# Other historical obsessions



## sknox (Dec 21, 2017)

OK, we've pretty well established that WW2 is number one.

What would be the next six? (I don't like top ten lists)

I don't mean which era or event most interests you, but rather what you would plug in to complete the sentence, "Why are people so obsessed with X?"

My candidate: the Fall of the Roman Empire. (capitals intended)


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## Foxbat (Dec 21, 2017)

I'm finding it difficult to think of an historical  obsession that doesn't include war (I'm sure there are and it's just that my tiny mind can't cope with the concept). 

So, with that in mind, I think there are probably a lot of folk with an  interest in the American Civil War. The Napoleonic Wars must be up there too. Personally, I find it's the Russian Civil War, the Crusades and the Punic Wars that I find most interesting.


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## night_wrtr (Dec 21, 2017)

Agree that war tends to be a glue of fascination. I'll add in the Greco-Persian and Peloponnesian Wars. Alexander The Great as a person is up there, but his life is also highlighted by war and conquest.


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## Mouse (Dec 21, 2017)

The Titanic? Does that count?


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## sknox (Dec 22, 2017)

Why are people so obsessed with ... the French Revolution? I'd vote that over the Napoleonic Wars because I include the latter in the former.

I'll also buy the Crusades. What else are people generally fascinated by? 

I might propose the Middle Ages, though that is probably too broad a topic. 

Americans are obsessed with the American Civil War. You folks across the pond, do you have something similar? I know there are plenty of re-creationists for the 30YW, the Norman Invasion, lots of things, but do any of them rise to the level of a general obsession (rather than the focus of hobbyists)?

I've always thought it peculiar that so many people look to the fall of the Roman Empire (a phrase that makes me cringe) but utterly miss the importance and relevance of the Roman Revolution.

Still interested to hear other thoughts. Again, for the purposes of this discussion, I'm looking for obsessions like WWII, not personal interests.


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## Foxbat (Dec 22, 2017)

sknox said:


> Americans are obsessed with the American Civil War. You folks across the pond, do you have something similar?



I think the closest we have is the English Civil War which was actually more of a British Civil War and often called the Wars Of The Three Kingdoms. 

I think perhaps civil war becomes a particular obsession with some because the 'enemy' was once your neighbour and friend. When idealogical differences or grievances begin to fester within a community, how small a step is it from idealogical division to violence?
Perhaps given the vast number of casualties in their conflict, the Americans still feel this very strongly about this piece of history and goes some way to explain their obsession with the American Civil War.


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## Vladd67 (Dec 22, 2017)

The Tudors, come on we did have other kings than Henry.


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## Harpo (Dec 22, 2017)

There's 'always' been a huge nostalgia for the various countercultural aspects of the 1960s (including Swinging London, Beatlemania, Woodstock, et cetera) and as the years go by that nostalgia will increasingly become a historical obsession.


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## sknox (Dec 22, 2017)

It just occurred to me there is another way to measure "obsession" (we could perhaps call it popularity): by published books. I have to preface this by saying all observations are my own, not derived from actual study.

For example, early modern Scotland, plus Tudor England, comprise a startling percentage of books in historical romance. But spy novels, of course, are dominated by the Cold War and WWII. Mysteries and detective? Not so sure. Maybe 1930s and whatever decade is current. I don't think "present day" should count for this thread, though. So, besides, 1930s, maybe Edwardian era. 

Here again I invited non-English speakers to chime in for their own cultures.

To return: historical fantasy is dominated by the age of Arthur, followed by Rome. Generic fantasy is such a hodge-podge of pseudo-medievalisms, it's hopeless to try to categorize it.

Anyway, even this quick survey shows there are definitely genre-specific "obsessions" and that these to not really match up with the interests of straight history (that's what sparked the original thread regarding WWII). I'm not sure what to make of it, only that human beings are varied not only at the individual level but also (seemingly) at the group level. I mean, why is historical romance not dominated by 18th century Poland, or 13th century France? No idea.


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## Foxbat (Dec 23, 2017)

Perhaps the answer to your question about 18th century Poland or 13th century France is simply that they are not as well known by the general public as the age of Arthur or Rome and it may be that the authors have chosen periods that are not too taxing on readers with only a vague idea of history? 

