this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
117 points (100.0% liked)

Showerthoughts

39117 readers
1801 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

As I was thinking about how fun it would be to have a job where you solve puzzles in the world, it struct me that media never depicts archeology in a real light. My short search seemed to confirm my thoughts. Most ancient sites are not guarded by elaborate traps or secret riddles to get in. From what I’ve found there were some crossbows here and there. Some rare hidden rooms with a lot treasure, but again, no traps.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] fizzle@quokk.au 5 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

What do you mean "media"? As in movies?

What you're describing about "getting in" to places and "treasure" is a little old school. In the before times archaeology wasn't really a thing and "antiquarians" looted old temples and tombs and sites. Their objective was to take objects which had some value.

Archaeology's primary motivation is to learn about places, the time they were active, and the people that were active in them. Obviously finding some beautiful object or treasure is exciting, but it's so exceedingly rare that it's not really a consideration.

I quite like watching time team. They have a great youtube channel now but it was a BBS series for many years. I feel like this is probably about as real a depiction of "archaeology" as you're going to get. They brush dirt away with a tiny paint brush for days and get excited when they find a tiny shard of pottery because it confirms that people were active at the site in say, the 1300s instead of the 1600s as previously thought.

In the current era, archaeologists acknowledge that accessing ancient burials and similar sites is so destructive that there are instances where we know their probably is treasure and other wonders but decide to leave it. The most famous example is The Mausoleum of Qin Shi, protected by the Terracotta army. There are other similar examples.

[–] Hazmatastic@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

+1 for Time Team. Such a cool show, taught me a ton. My inner monologue now slips into a Yorkshire accent when I think about flint knapping

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Exactly, treasure hunters go for the golden objects, and while archeologists absolutely want such things, they relate to what is valued, adornment styles, and often religion, but archeologists are often just as excited, if not moreso, to find the trash pit

[–] ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Movies, TV, comics, Video Games, books, etc. People in this thread have already named a few. But as you point out, archeology in reality is rarely what we see in mainstream entertainment.

Ah the Terracotta army was used in one of The Mummy movies.