So most of you are aware of what happened to the Roman city of Pompeii in 79 A.D. The pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius came
down and essentially smothered the residents, who were then preserved, along with many of their belongings, underneath the
layers of pumice and ash that rained down from the volcano.

Here's the scenario: There's a horrible accident -- a nuclear holocaust, volcano, mudslide, whatever -- and you're all victims.
Your rooms are relatively well-preserved. Like Pompeii, there isn't much looting or disturbance of the area for 2,000 years.
Archaeologists from another planet, knowing only the basics of human culture, come and excavate your room.

What do they find?
What will the alien archaeologists conclude about you?


(If you want to be realistic, you can also account for things like climate, the materials these objects are made of, and so on.)

What would they find in my room? I would direct you to the video I made of my room, but I'm too lazy to go to YT. To summarize: Ibanez guitars, amp and guitar processing equipment, computer and video game equipment, multitude of empty beer bottles, sticky notes, an old mattress, TI-89, stacks of flannel shirts, etc...

EDIT: And me, of course. Sitting slumped over in my computer chair like a slacker. Shorts and a t-shirt that I haven't changed out of in a week (or 2000 years in this case). Pissed off/apathetic look on my face.

lol Fone, unless you live in the desert and were mummified, its unlikely they would be able to glean the expression from your face.

I'd be curled up in the corner of my room surrounded by cat skeletons. It's really humid here, so there probably wouldn't be a lot
left. They'd also find the plastic case of my netbook, bits and pieces of corroded electronics, maybe some bits of denim fabric, and the glass
fish tank.

These aliens would assume that I lived in a moderately developed culture, because of the technology. They'd probably think it had a
sophisticated economy, since the lack of manufacturing areas means that most of my items were imported. The prescence of a trade
economy might also suggest social stratification.

Also, they'd think I really liked to eat cats.

Don't you know? I spend most of my time wrapped up like a mummy. I assume they'd think 'China' was a really important place, since most of my stuff is stamped with 'Made in China'. Exceptions being electronics that either came from Japan or Korea.

I was thinking that too, but then I mentioned the cat-eating thing and it just didn't seem right....

Actually, I almost take that back, because I can't assume that they understood English.

Well it depends on whether or not they've found any information about the development of
the English language. After all, we can understand a lot of Mayan glyphs based on the images
used and modern languages derived from it, but we still don't know how to read Mycenaean
Linear A, and that's a form of Greek.

That's assuming they have a similar mental capacity, though. I'd assume insectoid
archaeologists would have a very different idea about languages.

What would they find in my room. Lets see:

* guitar/bass guitar (borrowed)
* drum machine (Yamaha DD-55)
* 2 Guitar FX pedals and a Lexicon MX200 Reverb Unit (the classiest thing I own)
* Tascam 424 4-track cassette multitrack
* Tascam 688 8-track cassette multitrack (WTF did I buy this monstrosity? It's heavier than me)
* crappy mics and cables, guitar strings, tuners, capo etc.
* empty bottles of wine and whiskey (don't really drink that much but I keep them)
* lots of books relating to music (recording, band info, biographies)
* stacks of cassette tapes (C-60) containing the most horrible recordings in all of existance
* unhoovered toenail clippings, crumbs, paperclips, etc.
* minifridge
* clothing (I still have jumpers that fit me from 1997, 0_0!)
* a suit (I can't stand wearing a suit - it's just not me at all)
* laptop
* bed

How would I have died? Frozen in a glacier, wearing about 6 layers of clothes. Not enough it seems.
Access would be difficult seeing as everything is scattered all over the place - I did this, not the glacier.

I don't like anyone snooping around in my room, not even alien archaeologists thousands of years from now.
I should probably set up some explosive charges in the event of disasters.

Rotfl, Dr. Tox. I didn't realize Light Yagami was on Hiki culture.

Trust me, in two thousand years, we'll all be too dead to care about people mussing up
our stuff and putting our skulls in museums.

Meh, they can have my skull. Actually I hope somebody makes amusing use of it after I die.
People seeing my stuff and how I think and live and especially the porn, just mortifies me.

computer
rifle
drug chest
ammunition

I don't think they'd find anything of importance.

You know the Inca used to drink out of the skulls of their enemies.

And the prOn thing reminds me of this:


But you know, there's anthropologists out there that do study ancient "graphic arts,"
and its pretty interesting.

A bed, a few bedside tables, and a wardrobe filled with sweaters knitted by my mother that I never wear.

My walls are covered with primitive tribal masks and African art. On my wardrobe they'd find a large black and white photograph of a statue of the Greek goddess Athena. Next to it is the reproduction of an ancient Greek portrait bust of a handsome youth whose head is adorned with a ring of laurel, a sign that he has been victorious in some sports event at either the Pythian or Olympic games. An Indian meditation cushion lies in one of the corners of my room.