It's also worth keeping in mind that there may be many folk like me who enjoy learning history and yet  have zero interest in historical fiction and, if that's the case, then any crossover assumptions may be fatally flawed.


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## Dave (Dec 23, 2017)

I think you have all covered them, but based upon the number of books sold I would put the Tudors, and especially Henry VIII top. Henry was certainly quite a character, as was Thomas Cromwell, but the fiction available is heavily romanticised and historically inaccurate.

In the book sales, I think the Tudors would be closely followed by Rome, which I think is also understandable. Then closely followed by the "English" Civil Wars, now more properly known as the War of the Three Kingdoms. Our education system is/was appallingly England-centric, and before, after and during the two parts of the wars in England, fighting continued in Scotland and Ireland and was possibly even more brutal. However, I learnt absolutely zero about Scottish and Irish history at school. I knew nothing about my Covenantor ancestors, nor did I know anything about Oliver Cromwell in Ireland or the later Protestant plantations or the English absentee landlords. For example, I was taught that the Irish potato famine was due to bad climate, which undoubtedly played a large part, but does not explain the Irish American emigrants dislike of the English. It is because of this poor education that English people today cannot understand current Scottish and Irish feelings towards independence, sovereignty and Brexit, as they simply haven't been given the right tools.

I believe school is where most people first develop an interest in history, even if like me it doesn't develop until much later in life, so the curriculum needs to be much wider. The obsessions are possibly because of the very narrow topics covered at schools. I certainly was taught zero about 18th century Poland or 13th century France. My children seemed to learn only about the Second World War and Hitler. I have read University lecturers complaining about that very point too when they get new intakes of undergraduates. My daughter took A level History but instead of time periods, her course topics were 'the struggle for Africa' and 'the history of Medicine' and that seems to be the way History is now taught in school. That is certainly more interesting than the way History was taught to me, but I don't think you can isolate one topic like that, from everything else going on at the same time around it, and to still have a complete understanding.


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## sknox (Dec 23, 2017)

I hear you, Dave. That's why college-level courses start with survey courses. 

I have another view, one that rarely gets tested, but it has always made sense to me. A survey course necessarily can spend little time on any one topic, resulting in a student perception that history is mostly a long list of names and events. Another way to approach an introductory course would be to focus on very specific topics. I would, in fact, focus on the "obsessions" list we have cobbled together here. The topics are intrinsically interesting. Yes they tend to turn on war, but even war can be taught from a variety of perspectives, so there's plenty of room for flexibility on the part of the teacher. 

By starting with a specific, the students can get to know the period in some depth, gain some appreciation for the human story, for narrative, for the sources and how to interpret them. For, in short, how history is done. To me, that's the important thing to teach; it's the method and philosophy, not the fact list.

I would make the survey course the capstone, aimed at history majors. Because only when one has some grasp of historical method, and has been exposed to several specific courses, can one even begin to make sense of the broader narrative. I base this in part on my own experience: it was not until I had to teach Western Civ that I finally realized how many gaps were in my historical narrative. Despite having taken Western Civ, plus a survey of the Middle Ages, plus specific medieval courses, the Merovingians were still a black hole, I had only the dimmest notion of the tenth century, and of the Balkans I was as ignorant as a freshman. That's when I began to form my idea that surveys were for grad students.

I wonder if obsessions are not self-perpetuating. We have many sources for Elizabethan England, so the era gets studied often and in depth. This provides grist for the novel and movie mills, which in turn stokes interest, which funnels more students into those Tudor-Stuart courses, and there we go again. It's much tougher to generate that kind of interest for the Hanseatic League.


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## svalbard (Dec 23, 2017)

sknox said:


> I wonder if obsessions are not self-perpetuating. We have many sources for Elizabethan England, so the era gets studied often and in depth. This provides grist for the novel and movie mills, which in turn stokes interest, which funnels more students into those Tudor-Stuart courses, and there we go again. It's much tougher to generate that kind of interest for the Hanseatic League.



