hoss.  You will be fascinated with the whole history of the ancient race of pygmies in Tennessee.  You can read all about it starting on page 42 in the following journal:

http://capone.mtsu.edu/kesmith/TNARCH/Volume7Issue1.pdf

It makes a good read on a cold winter evening.  Hope you enjoy it.

[huntwild]

Can't believe I just spent an hour reading up on Tennessee Pygmy Indians :crazy: 

[orari]

huntwild wrote:

Can't believe I just spent an hour reading up on Tennessee Pygmy Indians :crazy: 

  Yes.  But you have to admit it was fun.  A lot of the 1800s misinterpretation could have been avoided if the people involved had known about epiphyses. The long bones of children have structures called epiphyses on the ends---and on other bones.  These are what allow the bones to grow.  When bone growth and development are done, the epiphyses seal with the main part of the long bone to finalize the adult bone.  Evidence of unsealed epiphyses is very easy to identify in child burials, and their presence always indicates that the skeleton is that of a subadult.