In the 18th century, The Qianlong Emperor came into the possession of a Jade Ring first made in the 12th century BC. Trying to decode its function, he concluded it was a bowl stand, and engraved it with a poem which described it as such. Additionally, he commissioned a bowl with which to display its use. While we now know this is the wrong conclusion, we have still to decide on the ring’s true function (MacGregor, 2010).

When looking at something we are unfamiliar with, we seek to categorise it into something we understand. Our biases and the unwillingness to challenge them creates prejudice, incorrect conclusions, and resistance to new information. This is often apparent when looking at one culture from the perspective of another. Factors such as language, religion, and class can provide significant barriers to our understanding.

Today, a ‘culture war’ has been declared by the British Conservative Party. Many lawmakers don’t acknowledge gender identities beyond the binary. Conceptions about transgender people have resulted in their rights lagging, and even discussions of repeal. This is not a new approach in Britain – under colonial British rule, the “Hijra”, India’s traditional trans community, were criminalised. (Nussbaum, 2015)

As illustrated by the Jade Ring story, archaeologists must often make assumptions to piece together fragments of the past. Those assumptions, naturally influenced by one’s positionality, can be misinterpreted as historical fact. Therefore, examining history and archaeological finds can be an exploration of misrepresentation, rooted in nationalistic romanticisation. I want to explore the relationship between bias and the forming of historical narratives – perhaps, creating counter-narratives which are visibly false, can draw attention to the absurdity of the status quo and the “factuality” of history.

Hypernormalisation – first described by Yurchak, it is the process of presenting a false, simplified, reality to aid in the conservation of a status quo (Yurchak, 2005) – is a state in which Britain (and western capitalism as a whole) finds itself (Curtis, 2016). To subvert it, we must adopt the medium in which narratives are perceived as fact; with ‘mythological’ status enabling its accuracy to be “falsely obvious.” (Barthes, 1972) By operating inside this structure we can reveal the mechanisms used to hide alternative truths. (Hall, 1997) I will achieve this by fabricating the excavation of historical artefacts in Middle-England which contradict prevalent narratives of Britain. These ‘discoveries’ will be presented in an archaeological book consisting of traditional archaeological photography, cartography, sketches, and reconstructions, documenting and analysing the findings. I will use these tools to re-present the uncovered objects as having ‘normalised’ functions – in apparent denial of their obvious use.

An example would be the discovery of a series of smashed ceramic pieces. The discovery’s location would be documented and analysed to reconstruct the item. Once reconstructed, many viewers will be able to identify the objects as a butt-plug. However, the book would re-present it as the stopper for a carafe, concluding this was its intended use. Through desexualising an object clearly meant for anal play, the book would draw attention to Britain’s historic stigmatisation of countersexual (Preciado, 2018) practices and culture.

The intentional misrepresentation of objects in order to distribute an inaccurate (prude) image of Britishness will aim to push the viewer into questioning what other assumptions from our past are influenced by our preconceived national identity. Archaeology’s obvious reputation as accurate, while adopting assumptions within is practice, enables it to be subverted for this purpose.