Hey there Sports Fans,
Now that summer has officially arrived, I'll be taking over the "Monday Mystery" feature. Just as the American public neglected the 1932 Ford model B in favor of the V8-equipped model 18, this feature has been somewhat neglected over the past few months, and I'm here to shake things up and rejuvenate the Monday Mystery - or at least make sure it goes out with a bang (just as the Marmon Motor Car Company went out of business after the extravagant, powerful Marmon Sixteen failed to turn a profit).
To make the summer of mystery the best it can be - and definitely not because I'm lazy and/or uncreative - I'd like you all to suggest some topics for upcoming mystery threads. These can be new ideas, or ones we've done in the past that you enjoyed. Here is a list of all our previous mystery features. Adherence to the general theme of "mysteries" is preferable, so we don't steal any of the Tuesday Triva threads' thunder, but there's room for some leeway. Go hog wild!
How about some myths that Will Not Die? I'm sure every field has them, those myths that, for whatever reason, have become cemented in the public understanding. They probably have their origins in the truth, but somewhere along the way things went a bit wobbly. Maybe A Guy wrote a book that was super popular but not really accurate? Maybe a theory was created when there was limited information, and now there's more and better information that proves that theory wrong? How have those myths shaped your field and the public perception of it? What's the real story? What bits of the myth are kinda-sorta true? When was the myth created, and by whom?
Unexcavated archaeological sites could be fun, whether they're unexcavated because we don't know where they are or unexcavated because of funding or lack of training or being under a modern city or conservation reasons. In my little nook alone the list goes on and on-Agade, Wakashunni, Tarhuntassa, much of the lower town of Carchemish, the Round City of Baghdad, Arbela, Ištakar, and so on and so forth.
YOU CANNOT STEAL TUESDAY'S THUNDERRRR because it is The People's Theme Day.
I know we've had an unsolved crimes theme for Monday Mysteries, but how about a "solving the mystery" theme that focuses on sleuths and the advances in forensics that help us "solve the mystery"?
There are many cool stories surrounding the investigation and prosecution of criminal acts. Just in my field of study there is the first use of forensic anthropology, the development of the Body Farm at UT Knoxville, or the first use of DNA evidence in a court case. I would love to hear other experts weigh in on how we've solved the mystery throughout history.
I'd be interested in sites once thought to be just legends that were later found, and how this changed our knowledge of history. For example, I'm thinking of L'Anse-aux-Meadows, which finally corroborated the idea of Vikings in North America.
Also, I'd be interested in whatever we might know about the practice of crypto-religions--those practiced by people who had to present as one faith while secretly practicing another, such as the Jacobite crypto-Catholics. I suspect that might be a bit of a crypto-mystery topic that wouldn't get much response, however.
On the theme of your OP, how about developments that fell by the wayside? Stuff that could've been a big development, but wasn't. edit: and perhaps as a consequence is poorly known about or poorly understood.
Following a chat with some mods today, I think a Monday Mystery about destroyed sites would be interesting. Both mysteries about what could have been lost, as well as mysteries about who did the destroying.
an archeology based one could be "what was this used for" for those artifacts we can only guess about!