It helps when you have Shakespeare batting for your cause


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## Steve Harrison (Dec 23, 2017)

I have recently been obsessed with American history, seen through the presidency. I started off with biographies of Adams, Jefferson and Washington (in that order), moved on to Robert Caro's epic four part (hopefully five part) Lyndon Johnson bio (best political bio I've ever read) and I've just finished David McCulloch's wonderful book on Harry Truman and a terrific TV documentary series on the two Roosevelts.

Seven down, 38 to go...


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## Venusian Broon (Dec 24, 2017)

Steve Harrison said:


> I have recently been obsessed with American history, seen through the presidency. I started off with biographies of Adams, Jefferson and Washington (in that order), moved on to Robert Caro's epic four part (hopefully five part) Lyndon Johnson bio (best political bio I've ever read) and I've just finished David McCulloch's wonderful book on Harry Truman and a terrific TV documentary series on the two Roosevelts.
> 
> Seven down, 38 to go...



Did you see the recent Ken Burn's directed series on the Vietnam war? I thought that was excellent - in its scope, with a quite a lot of its focus on the politics in the Whitehouse and the three main presidents that were embroiled in that mess, in explaining the history of the fight itself, but also getting personal stories from all types of ordinary people and their actions.

I was particularly amazed to be told that Nixon may have deliberately interfered and sabotage the peace talks in 1968 so as to improve his election chances.

And it had Trent Reznor doing the music, which is always a plus in my books.


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## Steve Harrison (Dec 24, 2017)

Venusian Broon said:


> Did you see the recent Ken Burn's directed series on the Vietnam war? I thought that was excellent - in its scope, with a quite a lot of its focus on the politics in the Whitehouse and the three main presidents that were embroiled in that mess, in explaining the history of the fight itself, but also getting personal stories from all types of ordinary people and their actions.
> 
> I was particularly amazed to be told that Nixon may have deliberately interfered and sabotage the peace talks in 1968 so as to improve his election chances.
> 
> And it had Trent Reznor doing the music, which is always a plus in my books.



I watched the first episode yesterday and was very impressed. My holiday viewing is now sorted!


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## Caledfwlch (Dec 25, 2017)

Dave said:


> Our education system is/was appallingly England-centric, a.



Utterly agree - I went to school in Wales.
This is the extent of what we were taught about "Wales" in the 5 years I was there.
"in AD 60, a Roman General came up with a cunning plan, and was thus able to invade Anglesey" (the Teacher didn't even have in her text book, or apparantly, the capacity to research what she was blankly droning out at us and make it more interesting - like for example the fact that the proper modern name for the island is Ynys Mon, and in Roman Conquest times, it was known as "Mona")
ooh, she also forgot to mention that Mona was the Vatican of Britannia, the religious centre of Druidic / Pagan Britain, and the Romans were so desparate to invade it, because it was the last Druid stronghold, and as the Druids were inspiring British Warriors into remarkable actions, and causing major damage to the Roman War Machine, they were determined to exterminate them. This is likely why we have all these claims of mass ritual sacrifice, mass murder, etc for death magic, sacrifice to the Gods etc, yet no such ritual site, which would surely contain hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies in mass graves have been found - one would imagine such rituals would take place in an important Place of Ritual, not at random parts of the countryside 

That was it - a Welsh classroom, and that was the only bit on "Wales" we did, and it wasn't even Wales back then. 
No mention of sources of pride, or our remarkable history of course, like the fact that William the ******* and his Norman Chaps pretty much took the entirety of the Kingdom of England in 1 battle, but took over 200 years to fully invade, defeat and occupy tiny old Cymru.
No mention of Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) and that that even around the 9th century, Hywel codified the ancient Celtic/British laws, and creating fair legislation - Women in Wales, as were Women in Eire under the similar ancient Brehon Law, were treated better and fairer under the justice system, than Women in many Countries of the world right now, such as Saudi Arabia.

No mention of the Last Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndwr and the Welsh War of Independence, which with more help from France, and the lack of certain bad decisions later, maybe some better timing and he would have been successful.

