For those about to fail, we salute you

Introduction

This article has been inspired by a paper I presented in April 2019 at the annual conference organised by the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (C.I.f.A.) at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. For those who do not know, C.I.f.A. conferences provide a forum for commercial archaeologists to discuss ideas around the social values and public benefits of archaeological work, the creation of new knowledge, the legacy and the impact of archaeology on future generations.

When I first saw the sessions advertised for this conference, the so-called ‘Festival of Failure’ immediately attracted my attention. To be precise, the session’s exact title was “If at first you don’t succeed, embrace and share the failures”, a statement that conveys a powerful meaning. I felt that there was something about the choices we make in archaeology that needed to be addressed in this specific panel, particularly in relation to post-excavation finds analysis, which is my area of specialisation. During the conference, most speakers on the same panel presented specific examples of failure in archaeology, focusing on the practicalities of delivering archaeological work in a commercial setting. By contrast, my approach was rather theoretical and philosophical, often touching on the comical side of things.

At a later stage, I decided to convert my paper into an online article and post it on this website, along with some new thoughts that were not incorporated into my presentation back in April 2019. The reader needs to be warned that the examples and arguments presented in this article are not strictly ‘academic’. The referenced sources range from archaeological site reports to online information on commercial products, philosophical reviews, archaeological theory, modern literature, cinematography, and the arts. As my presentation was originally in first-person narrative, I decided to retain that format to avoid disrupting the flow of my arguments. I wish to apologise if this informal narrative is not academic, though my original intention was not to adopt an academic approach.

Failure through the eyes of an archaeological specialist

I would like to begin this article by noting that, in commercial archaeology, the bipolarity of success and failure can be interpreted in various ways. The most common interpretation encountered nowadays defines success as the completion of a project and the delivery of the agreed archaeological report on time and within budget, while failure is the exact opposite. For the finds’ archaeologist, however, the manifestations of success and failure in post-excavation work are slightly different: they reflect on the existing perceptions of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the analysis and interpretation of archaeological finds. This means that a successful finds report should date and interpret archaeological finds the ‘right’ way, or at least the ‘expected’ way, while any other approach might be characterised as ‘wrong’.

During my career as a ceramics specialist, I always felt the pressure of ‘right versus wrong’ troubling me. It is a well-known fact that all specialists, at some point during their careers, have got their finds and dates wrong; and to be fair to all of them, there is nothing wrong with that. If one makes no mistakes, then there is no way to learn; therefore, failure is an essential element of the learning process. What is important, however, is the limitations produced by the fear of failure during this learning process. Our fear of failure brings up two interesting questions that will be the focus of this article. Firstly, what new knowledge could have been gained, had the specialist dared to say something ‘wrong’, embrace this mistake, and open a new discussion? And secondly, could our fear of misjudging and our potential embarrassment at doing something ‘wrong’ operate as a barrier to the production of new knowledge?

As the reader might notice by the end of this paper, these two questions may not be answered. In fact, there may not be a clear-cut answer to these questions due to the nature of what is perceived to be ‘failure’. The aim of this paper, however, is to produce a discussion on the limitations generated by the fear of failure and present a solution which might fit some specific cases of ‘right versus wrong’ in the analysis of archaeological finds.

An example of ‘right versus wrong’ on a specific interpretation

Going back to the paper’s original title, “For those about to fail, we salute you”, I would like to begin with some historical information, which would help everyone understand that the perceptions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the identification of material culture are totally subjective. The title of this paper is obviously a modification of the AC/DC song “For those about to rock, we salute you”. The song was part of the band’s eighth album release in November 1981, under the broader title “For Those About to Rock” (1). The readers who have identified the connection between the paper’s title and the AC/DC song are ‘right’, though there might also be another interpretation that proves they are ‘wrong’.

The song’s original title was based on the phrase “For those about to die”, which is a variation of the phrase “We, who are about to die, salute you”. Most Romanists would probably agree that this salutation was presented by the gladiators to the Roman Emperor in the arena before entering the competition and fighting to their deaths. AC/DC guitarist Angus Young got the idea for this song after reading a book that was given to him by the band’s singer, Bon Scott, which described gladiatorial games in ancient Rome. During an interview, Angus Young remembered that the title of this book was “For Those About to Die, We Salute You” by Robert Graves. What is interesting, however, is that Graves never wrote a book with that title, and it is likely that the original inspiration for the AC/DC song was the book “Those about to die” by Daniel Mannix, published in 1958 (2).

