People just love to assume that archeologists have no idea what sex or gay people are. Not saying there isn't a problem with that, but the memes are overblown.
I remember seeing a ton of "archeologists: tHeY'rE jUsT fRiEnDs" comments on an ancient illustration of two Egyptian men, when every single source I could find explained why they seem to have been a gay couple.
Seems like a case where a particular claim of a select group was generalised over a supergroup by way of being the subject of memes that ran away with the stereotype.
It's like that one fraud falsifying studies about a specific type of vaccines in an attempt to sell his own, only for people to latch on to the "vaccine bad" part of the story without limit, nuance or critical examination.
Does anyone still know where the original "just friends" claim stems from, in which context, supported by which arguments, what refutations have been offered since and just how widespread among archaeologists it is today?
IM sure that’s what they wrote down and I’m sure that’s what the person who had it commissioned said it was but the one thing I am more sure of is that this is not a cucumber and nobody who ever saw it has ever thought it is a cucumber.
History joke I heard once: if a history book says an object was used for "ritual purposes" that means they haven't got a clue, unless they specify "fertility rituals" which means they know exactly what it was used for but can't write that in a highschool history textbook.
Motel of the Mysteries is basically this joke explored over 95 pages, lovingly illustrated by David Macaulay, the guy who did those black and white books Cathedral, Pyramid, Castle, and The Way Things Work, as well as others. It's hilarious.
Remember that the idiots in the 19th & 20th centuries uncovering all kinds of Egyptian stuff purposefully damaged inscriptions and art because they prominently showed gasp penises!
Imagine yourself being confused and baffled by something, and asking "Really?". The intonation is rising, as is usual in questions. Imagine yourself hearing someone say something you are completely confident is absurdly false or a lie, and you want to suggest to the person that they're wrong and you know the truth, by sarcastically asking "Really?". The intonation is falling, closer to ordinary statements of fact.
OOP is using the full stop at the end of his "questons" to suggest the second, sarcastic intonation.