Glyndwr and the WWI seem to be pretty much ignored by most fiction and non fiction writers, even in Wales, yet it's hell of a tale, the Lord who rebels, declares himself Prince, due to his royal blood, and right to be King of Gwynedd, smashes 3 English Armies which hugely outnumbered him, and brought the King of England to the brink of bankruptcy, utter ruin, and quite possibly all sorts of civil unrest in England, had the last major battle failed, then that is what would have happened.

The thing that I love about the WWI also, is it's connections to other major events of the time period.
After Glyndwr was defeated, the King offered all Welsh War Bowmen Pardons if they joined his Army to go to France, which many accepted. Had they not been offered that, or if enough had refused, could it have affected the outcome of Azincourt? since that famous battle would be depleted of a great many Welsh Archers, who had just spent the last several years waging a Guerrilla War, and thus it seems fair to assume they were incredibly well experienced, and good at their job.

Then there is Sir Dafydd ap Llewelyn ap Hywel  (Who is better known as Dafydd Gam, & I think is mentioned by Shakespeare as "Davy Gam". 
A lot of historians dispute the Story - citing a lack of Sources, but pretty much every single one of those Archers, formerly fighting for Welsh Independence would have considered Sir Dafydd to be utter vermin, a vile Traitor to his people & his homeland, so they are unlikely to have made up stories of alledged bravery. Sir D, was a Welsh Lord, who was asked by Glyndwr to join the WWI, but refused, as he was a man who kept the Oaths he made, and he had made an Oath of Loyalty to Henry V. According to the stories, at Azincourt, a French Noble, The Duke of Alencon, and his Men, made what was effectively a suicide attack, charging their Cavalry into the English Lines, smashed their way through, the Duke got within inches of Henry V, swung his weapon, and would have landed a mortal blow on the King had Sir D not lept to the King's defence, and took the mortal wound himself.
There is also talk and dispute that Sir D may have been Knighted as he lay dying.

That's just a tiny piece of fascinating Welsh History, that connects into wider British, English & European History, the same is true for the other Home Nations, stories and times we never heard about, except for the odd, random documentary on BBC4.
Instead in School, what we got for literally the whole of the 5 years after Agricola was WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2.
And not even anything particularly interesting - It's hard to recall back 27 years, to when I was 11/12, but ISTR that it was pretty much exclusively the Holocaust, and the A Bomb. I had a massive, ridiculously heavy Tome at home, the "Readers Digest guide to WW2" full of colour pictures, photographs, maps and so on, and I learned far more from that book, than in 5 years of school - IIRC, in School, despite doing Hiroshima etc, we didn't even get told that the plane to drop the first Atomic Bomb was the Enola Gay.
School Lesson never even mentioned anything the crew of the Enola Gay may have said.
Yet, from my huge book, I discovered the Pilot made a famous quote. "My God, what have we done!!!"


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## Brian G Turner (Dec 25, 2017)

Caledfwlch said:


> WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2.



My kids here in Scotland seem limited to WW2, WW1, WW2, WW1, WW2 ...


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## Foxbat (Dec 25, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> My kids here in Scotland seem limited to WW2, WW1, WW2, WW1, WW2 ...


That's interesting because when I was at school in Scotland (admittedly a very long time ago), I seem to recall very little of WW1 or WW2 in the curriculum - a fact that disappointed me at the time.

I do remember spending a significant chunk of time on the Industrial Revolution, a little on the Jacobite Rebellions. The rest of it was spent on English history. So, if my memory isn't playing tricks on me, I think we fared better than the Welsh system back then, but it was still fairly English orientated.


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## Caledfwlch (Dec 26, 2017)

I recently read an interesting take on viewing and exploring history 
I think bbc4 did a TV documentary with a similar premise about Great Britain called something like swords and muskets.

It was by Chris Kyle and called American Gun: a history of the United States in 10 Firearms. Kyle it seems is an ex Navy Seal and published a book called American sniper.

Interesting book to be fair and an unusual way of viewing history but it does make sense and pull together and you can see how these guns were vital at certain crucial points.

