Excavating my Office

I know it’s a bit hackneyed now for archaeologists to document the material culture of their office, but I cleaned my office yesterday for the first time in about five years.

I won’t say anything profound or amazing, but I was shocked by the quantity of residual stuff floating around my office. 

For example, I found a ticket stub for a Son Seals’ concert at Little Brother’s in Columbus, Ohio in 1997.

I found some Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh CDs.

And some photographs and old pictures that my wife sent with me to Athens when I was at the American School of Classical Studies in 2007-8.

I’ll admit to being a bit of a packrat and keeping stuff rather than discarding it (note the stacks of paper articles on my big table in the first photograph). The persistence of such flotsam in my office assemblage made me think about how even in a world characterized by digital archiving and remarkable abundance we still find objects hanging around in perishable forms for decades.