Egyptology and the Borg

Egyptology and the Borg

On a trip to Egypt last year I was fortunate to visit Dr. Lehner's excavation at the lost city of the pyramid builders in Giza. Dr. Lehner was very generous with his time and gave us an overview of the site. His and the AERA's goal is to study the urban and daily life aspect of life in ancient Egypt and he told us that the greatest misfortune for him is finding gold. Most sane people would be delighted to find gold but not him. The AERA is looking for information about the urban and social aspects of the pyramid builders, where they lived, how they got from place to place, stored and distributed food, governed etc. If you find stairs, a road, a granary, an administration building you can tell much about the society and no one pays much attention to you. He equated it to being in a Borg ship and doing your thing, and while you pose no threat to the Borg, you walk around and no Borg even looks at you. However, when you find a gold item, suddenly the Borg queen becomes aware of your existence and they all descend upon you and your day is ruined.

It's a little surreal standing on a site where pyramid builders walked four thousand years ago having a conversation based on a cultural reference that is esoteric in our own time, and could never have been imagined by the original inhabitants of the place. Dr. Lehner who devotes his life to the study of 5000 year old Egyptian culture exemplifying something with a sci-fi reference was such an unexpected clash between academia and the fringes of contemporary pop culture that it made us laugh. I suppose the most surprising aspect of it is that Dr. Lehner is a Star Trek fan. As if I needed another reason to love the man!

The AERA site:
http://www.aeraweb.org/
more on Dr Lehner:
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/lehner_mark.html