#WordWeavers 7. Look around and describe an object as if it were a mysterious item (no name, no idea of it's purpose).
A metal pole reaches skyward. Some branches are firmly attached, others, held on by friction, have migrated to the downwind side. Three of the branches support oddly shaped pendants: one tubular, one roofed and floored with a cylindrical cage between, one odd-shaped wooden frame around a flat square metal cage.
(Cue the archeologists: "Probably a ritual object")
(Cue the archeologists: "Probably a ritual object")
Today you are my hero. 🥇"Ritual object" is the first go to explanation indoctrinated into budding archeologists, then never corrected.
The second "archeologists are too conservative" nonsense is typically calling it a female-centered social system where if the genders reversed the society would be patriarchal or patrilineal.
@sfwrtr I'm going to be 72 in a few months, and I've been hearing jokes my entire life about male archeologists calling any unknown thing a ritual object... which sometimes turn out to be tools for fiber arts or making cheese or child care or some other tasks usually performed by women.
Part of the joke here is that my object's pendants actually contain what might be described as offerings of grain, etc., so the archeologists would be slightly less deluded than usual.
Elyse M Grasso
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist