Archaeology
by Jim Farrar (1975)
NAME: Archie Logist
DATE: Nixonary 8th, 3576 A.R.
ARRIVAL: 7:30 A.S.R.
DEPARTURE: 4:47 P.S.S.
DIGGING SITE: Western Coast of North America, Near Ruins of the Ancient American City of San Francisco
FINDINGS AND COMMENTS: The diggings on the beach yielded some rather unique finds today. We have reason to believe that we have stumbled onto an ancient “sacrificial sanctuary.” Some of the relics unearthed tend to support this conclusion. On the northern most end of the excavation site we unearthed some charred and meat-picked bones, not of human origin but, at first observation, those of some sort of ungulate, presumably a cow. In the immediate area we found crude cutting devices and some incinerating materials. The knives were unusually tooled having blunt edges like this:
On the blade of the knife, the words STAINLESS STEEL had been inscribed. We assume that this was the name of the owner.
The burning apparatus was most extraordinary also. It consisted of a large bowl supported by three legs, with a series of thick, parallel wires running across the top. In the center of the bowl we found what proved to be upon analysis, charcoal. We have every reason to believe that this charcoal was used for fuel. The whole setup, when assembled, looked more or less like this:
Very interesting , isn’t it?
We discovered two more items, which we feel were related to the cutting and burning tools. The first was simple. It was just a container with a small hole cut in the top. It was made out of a very soft metal and looked something like this:
We also observed little rings in the area which looked like this.
We also discovered two other devices in the area that we found quite fascinating. One of the objects was a pipe which had a mouthpiece on one end and a reservoir on the other. It was seemingly small and appeared to be different from the other smoking pipes that were popular in that day. It looked like this:
After studying the evidence and the history of the era, my colleagues and I have concluded that this pipe was used for ceremonial purposes only.
CONCLUSIONS: As I said earlier, these relics were found in an old sacrificial area. This would seem to indicate the purposes of these various objects.
Now, it is known that the 20th century Americans would make sacrifices to deities that they revered. We have discovered how they would pay a penance to some god that they called Irs each year. His name in big letters was found all over buildings and documents from that age. They looked like this:
We believe these tools were used for much the same purpose. Here is a run down of what we contend to be the major points of the rite:
A group of maybe twenty or thirty people would gather here at the sacred area to pay homage to some god, possibly the god of the sea which they called NAVY. They would then kill a cow or some other animal and cut it into different sections (which explains the blunt knife’s purpose) They would then kindle a fire in the bow-shaped burning device and place the animal on top of the wire “grill” offering it as a “burning” gift to their god. At the same time they would place the metal rings on their fingers and smoke some undetermined substance from the holy pope. This probably had some sort of religious significance, which we have no way of determining the details of.
After the animal had been burnt to a crisp, the worshipers would remove the bones of the carcass from the bowl and douse the fire with the holy substance that was found in the thin metal cans. (This also sheds light on their use.) The bones would then be buried and the people would go their separate ways.
Now we realize there is much room for error in this theory, but it is as good a guess as one can make considering the information given. Besides, what other alternatives are there?