On Archeology and Gaming
A proposal to the video game industry for a better and more accurate representation of archeology in our culture.
After reviewing The Forgotten City a few months ago,1 the idea that developers would be unwilling to shell out a few pennies on the dollar to double-check their translations really started to itch at the back of my skull. I’ve voiced my complaints about the tech industry and how the entrepreneurial mindset cuts corners in ways that will ruin real works of art, but seeing it play out in that game got to me. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that the representation of the ancient world has become so sparse outside of surface-level aesthetics that I haven’t had much of an opportunity to be disappointed by anything deeper since this newsletter began. Instead of limiting myself to one short article of pusillanimous criticism, I figured the best way to see change in the world would be to draft up a proposal for what I would want to see in a video game.
It’s a shame that we’ve never gotten any real representation of archeological field work in popular media. There’s maybe about half an hour’s worth of actual archeology across all of the Indiana Jones films,2 and most of that comes from the first film. We have seen popular culture take much more inspiration from the scenes where Indy gets chased by the large boulder than him descending into the map room, regardless. Media projects that focus on other occupations which get similarly bogged down in monotonous paperwork like police or secret agents tend to omit those details from the story. Instead, I’d like to play a game that utilizes both halves of an archeologist’s responsibilities.
The first half of the gameplay loop will consist of traveling to different dig sites in the Mesopotamian and Mediterranean regions to uncover a variety of artifacts. Most of the time they’ll be digging in the ground, but sometimes they’ll have to deal with irate farmers or thieves in the region. All manner of things will be pulled out of the ground: the protagonist will start out by working the mesh sieves to find coins and potsherds, and will move their way up to pulling swords out of the dirt. The main plot would revolve around discovering clay bullae, which is where the second half of the gameplay loop would begin. In an archeology lab, the players would have the opportunity to transcribe and translate any inscriptions they found along the way. Enough resources exist3 in the public domain that players can be given the opportunity to learn ancient languages through this game alone, or otherwise they can bring their own experiences in from the beginning. Alternatively, players would be able to hire an expert in a given language with some of the in-game currency to translate documents for them, but they must correctly identify the language from the artifact’s pre-filled provenience and appearance because they’ll have to pay whoever they hire for the consultation even if they don’t know the language.4 This encourages players to use and/or develop outside knowledge without making it a barrier for entry to the game.
In order to create items to analyze, a whole team of polyglots can be employed to create forgeries of ancient artifacts that would be scanned directly into the game. The price point for reliable 3D scanners is still largely outside of the budget of the average writer on Substack, but creating physical copies of in-game items would help to authenticate the experience. It would take a 3D modeling artist days to form all the idiosyncrasies that are present in all forms of inscription. The hills and valleys of lettering on curse tablets will naturally look different than those in wax, for example. If the game sold well enough, the real fake artifacts could become a touring exhibition at modern art museums. Even if not, the merchandising opportunity for 3D printed replicas of various items will create other opportunities for profit. In my essay On the Retelling of Myths, I mentioned that it would be interesting for writers to explore the content of what they might expect to find in some lost works that we know about. It’s fun to speculate about what could possibly be in the second book of Aristotle’s Poetics, for example, and giving the player access to fake documents in an in-universe version of the Oxyrhynchus digsite would be a neat side quest. Coins of kings long-forgotten to the sands of time may also be uncovered, but the top layer of soil will always necessarily produce Roman currency in order to emphasize the economic ubiquity of their empire. Of course, a thinly-veiled reference to Ea-Nasir and his low-quality copper is almost obligatory in a game of this nature as well.5
The main plot would have to revolve around finding something mythological but not common in pop culture; I think finding Atlantis would inspire too many weird nerds to hijack the game, but finding Alexander’s tomb doesn’t have enough mystique behind it. For these reasons I think the inciting incident for our protagonist to get funding is the discovery of real adamant metal, and an inscription that gives a promising lead to find the tomb of Perseus. Maybe a tablet nearby explains that it was stolen and the thief has been cursed. That way, when the player has to decide whether to return it or to loot more artifacts in the tomb at the end of the game, their motivations can affect their experience. I’m not sure if it should play into the canonical ending of the game, however; definitively weighing in on the existence of curses or magic in general would naturally divide the audience and disincentivize further discussion. I’d like to use the mechanics of choice similarly to Stardew Valley, in that they’re meant to cause introspection while barely influencing gameplay. One playstyle may seek personal profit through trade on the black market, another may use the clout they gain to open nicer museums and attract higher-class clientele, a third may be a pagan zealot who seeks to popularize their ancient beliefs, while the last is the more traditional view of an archeologist who wants to honor and understand the past.
I have about as much faith that this project will come to fruition as I do with the band idea I keep pitching, and much less motivation or know-how to work on any part of it past what I have already laid out here. Even if I had the desire to radically change my life to accommodate this project, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Unless some big-name studio wants to approach me to follow through on this pitch (or one of you can dig through your couch cushions for half a million dollars), I’m perfectly content to add this to the pile of unrealized dreams I’ve had because this is now out in the universe and therefore no longer keeping me up at night.
I do have another game planned for review, if anyone is interested.
Given the medium, a comparison to Lara Croft may seem to make more sense, but her occupation is more of an excuse to shoot at yetis and dragons than it is a part of the actual series.
I know these are bad scans but the works are still in the public domain so this would be easily remedied.
It would also make sense to let the player tick off one language that their character inherently knows for balance reasons.
I can list out a dozen or so potential Easter eggs off the top of my head. For starters, there’s a certain short story collection by Robert W. Chambers that features a statue, a broach, a brass crown, and a play that you can only read in fragments.