The one wall that isn't covered by primitive masks is hidden by a large bookcase. My favorite books and videogames are on its shelves: grammar books and dictionaries for eight different languages, the great classics of ancient Greece (countless copies of Homer's epics and the Greek tragedies), Rome (Ovid, Virgil, Catullus, and even the letters of the younger Pliny, in which he describes the death of his famous uncle at Pompei when Vesuvius erupted), Japan (The Tale of Genji, the Sarashina Nikki, Hojoki, the great Noh plays, Basho's haiku and Narrow Road to the Interior as well as the volume I prize above all others, the Sankashuu of Saigyo), England (Shakespeare, Shakespeare, and more Shakespeare), France (Proust and Beckett), Germany (Kafka, Trakl, Goethe, Holderlin, Heidegger, and Hegel, among others), as well as many others. Along with these are complete sets of numerous mangas: Naruto, Inuyasha, Rurouni Kenshin, Mushishi, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Death Note, all in the original Japanese. And then there are videogames: the great PSOne JRPGS, a pile of Pokemon and Super Mario cartridges, as well as a number of games for my poor PSP, which I only rarely play with.

For me they'd find:
-A laptop
-An Ibanez electric guitar
-An acoustic guitar
-A spider II 120 watt amp
- An ipod
- A bunch of broken headphones big and small
- Some garbage bags
- A few controllers for the PC
- A DS and a couple of games (most are on a flash cart)
- Some old beer bottles that I never put away
- An unmade bed with a colorful blanket
- A pile of clothes on the floor unsorted between clean and dirty (I use my memory to decide what's clean)
- Zombie pills
- A fancy lamp
- Some guitar and video game magazines
- Blank dvds
- They'd find me lying on the bed leaning my head on the wall typing on my laptop.
- Some various cords on the floor (ipod charger, big to small inputs)
- Various books and photo albums on a shelf belonging to my family.
- A binder with plans to cause a nuclear holocaust.

No snacks, Acon?

Oh yeah they'd definitely find snacks! Most likely they would find beef jerkey, mr.noodles, and various candies (skittles, starbursts, sour things and all that.) That and all the wrappers and packaging that comes along with them.

Clever thread idea. :P

I dunno what in my room would survive. Probably my 2 PC and a laptop. So they might think I was some kind of computer nerd. I doubt my collection of history books would survive (though the frame for my homemade reading lectern might be in the ground), nor the military aircraft posters on the wall. I suppose the CD shelf might remain, so they might assume I play video games, although most of those are old things I no longer look at. They may find my norwegian trolls with the realy long noses...no doubt they would seee those as some phallic symbolism...they'll probably think I'm gay or a perv (well I am a perv so...) lol Perhaps my camera and lense might survive.

Overall this alien Time Team would probably my room is rather boring compared to others they've dug up.

They would find....

My anime figures and Gundam models and other mini statues, all of my manga, books, and Japanese dictionaries, my computer and my computer desk which has a bunch of carvings in it, my papercraft (Should be preserved since it's in a well protected shelf), air freshener things (I like the smell of soap), soda cans and bottles scattered everywhere, plates and forks and spoons and cups everywhere, stuffed animals and masks, my bed with pillows and blankets scattered around, A bunch of Tic Tac boxes, my knives, my headphones (I have 2 very big pairs of headphones~), clothes everywhere, my keyboard, my notebooks of random scribble scrabble on it, all my drawings, my cardigans and hoodies, all my video game consoles, and whatever the fuck else is in my room but I can't remember because it's super unimportant. They'd also find me, either on my bed hugging a pillow or at my computer desk sitting indan-style in my chair or in this super focused pose (my face close to the screen, hand on the edge of my desk, other hand on my mouse, legs propped up under my chair).

I don't know what they'd think of they found my room.

Perfectly preserved peaches.
My kendo armour and shinais.
Make up with colours in tact.
Musical instruments that still play (saxophone, cello, piano, guitar).
My stripper Candi trapped in the closet.

Anyone interested in this topic might like to read Alan Weis' "The world without us" and/or Jan Zalasiewicz' "The Earth after us".

a (now broken) epiphone les paul guitar, guitar stuff, laptop on desk with keyboard on tray and cooling fans underneath the laptop as well as a razor mouse.
A mattress on top of a mattress making up my bed, cups and bottles littering any surfaced area as well as (not-so) blank CDs and cases laying on the floor and underneath and the desk and table.
A TV in a corner with my dog on the foot of the bed underneath a sheet trying to chew through.
I would be slouched in the computer chair eyes glued to the screen... for 2000 years OOoooOOOOooooo spoooky.
Oh and dirty clothes on the bottom shelf of my computer desk

edit: it's really humid here so i don't know what kind of effect that would have on preserving me and girl-dog Mika. Talk to me about this in a few months when i'm in dry-as-shit Texas.

@althe -- you let your stripper hog the closet? as a recluse, that's prime real estate!

@ taloden -- speaking of phallic, check out this pic of me next to the stele of hammurabi

O_O

I just think its amazing -- the sheer quantity of artifacts people leave behind is massive. And
really, its just garbage. Now that we use non-perishable things, the amount of plastic
stuff that's going to be left behind is unfathomable. But, if there is ever a plastic shortage
or something in the future, I could totally see landfill mining operations. Just think of
the goodies you'd find amidst the used diapers and petrified whoppers.

haha...wow, that's big :O

lol @ landfill mining. Maybe I should just fill up an empty garage with plastic and then one day one of my descendents could sell it all for a small fortune. Would save them getting their hands dirty. lol