Students in my intermediate-level course on the Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt have been giving short, in-class presentations on examples of “junk archaeology,” “bad Egyptology,” and “pseudo-science.” At first some of them seemed skeptical about their abilities to locate this kind of material, but I assured them it was lurking in the not-too-dark corners of the Internet.
The assignment has three goals: First, to get the students comfortable speaking in front of the class before they do a more formal presentation at the end of the semester. Second, to discuss–generally speaking–the nature of the Internet as a “democratic” medium for the dissemination of scholarship. And third, to question why ancient Egypt seems to draw out the wildest and most unfounded theories. As a specialist in Roman archaeology (and to a much lesser extent, Greek), I note that there is far, far less “pseudo-science” around classical cultures.
Perhaps it is what Ian Shaw notes about ancient Egypt that makes it susceptible to this type of intellectual reaction: “..the attraction of ancient Egyptian culture is its combination of exotica and familiarity…” (Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction 2004, 9).
For what they are worth, here are some of the sites and articles my students presented as examples of “bad Egyptology”:
Egyptian pyramids were power plants, generating electricity
Michael Jackson and the Myth of Osiris
Pharaoh as wizard in Ancient Egypt
Mars Traded with Ancient Egypt (autoplay video!)
Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (movie from 1971)
Egyptian Colony in the Grand Canyon
Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt
New Pyramids found with Google Earth
Mystery of the Sphinx (assigns date to 10,000 BCE)
Star Wars Spacecraft in Ancient Egypt
I think this assignment was a tremendous success, if only because I became aware of this photo:
