ABSTRACT
The past is inspirational. It inspires novels, movies, poetry, as well as many aspects of popular culture. Archaeological information is often used to create pictures of the past (Murphy 2002). ‘People like to romanticise archaeology – and archaeologists’ (Stuart 2000: 3). While this romantic notion may be present, many archaeologists are in conflict with themselves regarding the limitations of the archaeological record. We are not able to provide holistic interpretations of the past. Rather, we only have access to fragments of past behavior. This often leads us to embrace an interpretive or contextual approach (Hodder 1991a, 1991c) that uses the present to create the past (Hodder 1991b). In so doing, many archaeologists reach for multiple meanings of the past based on their own reflective inquiry (Kohl 1993: 13). The creators of fictional tales about the past often do the same, although oftentimes such stories lack much of the archaeological evidence as a basis. Such stories also lack the generalizations that are so common in archaeological textbooks; fictional tales tend to focus on the individuals – this is what makes these tales more interesting to the public than archaeological publications.
