We live in truly terrifying times. The election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America fillsĀ some with jubilation, but many more with bemusement, confusion and/or abject terror for the future.
It is but one shockingĀ dimension of the politics of lies and theĀ hateĀ spreading throughĀ modern Western democracies fuelled byĀ their media machines. We reach a new low in democratic processĀ whenĀ the world’s most powerful nation electsĀ a pussy-grabbing demagogueĀ to rest his small handsĀ on theĀ nuclear launch codes.
What possible perspective can I offer, as a medieval mortuary archaeologist, on Trump’s election?Ā What can I say, informed by a detailed knowledge of past societies,Ā about the present-day Trump phenomenon: the man himselfĀ and those that support and vote for them? I admit I’m struggling to come up with something not utterlyĀ banal or glib.Ā So let’s just keep it really obvious and shallow for now.
- Trump will eventually die. He’s the oldest USĀ president ever elected and so it might be sooner than later.Ā He won’tĀ rule forever. He willĀ perish. Things will change. The sun will rise again. He will expire. Valar Morghulis!
- However and whenever he dies, you can bank onĀ the factĀ he won’t get what he deserves in funerary terms as the presidential candidate with the lowest approval rating EVER. Instead, I betĀ Trump will get aĀ grand funeral. The political classes and the media will duly honourĀ him and his legacy. They will applaudĀ how significantĀ his life was.Ā ConsensusĀ will beĀ created, just as it is contrived after this election for the good of the ‘nation’.Ā Death we are toldĀ transcends partyĀ politics, andĀ Trump will beĀ transformed into one of the honoured dead of the nation;
- Trump will not only get an extravagant funeral, I suspectĀ he will design for himself, and/or get others to create for him, aĀ ludicrouslyĀ opulent tomb. It will be orange. It might be setĀ apart in some pompous landscape location, perhaps ruining several native American burial grounds. Alternatively, it might be installed adjacent to those ofĀ his presidentialĀ predecessors andĀ within a national sacred space: a temple to greed and hate, or maybe he will be buried in a bunker on one of his Scottish golf courses….Ā As a rule, the bigger the sociopath, the grander their tomb and the more significant its location. Whatever it looks like, Trump’s tomb will be a lie, of course.Ā It willĀ patch over the disillusion, discontentment, dislike, disputesĀ and dissonanceĀ connected with his memory and legacy. It will probably be a Trump Tower… or else a huge funerary pumpkin…
- Almost without fail, sooner or later, along will come the historians, art historians and archaeologists who will buy into the liesĀ of Trump’s tomb and legacy.Ā They will write about how this grandiose monument reveals justĀ how much respect Trump was held in by their successors and servants, not simply his obscene wealth.Ā The rich and exoticĀ materials, theĀ intense labour and the grandiose imagery of the mausolea reveal faith, love, honour, memory and fame used to project Trump’s memoryĀ back into the hallowed past and push it forward to meet aspired futures.
This is the perspective I can offer as a mortuary archaeologist: all men must die, all tombs will lie.
We find many traces of similar behaviours in the archaeological record from across the globe. Of course there are great leaders whose tombs are unknown, obliterated by successors or deliberately denied respectful burial. Equally, there are many grand mortuary monuments raised to humble individuals, or as collective monuments to many people, not just leaders. Still, if you look upon any truly opulent ancient tomb or ceremonial monument studied by archaeologistsĀ across the world, I suspect inĀ 9 times out of 10, you are probably looking at a monument raised by craven cretins to a complete numbskull. A mound or building raised to honour a puffed-up delusional prick by their cronies and lackeys, successors or enemies, keen to honour their passing.
My point: Plus Ƨa change, plus c’est la mĆŖme chose.
It certainly offers a different view on past monuments. Look upon theĀ Neolithic chambered tomb known at West Kennet. ItĀ may well have been honouring ‘ancestors’ as some archaeologists have suggested, but perhaps it was raised by andĀ forĀ individuals or groups hated with a vengeanceĀ by thoseĀ they ruled in the clan or tribe.
Think of those interred beneath the Bronze Age barrowsĀ on Normanton Down near Stonehenge. TheyĀ were cosy loving family groups? Or were theyĀ likely leaders considered complete wastes of spaceĀ by their contemporaries and those that raised the monument were despised too?
Consider the knights and their ladies honoured in brass and stone in many of our parish churches.Ā Were they really missed by loved ones? Alternatively, perhaps most people couldn’t stand their guts in their own lifetimes and the memorial simply legitimised heirs more than happy to take over their lands and homes.
Is this comforting? Probably not! Either way,Ā let’s notĀ buy into the cosy language of some historians and archaeologists who regard pastĀ tombs and mortuary practice as evidence of social consensus, respect, honour, commemoration and valorisation. Most tombs honoured gits and nobs.
If most ancient great barrows were raised over and byĀ colossal dullards, what is key is that many people at the time probably knew this all too well. Archaeologists and historians mustĀ remember this too, and not write studies of the ancient dead that read like extended epitaphs, when those we study were likelyĀ despised by most people who knew them.
