interpretive human interest grounded in antiquity

One of our missions has been to explore experimental interventions indicated by evolutionary anthropology and child psychology in response to an unhealthy relationship with artificiality in the modern world.

A magnificent tool, Cyberspace is irresistible.  In less than a generation, apps have redefined how we conduct our business and our lives.  We can even access an artificial intelligence character trained to communicate like a personal savior.  For better or worse, it is also reshaping human values, --  yet it is not human.  It is not real.  It is not accountable.  

In preliminary research, I reviewed many museum and educational sites. Nearly all of them talked about storytelling, but none of the ones I saw explained what that was, exactly, or how it was supposed to work. 

Navigating current online headlines and being well-versed on the revolution in lifestyle that launched western civilization in the first place, I wondered. Can we demonstrate something real in a completely alternative environment? What might happen if positive examples were planted in the context of an era that is so different that it becomes a fantasy, while retaining original authenticity? This line of inquiry came to produce the samples presented herein. These “archaeo-vignettes” and more like them have now become the core of a model for a public event program. 

Made up as posters, they become a springboard for discussion, quiet personal contemplation, or just an idea that sprouts later. Not lectures; not preaching, not regulations – a non-threatening enjoyable encounter with non-tech that includes live action and themed community-based exercises. 

Authenticity has the power to resonate with people in a way that developers are spending fortunes to try to replicate. I doubt they can do it. Museum curators are custodians of what could be “secret weapons” for sparking deep thinking about human values. That treasure is material that has been created by real people and touched by ancient human hands.  

Our model public event program is now becoming a framework through which museum exhibits, artifact collections, archaeological knowledge, and emerging research in other fields can be translated into living public-facing initiatives adaptable by museums in association with educational institutions, cultural organizations, and communities worldwide. Content can easily be drawn from indigenous or pre-industrial era cultures by the host institution as the core of a version of the model that stems from their own collections.

OTSF is seeking a partner organization for fine-tuning development of the program model and a pilot study of prototypes already prepared. Interested institutions are encouraged to contact The OTS Foundation: info@OTSF.org 

5,267 years ago, she did as she was trained to do. She settled in complete darkness and silence for a dream incubation in the underground temple for the dead. The next thing she knew, she was on the other side of the veil, listening to 21st-century visitors speculate about the building of the ancient sacred place. As she lay still, she noticed that her blood was starting to boil up and smoke was coming from her ears.

"Why are they talking about aliens?!" she said to herself in her mind. "Do I look like an alien?" Quietly, she took stock. Skirts in place, seams up the front and back. Fine. The Corona of Learning was in place on her head. Fine. What was alien about that?

The insults became too much to bear as she listened. " Are you people lost in your minds?" she asked, stirring on her woven bed. "We of my tribal settlement made this place! Yes, there are forces stronger than we, but those forces are not magical sentient beings from a different world. WE are sentient. We are of this world. We are you, becoming. Why do you wish to give away the pride of that to monsters and myths?"

Spoken words did not issue with her breath, yet they echoed deeply from the curved stone walls of the chamber. 

"What was that?!" a visitor asked. "Did you hear something?"

"Nevermind. SHSHSH! It is spooky as Hell in here. You can almost smell death." 

She heard the shuffled clunking of feet on a metal walkway, without understanding the source of the odd hollow tones. As she drifted back to her holy dreams, she wondered if aliens from a different world had just invaded hers.

# # #

“What if we try it like this?  It might work.”

“Let’s try it.”

“Sure, Krem.  Put your foot under there and push.  You have another foot, just in case.”  Laughter sneaked from a hand’s count of faces that day.

“Hah!  Do you see? By all the winds of wisdom -- the old songs were right!
Roll-um … roll-um … roll-um…!”  

Slowly at first, the slab of stone began to float forward like a fallen tree leaving a riverbank in the current.  “Go tell them in the camp!”

For a long long time, it was thought that the secrets of the first builders had been lost forever.  Stories about ancient faraway shrines of stone, fashioned by the hands and sweat of men were entertainment for twilight firesides.  When The People found this waterbound place of wind and light and creamy limestone, there sprang a quiet hope.  The old legends started making sense in a new way. They had to try it.  

Behold: the second blossoming of a timeless tradition.  No engines. No cranes. No steel. Not a single wheel invented yet, as far as we know.  And no money.  What they had in those days was time, human ingenuity, teamwork and nobody to tell them that it was impossible.

“Ho!  Stop pushing so fast.  Jebla is going in under there with another roundy.  What are we going to do when we get it to the field?”

“I don't exactly know yet.  We’ll figure it out.  I might have an idea.”

“Sure, Krem.  You always have an idea.  There’s no doubt about that.”

By now, there were drums beating out the rhythm of the workers.  The entire tribe had collected to watch and cheer and join in the familiar chant: roll-um, roll-um, roll-um.

“We’re going to need some ropes.  Jebla!  Get some ropes --bring the new ones made of RAWHIDE!”

# # #

Look now to the walls of Gobekli Tepe, born of stone and sweat. All around, pillars are carved with beasts, their teeth bared, their bodies tense. And every beast is watching. You feel animal energy stirring in you. Wild. Raw. Untamed.

AH - the center columns, taller than three men, foot to shoulder.

Twin sentinels, they rise in pairs— T-shaped, arms bent at their sides, hands clasping over their bellies. They wear decorated belts and fox pelts. Mystic carvings at their throats, they are full of presence. They stand above all that happens below, oblivious and unperturbed -- not as beasts, but as something else.

Are they the first leaders? The first priests? Or gods, drawn in man’s image?

By shaping these great columns, by enclosing them under roof, by harnessing echo and sound —magical spaces of mystical communion and ritual have been made. They will draw the great tribal gatherings for centuries.

Ah but . . . Humans have begun a dark parting . . . stepped away from their closeness with nature, and into something new. Could they know that there would come an ending --a burial of these sacred spaces? Would they guess how many women would later climb that hill to pray for the babies in their wombs? Will they hear the hoofbeats of and clashes of migrations and conquests that will come to pass on this sacred land, as they stand pillowed and hidden beneath the soil?

Armies and wise men would pass here; Dervishes, refugees, Magi, and those whose blood would pass to descendants across the globe.  Great Spirit would have many names in this place.

You stand in the circle, between beasts and pillars. Between nature and invention. Between memory and becoming. Do the stones honor gods…Or do they honor men?

Who are you, when you shape the world?

Who are you, when you lift stones and begin to farm your food?

Who are you, when you make echoes that never existed before?

# # #