This example does not necessarily show that Angus Young was wrong. He probably did not remember the correct title of the book that inspired his song; however, the actual source of his inspiration was not a specific book but the gladiatorial games in ancient Rome. And even though it would be ‘right’ to presume that the title was inspired by the phrase once used by the gladiators, there is limited historical proof that the gladiators were actually addressing the Emperor in this specific way. In fact, the only account of the phrase “Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant” derives from Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum (3), and relates to a very specific game organised by the Emperor Claudius at Lake Fucinus in AD 52, where the naumachiarii refused to fight after having received the Emperor’s pardon (4). In fact, the gladiatorial context of this phrase may be a 19th-century invention, attributed to the eponymous painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1859, depicting gladiators greeting Vitellius in the Colosseum (5).

In his book, Daniel Mannix imagines the scene as follows: “Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you! And die the gladiators did. In a vast marble Colosseum larger than Yankee Stadium, the people of Rome, patrician and commoner, flocked to see gladiators mangled beneath the hoofs and wheels of horses and chariots, slaughtered by half-starved wild beasts and butchered by well-armed and armoured professionals. With the Empire in decline, death and torture became the only spectacles that satisfied the decadent Romans’ longing. The Emperor Trajan gave one set of games that lasted 122 days; at its end, 11,000 people and 10,000 animals had been killed. The people of Rome loved it- and they wanted more. This is the extraordinary and true account of the Roman Games and the gladiators who fought and died in the cruellest, costliest spectacles of all time” (6).

Finally, it is almost wrong to presume that the entire song “For those about to rock, we salute you” was inspired by the gladiators of ancient Rome. Although its title might have been, the song’s lyrics speak of anything but Roman gladiators, as for example, the verse: “We rock at dawn on the front line, like a bolt right outta the blue, the skies alight with a guitar bite, heads will roll and rock tonight” (7). Needless to say, this article will not help it!

Dictatorial notion of ‘right versus wrong’ in archaeology

Through this rather long and irrelevant introduction, I aimed to demonstrate that the concepts of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are shaped by and depend on the perceptions of those who generate and consume such examples of material culture. A similar situation can be noted in the analysis and interpretation of archaeological artefacts. The most common situation of ‘right versus wrong’ is dating. For those not associated with archaeology, I need to stress that when I refer to dating, I specifically mean archaeological dating; however, the potential for ‘success’ or ‘failure’ is also encountered in other forms of dating. In archaeology, a problem that is normally overseen during post-excavation work is what I tend to describe as “The dictatorship of chronology”. This dictatorship is limiting the potential of field specialists and demoting them to the role of dating oracles. Furthermore, it confines post-excavation analysis of archaeological artefacts to a specific function, which, although popular, is not necessarily the only one.

In post-excavation analysis, finds might be used to discuss site function, status, regional patterns and associations with nearby discoveries. In other words, finds are expected to be used in a discussion targeting regional and chronological distribution; however, what is the potential of using finds to discuss other issues of material culture? My personal favourite, for example, is the analysis of regional chaînes opératoires and the understanding of behavioural patterns noted in the production of specific artefact types. Another interesting idea could be the correlation between production and consumption at a specific site, in relation to the socio-ideological context of a specific chronological period. Unfortunately, there seems to be a limited intention to elaborate on such questions in excavation reports, usually under the excuse that the project’s budget does not allow it. Although this might be true, I often feel that such studies require a completely different, rather academic approach compared to the traditional approaches that commercial specialists feel comfortable with. Such approaches require time to study and experiment with new ideas, and the risk of failure due to misunderstandings is always present; therefore, specialists prefer to keep things simple, leading to the production of formalised findings reports that tend to address a relatively standard set of questions. Of course, this rule has several exceptions, though not enough to show that commercial finds analyses can target academic interests.

The second issue to discuss is what I define as “The dictatorship of previous expertise”. Secretly and subconsciously, there is a mutual belief among artefact specialists that there is a previously established ‘right way’ of doing things, which consists of the safest approach for the identification and interpretation of various assemblages. By following the established ‘right way’, specialists are limiting their chances of making mistakes and damaging their reputations. A well-established notion in archaeology, for example, concerns the legacies of David Peacock (8) and Dean Arnold (9), namely, that most of the natural resources used in the production of ancient material culture need to be traced relatively locally to the excavated site. I do not disagree that this might be the case for most excavated finds, but what leeway are we allowing if it is not? In other words, would specialists flag the presence of imports or extra-regional influences in the production of material culture, or would they try to suppress them in favour of a more local production? Which specialist would be brave enough to flag an ‘alien’ assemblage instead of covering it under the broader identification code ‘unknown yet regional’?

