Sara Westfall writes:
Today was a suspiciously dull day. No finds, just some pottery and bones. However, in our search for more equipment we came across a strange object. Joey and I were forced to make the trek down to the bottom of the tel when it came time to pick-ax and realized we had no pick-axes. We could’ve done mad petishing (the small pick-ax) by having two in each hand like Joshua did last week, but we decided to go search for more equipment as Q was short other items as well. We finally made it down to the equipment sheds only to discover that they were locked. We searched around the outside for any miscellaneous items that could be useful and we came upon a large wooden spoon sitting on a table. Not only was this a very large spoon, but it had tikis carved into the handle. Well, we instantly knew that this was the best thing we would find all day and since we couldn’t return empty handed, we took it with us. On the way back to the tent, we came up with a brilliant mythology:
The Ladle of Doom is clearly evidence of trade between Assyrians and Polynesia. The spoon came from the great island of Soupopolis, also known by its Greek name, Atlantis. The spoon belonged to Soupiluliumus II and was given to the ruler of Megiddo as a token of friendship shortly before burning the place to the ground, accounting for all of the separate destruction levels in Stratum IV. Shortly thereafter, the Celestial Soup Crater exploded and spilled the boiling but delicious broth all over the island, sinking it into the sea and eradicating its residents. The spoon is the last remnant of this great and intriguing civilization. Much of this was determined by a strange dialect of Nukumanu that we were not quite used to. As such, we had to consult linguist extraordinaire, Philippe Guillaume, who likewise demonstrated that the strange carvings on the Tiki described a concise political history of chieftain succession ending with the usurping of Chiko-Nudo-Soupo and his beautiful queen, Saltinou-Crakeru.**
Clearly, it was a dull day and we have been here far too long after coming up with this story, however the spoon got a good laugh from everyone and is actually useful for picking up dirt. I sense a future prank coming on.
**Story created in part by Joey Brown of Square D6, Area Q, Megiddo, Israel