So, sooner or later, Trump will pass away, and a tacky Trump Tower, or perhapsĀ simply a gold-platedĀ lift,Ā will encase hisĀ misogynisticĀ flesh and bankrupt bones. Many with flock to honour him, but many too will visit toĀ quietly remember how much misery and suffering his political life brought. When that time comes, remember the lies funerals espouse and tombs materialise.
I repeat: all men must die, all tombs will lie.
In this regard, mortuary archaeology gives us a sense of what’s to come.
Archaeoš”š¢šš±š„ 
Great reflection. It puts the current events on the large canvas of history.
Probably those great tombs and barrows were raised to make sure HE or SHE really was dead and wouldn’t com back any time soon!
I truly loved your piece. It is all too easy to misinterpret the past and forget the remarkable continuity of human way of thinking and a bit if perspective helps overcome also the dark period of life thank u!!!
Reblogged this on Arran Q Henderson and commented:
What ancient & medieval tombs can teach us about Donald Trump.
But just imagine if he were to be assassinated!!! Kennedy? Who he?
Well, this is the best article about Trump I’ve ever read š
Thanks!
Perhaps it’s the greatest because it promises that he WILL be gone someday?
Reading this again Professor Williams I’m struck by the grim fact that, as you say, it’s more than likely that the wealthy and powerful of all previous eras, kings and the like, were most likely a gang of bullies who had seized power and land and held it against the will of their ‘subjects, who were forced to pay them tribute in life then later honour them in death, or at least waste huge amounts of time, effort and resources raising memorials. That’s obviously true with structures like the pyramids, but depressingly, as you say expect its equally true even with the old Neolithic passage tombs. Here I’m thinking of Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange here in Ireland. One always likes to imagine there was some “Arcadian past” where our ancestors were free from social structures, and correspondingly “free in the mind” perhaps. But maybe the rot set in as soon as we had agriculture and it’s all been downhill from there. Utterly depressing thought. Which somehow ends with Trump, seemingly the final manifestation of our gone-wrong world, and the most depressing thing to happen in western politics. Certainly in my lifetime. That particular tomb can not come too soon or fast enough, as far as I am concerned.
I started writing this as upbeat and jokey and it got darker and darker. Obviously I’m grossly simplifying, but it is a legitimate point that archaeologists and historians do often see the building of great monuments as somehow a sign of social cohesion and we must be careful not to over-play the benign language we use. Sorry it got so depressing though! š
Absolutely brilliant! You have brought a little ray of light into a very dark time.
I have a picture of the Balladoole Viking burial open in front of me as I read this. The Vikings implanted their pagan monument right on top of a Christian (and probably pre-Christian) holy place, disinterring the bones of the ancestors of the people they had just supplanted as they did it. Bastards. Hybridity my arse.
Well professor, aren’t you a smug know it all liberal, with a healthy amount of brown nose psychophant followers gleefully agreeing with your ridiculous premises? I doubt most archaeologists agree. I bet most clear thinking people would agree however, that your a small man with a big mouth, a true SJW, whose got no problem bitching about the wealthy, while raking plenty yourself. Your a clown.
*You’re
A car park burial would be too good for him, but I am sure that he will get something yuge and vulgar
What a giant pile of pomposity! Your grand contribution to intellectual thought is something to the effect that large, grand tombs equate to someone having been a not-so-nice person. That is one of stupidest notions I have ever heard. It’s obvious you don’t care much for our President. It’s also obvious to me that in the grand scheme of things you, sir, are a pimple of the butt of time.
As a fellow archaeologist I salute your reasoning oh great pimple
and clown sir
Professor Pimple to you!
Too soon? Or not soon enough?
Great article! I’ve often wondered whether large funeral mounds were a case of “let’s see you get out of that then!”. A relatively recent example would be Napoleon –several coffins, one inside each other? Someone really didn’t want him back……
‘Showing respect’ at funerals can have a comparable resonance to ‘taking care of him’ in mafia terms.
The Mafia often go to the funerals of those they kill
I voted for Trump and would do so again. He obviously has his flaws, but look at the alternatives.
Sanders: He is a Communist and the viability of his candidacy is proof that every generation dismisses history in favor of personally learning its lessons the hard way. You know how it goes… āThose old fogies just did it wrong. Weāre much smarter and wiser, so weāre going to do Communism right! Itāll work this time!ā
Clinton: The personification of evil. Remember, ye justifiably proud British people, that what you hear trumpeted in the main stream media about the US is completely one-sided. Hillaryās entire history is sordid ā not just her recent past (the Clinton Foundation is merely one example of many), which is bad enough, but all the way back to her college senior thesis praising Saul Alinsky. We in the United States know far more about her and for you to judge us from across the pond is unjustified.
This is a great blog. Please donāt sully it with current politics. Trump bashers are legion, relatable archaeologists are few.