A personal example of a ‘right versus wrong’ situation in finds analysis

Speaking of ‘right and wrong’, a specialist should always wonder if there is an actual ‘right and wrong’. While assessing a fired clay assemblage a while ago, I came across some large perforated triangular objects, which in most publications are positively identified as Iron Age loomweights (10). The reason I am saying to most publications is that very few scholars believe that such objects served different functions in antiquity, such as hearth furniture or even bed-warmers (11). In my opinion, the fact that such objects are perforated probably suggests that their perforations had some sort of rational function. As such objects are usually recovered from features with domestic-related debris, I am happy to go along with the popular interpretation and accept these as loomweights.

The next thing I noticed in my fired clay assemblage was the presence of some small elongated pyramidal objects that are normally identified as ‘kiln furniture’ or ‘kiln bars’. Although the exact use of such objects remains unknown, the general idea is that they were probably used as dividers or supporting pegs inside loaded pottery kilns during the firing circle. Interestingly, this interpretation prevails even for assemblages of such pyramidal objects that have no association with pottery kilns. A similar perforated example recovered at Heybridge, Essex (12), has been described as a “truncated pyramidal weight”. In the assemblage I assessed, however, all examples were broken, and their tips did not survive; therefore, no similar perforations were noted. To complicate things further, one of the recovered fragments was black-slipped and had been manufactured with greater care than other pieces. The question that arose during the assessment was about the use of such objects. I realised that a specialist’s bold assumption would have been to describe such artefacts as highly personalised or symbolic. After all, it is a common practice in archaeology to baptise whatever is unknown as ceremonial, symbolic, or even entangled. Why would someone dare to say “sorry, we do not know what this thing is”?

As an archaeologist who has spent most of his life looking at assemblages from the Eastern Mediterranean, it was almost impossible for me not to see the association of such pyramidal objects with Archaic Greek and Roman loomweights. Small pyramidal loomweights have numerous Egyptian, Greek and Roman parallels, dating from the 7th century BC onwards, although earlier examples are also available (13). Most of these objects recovered from domestic contexts are thought to be functional; however, decorated examples recovered from sanctuaries, burials, and other ceremonial deposits are believed to be highly symbolic, personal, and gender-entangled. Even if this is not the case for the British pyramidal objects that I examined, the simultaneous presence of Iron Age triangular loomweights, Late Iron Age and early Roman pottery, and these mysterious pyramidal objects in the same ditch fills is likely to produce interesting correlations. The only fear is what would happen to the specialist if he decides to point out such correlations. I think with the existing notions of what is ‘right and wrong’ in the analysis of Late Iron Age and early Roman fired clay objects, the least that could happen to the specialist would be to invite harsh criticism and face the consequences of failure. And if this is indeed the most prevailing scenario, then would the specialist dare to point out this interesting correlation?

Personally, I would have dared and expected my opinion to be heard. The correlation is not entirely irrational; there might be some chronological differences among specific assemblages, but the technological and functional conceptions of such objects were present in the Eastern Mediterranean for a long time. Even as an MA student at Southampton, I remember myself repeating to my colleagues that the Romanisation of Britain is a coined academic convention. In reality, before the Romans arrived in Britain, they had already accumulated cultural elements from other nations they had previously conquered. Therefore, before discussing the Romanisation of Britain, a scholar must first consider the Hellenisation and Egyptianisation of Rome, and investigate cultural interaction as a phenomenon that works both ways. In terms of material culture, it is likely that Mediterranean ideas could have arrived in Britain as early as the Early Iron Age, as this is, for example, suggested by the recovery of a Greek Black Figure Kylix near Reading, which can be reliably dated on stylistic grounds to the late 6th century BC (14).

How much ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ can we control?

Having presented some examples of what is perceived as right or wrong in finds identifications, it is time to move to a suggestion that might be helpful in the future. I personally believe that redefining what ‘right or wrong’ is not the best way forward, as both ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are totally subjective. Instead, my suggestion is to allow the existing notions of right and wrong to adjust on their own by introducing new approaches and fostering a free exchange of ideas. Archaeologists should not be penalised for having the courage to try new approaches, even if those approaches eventually result in an error. After all, the entire progress of our species has been based on trial and error.

