Matching Constellations

One reason why I’m sometimes considered a killjoy is that I can’t get excited about archaeological finds that have something that looks like it has a constellation on it. I can if there’s corroborating evidence for it, but if the only thing to get excited about is that something looks similar then I’m not convinced. This annoys some people who ask “What are the chances that the pockmarks could look like a constellation by chance? Off the top of my head I don’t know. It’s particularly difficult if you’re allowed to make up constellations. Seeing as very few ancient civilisations used the Romano-Greek constellations that could be a problem. So here’s a slide that I’ll be using in a couple of talks to try and show how it is possible to find a match for anything, if you look hard enough.

I look like a star!

I entered my photo into the celebrity face matcher at My Heritage to see if I look like a star. Sure enough I do. I look like Ewan McGregor. But what if Ewan MacGregor wasn’t a celebrity, then I wouldn’t look like anyone famous would I? It seems I also look like Denzel Washington. But if he wasn’t famous then I wouldn’t look a celebrity would I? There’s also Viggo Mortenson and so it goes. Eventually it gets to the stage that if Ewan McGregor, Denzel Washington, Viggo Mortenson, Renee Zellwegger and Hugo Weaving weren’t celebrities, then my closest match would be Hritwik Roshan who, I think, plays the penguin owl in the Harry Potter films.

You can give it a go and you’ll find there’s no face which can’t be matched with somebody. If you’re allowed to pick ‘n’ choose which rivets, pyramids or pockmarks are significant then there’s always going to be a matching constellation. Whether or not it’s meaningful is another matter. That’s why it helps so much to have corroboration.