About

Hi. You're probably thinking, "What the crumpets am I reading?" 

Don't worry. I thought the same thing when I found these letters in the spring of 2014. Put simply, they shouldn't exist.  
 

My name is Tess. I'm an American researcher working on my PhD in anthropology. I enjoy the smell of old books and spend too much time on the internet and know cilantro tastes like soap, whatever everyone else seems to think. 

I found these letters deep in the bowels of my university, archived with artifacts from a 1992 Egyptian excavation. They haven't been touched in over a decade--probably because, according to the notes, those on the dig dismissed the letters as colonial trash. I assume they only made it back to the University at all because "archeologist" comes from the Latin for "hoarder" (this is a joke; please don't cite me).  

So, why do these 1851 letters found in a pre-Christian site excavated in 1992 reference speculative literature from the 2000's? 

I don't know, but I want to find out. For the benefit of several taxonomic categories of nerdkind, I’ll be transcribing and posting the letters here in real time. I'll keep you updated when I can (you know, between working on my dissertation and the aforementioned internet procrastination).

A disclaimer: the metadata and pictures are not part of the original letters. That's all me. 

Another disclaimer: if you squint, the result looks almost like a book blog. I assure you, it is not.

-Tess