This brings me to another interesting question: how much of the actual knowledge that we have produced over the years was the result of tested actions under controlled conditions that led to success? I think the best answer to this comes from the American science fiction writer Frank Herbert and his 1965 novel “Dune”. In the book, Liet-Keynes, his Imperial Majesty’s Planetologist, has been betrayed by the evil Baron Harkonnen and has been abandoned to die in the desert of the planet Arrakis. As he is lying almost unconscious from dehydration under the boiling sun, he is hallucinating a conversation with his father, who used to be the Imperial Planetologist in the past and was a man of proof and reason. Put in the author’s own words: “Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, and the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error” (15).

Some might agree that the production of knowledge through accident and error was probably more common in antiquity than it is today. And perhaps, nowadays, trial and error might be more appropriate in characterising the birth of new knowledge in a world of scientific discourse. Whatever the original motive, however, either a natural accident or a human trial, it seems that error occurs more often than success. And this brings us to the next question: Would an error automatically consist of failure? Again, I believe that error and failure do not necessarily mean the same thing. There might be a series of subsequent errors that lead to complete failure; however, failure is a state of mind that cannot be controlled, unlike error.

Failure in our work in archaeology stems from two conditions: fear and disappointment. For example, if a specialist fears failure, they will avoid incorporating new ideas into their work. Even if the trial of new ideas results in an error, disappointment may lead the specialist to accept it as a failure. I personally believe that failure must be embraced as a new opportunity to change what is perceived to be ‘right and wrong’. After all, failure is the strongest force in nature, constantly motivating those on a journey to knowledge. It has been embraced as such for centuries by various philosophers, politicians, artists, writers, and other scholars, who all agree on one thing: had there not been failure, there would not have been progress.

Big Men and quotes on failure

Moving to the people who spoke kindly about failure, I would like to introduce a quote by Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of my favourite martial art, Aikido: “Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something”. Then, reflecting on the words of Bill Gates, one of the leading businessmen in computer science, “It is fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure”. With reference to political wisdom, in Issue 106 of “The Archaeologist”, Robert Sutton quotes the following line by Winston Churchill: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”. This can be followed by another quote by Winston Churchill: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”. Another important note on failure, this time by Abraham Lincoln, says: “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure”. And again, another quote from a general who later became a politician, Colin Powell: “Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty and persistence” Reaching to the end of our political Pantheon, even Donald Trump has an interesting approach to failure: “Sometimes by losing a battle, you find a new way to win the war” (16).

Coming to the end of this paper, I would like to present a philosophical approach to failure by Emil Cioran, who has been described as the philosopher of failure (Bradatan 2016). Emil Cioran (1911–1995) was a Romanian-born French author and philosopher of the previous century, whom I had never heard of before, until the moment I came across a thorough review of his book “Heights of Despair”, published online by Costica Bradatan (2016). Here, I plan to focus on the philosopher’s attitude rather than his written work, and to comment on aspects of his life that I found interesting and relevant to the topic of this paper. The first thing that is interesting about Emil Cioran is his self-identification as “un homme de fragment”, where fragment is not just his writing style but his entire way of life. The second interesting fact about him is the degree of self-contradiction in his writings; this self-contradiction seems to have functioned as a sign of mental activity rather than a sign of weakness. Thirdly, the performative nature of his work: the writer did not write to produce a specific textual product, but to act upon himself. Finally, his realisation that among the number of human tasks, philosophies, ideologies and institutions that can fail, it is also the human condition that must be treated as another failed project; therefore, in Cioran’s mind, failure is the dominant force in the world and acts like “the impulsive God of the Old Testament” (17). What is notable in Cioran’s approach is the permeation of failure in every aspect of human life and human existence.

A different approach to failure is evident in Antonius Block, the central character in Ingmar Bergman’s film “The Seventh Seal” (1957). The film follows the life of the knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his servant Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand) as they return to medieval Scandinavia from the Crusades (18). As noted by Costica Bradatan (2013), the central character, plunged into a crisis of faith, is confronted with the grand failure in the form of a man. When he is visited by Death, instead of begging for his life or fleeing away, he challenges him to a game of chess. There is obviously no way for Antonius Block to win the game, but victory is not the point. “He plays against the grand final failure not to win, but to learn how to fail. The philosophical message presented by Ingmar Bergman is that although all humans will fail at the end, “what really matters is how we fail and what we gain in the process” (Bradatan 2013). During his brief game of chess with Death, Antonius Block loses but accomplishes something rare. “He not only turns failure into an art but manages to make the art of failing an intimate part of the art of living” (Bradatan 2013) (19).

