Egyptian pyramid workers lived in dormitory camps and ate in communal kitchens. The staple food was a large loaf of bread, baked in a crude cone or beehive shaped pan called a bedga.
http://www.aeraweb.org/lost-city-project......workers/

I know that would seem to refute the earliest image of a Magic performance theory .

Just keep in mind that common, everyday objects make the most convincing props.

I'm not saying,.... I'm just saying.

Thank you for the post ringmaster.

-Mary Mowder

"Exerimental archeology" apparently means we can look at stuff we find in digs, then play around with what we find, then project our findings back int the past and make conclusions.

I could write a dissertation on the implications.

The truth is that I love this stuff and find it cool. Ancient things are my forte. There is a reason that Herodotus, Plutarch, and the Bilble would be on my desert island reading list.

But this stuff? No thanks. Too much guessing for my taste.

Yea guess as opposed to hypothesize is not really stimulating.

That's a cool find

I thought the whole point is to do that projective interpretation. As Eco did not write...the role of the writer and the limits of justification.

The Egyptian image was mentioned in context as far back as 1948 in Victor Farelli's book on John Ramsay's Cups and Balls routine. Who said it was someone doing the cups trick?

That's a bit unfair. We can use experimental results to increase or decrease our confidence in our interpolation of ancient sources and artifacts. That's not quite the same as "project[ing] our findings back into the past and mak[ing] conclusions."

For example, modern chemistry can help us to understand ancient metallurgy (or bread-baking). Much has been learned about paleolithic tool-making by actually flaking rocks and trying to replicate the edges found in artifacts. Once we make an arrowhead, we are not guaranteed to know who the ancients accomplished the same task, but surely we're further ahead than we were before we tried to do it ourselves.

But I'm pretty sure you agree with this and were being provocative.

Rumor has it Egyptians invented beer to feed the workers. To this I'm eternally grateful to the Pharaohs...