The Continental Army had master marksmen armed with "Kentucky Rifles" and they devastated British command and control by sniping officers. The creation later of the 95th Rifles Regiment by the British Army was a direct consequence - it realised it needed highly mobile marksmen outside of ordinary regimental command structure to combat units such as those feared Yankee Snipers and they also realised the value of such units when waging war in Europe.


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## sknox (Dec 27, 2017)

OK, I'll add another possible perspective here. There is a huge divide between industrial (and post-industrial, however you may care to define that) and pre-industrial society. Just about every aspect of life, from the business of governing all the way down to raising families, was different in significant ways.

The two world wars come to us from a society more or less like our own: industrialized. It is simply easier to grasp. That's why people also love the Roaring 20s, the Cold War, and even the Civil War (though that sits on the cusp). 

Push back into the 18thc, though, into earlier times, and coming to grips with the past is much more difficult. This is one major reason why we find medieval and ancient topics both oversimplified and stereotyped, with myths persisting despite the best efforts of whole generations of historians. The fall of Rome (clearly an event), barbarian invasions, the Dark Ages, chivalry, the omnipotent Catholic Church, the list is longer than Edward I's left leg, and each entry a century or more old. There are other reasons, of course, but these myths simplify the past by casting it in terms we moderns readily grasp: it's all about money, power corrupts, history is written by the winners, and so on.

It would be interesting to look at the Top Six Historical Obsessions of, say, Sri Lanka or Nigeria or Uruguay. I've long wondered if, say, Japanese students have a "western civ" course and, if so, how it's taught. The teaching of history is often more about the present than about the past.


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## Caledfwlch (Dec 27, 2017)

It's also frustrating that some of the obsessions are not even an obsession of the right version of thing being obsessed over. 

People love Arthurian films etc yet such things are never based on the real world reality that such a person, or the real person who inspired the myths.

I just read the plot out line to ridley Scots Tristan & Isolde. & just the synopsis makes it clear that Scott & the writer had not even had a quick scan of a history book about the time period 5/6th century - the same time period and historical reality of a real king Arthur.

I haven't been able to watch Transformers Last Knight because of that shocking opening. 
Not just the "England during the dark ages" wrong on both counts was bad enough, but for these dark age Knights to be on medieval armour, and have trebuchet firing all over the place, was just too much!!


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## sknox (Dec 27, 2017)

Agreed, Caledfwlch, but that's exactly the point. Myth is stronger than history. Nobody needs historical accuracy and nobody wants to be instructed by the past. What they want is buttressing of their existing beliefs, and the past provides an almost infinite treasure box in which one can find whatever one has already determined to find.

It doesn't bother me. Popular perceptions of science does not prevent (though it does sometimes hinder) the work of scientists. So it is also with historians. Obsessions are not rational things.


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## Dave (Dec 27, 2017)

It isn't just a problem with the wrong technology, fashions, architecture or materials though. The problem that @sknox describes is one that most people have an incredibly difficult problem coming to terms with - namely that people didn't think at all like us - and while we can dig up artefacts and examine those, we can never have conversations with people in the past. We can read a little of what they wrote, even Egyptian hieroglyphics, which will give some insights, but there is a great tendency for non-historians to assume people always thought the same way.

Personally, I don't understand that assumption. If you travel to countries in other parts of the world, those people have different art and cultures, myths and legends, language structures, superstitions and religions. They exist today, so to my way of thinking, it isn't that difficult to think that there was more variety in the past. In the present day, we have huge differences of opinion between rural and city cultures, or between political extremes, so how anyone can assume that people always thought like they do now is beyond me.

I also don't think you even need to go back to the 18th Century to see some visible cultural differences. I was in a hall recently where someone was talking about the restoration of old photographs for family history purposes. When photography was still quite new, a family portrait photograph was a must for every family. When a child died, which was much more common than today, a photograph would be taken of the entire family. The dead child would also be dressed and propped up with wooden planks to be part of the family portrait. When this was told to the assembled hall that I was sitting in, there were audible gasps of horror from the other people! I'm surprised no one fainted!


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## svalbard (Dec 27, 2017)

‘Myth is stronger than history’ is an interesting point. As far back as Herodotus and further back again to Homer and further back again to Gilgamesh we have struggled to separate fact from fiction.


