Trowel and Error: The Bronze Age (A Reinterpretation)

This is a sketch by a brilliant comedy duo called Mitchell and Webb (Big Foot and Red Beard), on the transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, and how chronological periods give the impression that everyone woke up one morning and decided to switch to a different way of life. Of course, such changes are generally a very gradual social evolution.

Trowel and Error

Not so much an error on the part of the tourism authority...more the tourists who had the bright idea enough times to necessitate a sign.

Photo my own, taken at Saqqara, Egypt. Saqqara is the site of Djoser's (or Zoser) Step Pyramid, which is one of (if not the) oldest pyramid known. Built around 2600 BC, and thus more or less contemporaneous with the beginning of the Mature Harappan!

Not suitable for climbing.

Trowel and Error

That last post was a bit (ok, very) heavy, so this is probably a good time to introduce the Trowel and Error gag reel section! The pun on trial and error is that 'archaeologists get by on trowel and error', and frankly, it always cracks me up.




Image is a box of Greek pottery from the island of Lesbos, marked with the logical label. Hopefully that made you laugh, because it once entertained me for three weeks. Us archaeologists are a weird lot.