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## sknox (Dec 27, 2017)

I'm not sure I'd push it further back than Herodotus. He is, after all, the one who gave us the word, _istoria_. Only with him do we get even a pretense of consulting reliable sources in order to construct an explanatory narrative (as distinct from a chronicle or story). 

Since we've mentioned Greeks, I'll share an anecdote. I'm a retired university professor. Taught Western Civ for about 35 years. When teaching ancient Greek history I naturally took time to talk about Athenian democracy, spending a fair amount of time explaining how what the Athenians meant by the word was significantly different from what we mean by the word. I felt good, dispelling a historical myth (with so many more to dispel in fifteen weeks!), watching those conscientious heads conscientiously dip downward as they wrote their conscientious notes. 

Then came exam time and *every semester* I would get student essays that observed how it wasn't really democracy because not everyone could vote and the aristocrats really (freshman essays are filled with what is real) were the ones controlling things. They continued to view the past through the lens of their own understanding.

It took a few years for me to get over my disappointment, first in them, later in myself. For, how else is anyone to view the past, save through such a lens? I also came to understand that history is not an easy subject, for it requires us to think outside ourselves. It requires us to take the comfortable mental house in which we live and rearrange the furniture, repaint the walls, and sometimes tear out whole rooms. To say that myth is more powerful than history is nothing more than to say we are all of us only human. It is no more natural to think historically than it is to think scientifically.


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## logan_run (Dec 28, 2017)

In the  film liberty valence. the newspaper editor says when the myth becomes  legend  print the legend!


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## Caledfwlch (Dec 28, 2017)

The best quotation about how easy it is to misunderstand even fairly basic things, if we have little idea as to the mindset, culture and way of thinking was by Bernard Cornwall, iirc.

Lets say in 50 years time, some sort of global devastation occurs - natural disaster or war, but whilst humanity survives, the West, especially and all the media that could show how we think etc is, or will soon be itself destroyed, by simple natural decay, books turning to mulch, acidic rain/rivers destroying DVD/BR, HDD's and so on - any option will do, even basic simple decay over time.

Stonehenge is 5000 years old.
So it's 5000 years later now, pretty much all of the first half of the 21st Century and prior's architecture is likely gone.
Civilisation has eventually recovered, and gotten more technological & advanced, till they are around our current level.
Nothing is left of the culture etc of early 21st century Earth, even the myths have died from oral tradition, these new people know nothing about us at all, though of course, they are forever finding stuff that causes excitement along with much head scratching "what were those crazy dudes even thinking?"

Then an Archaeological hit the Jackpot, a find that sets the world a quiver with excitement as it is so unique.
By chance, actually looking for something else, they have discovered and began excavating what appears to be a major centre of Religious Worship - whilst they cannot yet be even remotely sure what was worshipped it is definately some sort of worship site.
What they do not know, is they have just discovered a Catholic Church.

It could be any Nation in what to us is Western Europe, from York Minster, to the Vatican, or Notre Dame. As long as all the text has either utterly crumpled to dust, or the languages being spoken by our descendents have so utterly altered/evolved from our own, that until much more text is discovered, or better, a Rosetta Stone is fine (I personally like the idea of a future Rosetta Stone, being the laminated or in some other way treated or inscribed test that would allow it to survive longer, copy of an incredibly boring, and inane piece of European Union Legislation, regarding the shape & dimensions legally required for Traffic Roundabouts, or Traffic Cones, and being an EU Document, it is printed in the primary 4 or 5 doing business Languages of the EU) ) 

Knowing nothing about us, how we thought etc it is easy really, to forgive them the conclusions they will swiftly jump to upon entering the Church and discovering its beautiful architecture and symbol.

Clearly, their European Ancestors were seriously crazy and deranged!! They had an entire religion that upon interpretation appears to be Cannibalistic in nature, and involves the horrific torture and execution of fellow human beings, after which the Sacrifices flesh and blood are consumed/drank by the convened worshippers.

He said it much simpler, and in much less space, but I cannot recall the specific quote! (the EU Rosetta Stone is my idea too)


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