Conclusion

Apparently, in philosophy and the arts, our capacity to fail is essential to what we are as a species. With regards to archaeology, sometimes there are limited things a specialist can (or is allowed) to say or do. Although dating contexts is the main function of artefact specialists, it should not be their only one, and there should be new questions and new approaches. The best way to describe the situation would be by paraphrasing a quote by Claude Lévi-Strauss: “To say that a society functions is a truism; but to say that everything in a society functions is absurdity” (20). If we replace the word 'society' with 'archaeology,' it will probably make more sense to us.

Referenced sources and notes

1. Information on the AC/DC (1981) album For Those About to Rock, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Those_About_to_Rock_We_Salute_You
2. Facts about the AC/DC (1981) song For Those About to Rock, We Salute You, Source: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/ac-dc/for-those-about-to-rock-we-salute-you
3. Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum: Tiberius Claudius Drusus Caesar, 21.6
4. Leon, H.G, 1939, ‘Morituri te salutamus’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 70, p.47.
5. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1859) Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant, source: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_Romana/gladiators/ave.html
6. Mannix, D., 1958, Those About to Die, New York: Ballantine Books, on cover page.
7. Lyrics for the AC/DC (1981) song For Those About to Rock, We Salute You, source: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/acdc/forthoseabouttorockwesaluteyou.html
8. Peacock, D.P.S., 1982, Pottery in the Roman World: an Ethnoarchaeological Approach, London and New York (NY): Longman.
9. Arnold, D., 1985, Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10. Here, I am only citing one of its closest parallels, published by Anderson, S., 2012 ‘Fired clay’, in S. Boulter and P. Walton-Rogers (eds.), Circles and Cemeteries: Excavations at Flixton, Volume I, East Anglian Archaeology 147, pp.71-3. Other illustrated examples can be found at Tyrrell, R. 2015, ‘Ceramic loomweights’, in M. Atkinson and S.J. Preston Heybridge: A Late Iron Age and Roman Settlement, Excavations at Elms Farm 1993-5, Internet Archaeology, 40, http://dx.doi.org/10.11141/ia.40.1.tyrrell3
11. These interpretations are from Cynthia Poole and Niall Sharples, respectively, as published in Sharples, N., 2010, Social Relations in Later Prehistory: Wessex in the First Millennium BC, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 209, footnote 25. Their views concern Late Bronze Age loomweights, though I have no reason to believe the two authors see Iron Age loomweights differently.
12. Tyrrell, R., 2015, ‘Ceramic loomweights’, in M. Atkinson and S.J. Preston (eds.) Heybridge: A Late Iron Age and Roman Settlement, Excavations at Elms Farm 1993-5, Internet Archaeology, 40, http://dx.doi.org/10.11141/ia.40.1.tyrrell3 . The Object described here is A3 in Fig. 524.
13. For example, there are 6th-century BC examples from Selinous, Pastas Haus, Phase 1, published in Quercia, A. and Foxhall, L. 2014 ‘Weaving relationships in areas of cultural contacts: production, use and consumption of loomweights in pre-Roman Sicily’, Museu de Arte Sacra do Funchal, 3, pp.88-101, and more specifically in Fig.4, p.93. It should also be noted that such loomweights are quite common in the Eastern Mediterranean, even in earlier periods, such as the Bronze Age examples excavated at Hala Sultan Tekke in Cyprus in 2013: http://www.fischerarchaeology.se/?page_id=1613
14. Boon, G.C. 1954 ‘A Greek vase from the Thames’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 74, p.178.
15. Herbert, F., 1965, Dune, 50th anniversary edition, London: Hodder, p.13.
16. In this specific paragraph, all quotes on failure have been found online at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/failure. As this is not an academic website, such quotes may not reflect the actual words of the people to whom they are attributed. Unfortunately, there is no way to cross-reference these quotes, although this is not what matters here. The most important element of all quotes is that they pass the same message in relation to failure and make the same exact point: failure is not to punish ourselves, but to learn from it. This is where the focus should be.
17. All this information has been taken from Bradatan, C. 2016, The Philosopher of Failure: Emil Cioran’s Heights of Despair, Los Angeles Review of Books, available at: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/philosopher-failure-emil-ciorans-heights-despair/#
18. For the actual film: Ingmar Bergman (1957) The Seventh Seal, with some information of the plot and casting in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Seal
19. The ideas of failure in Bergman’s film and the sentences in quotation marks were taken from Bradatan, C. 2013, In Praise of Failure, The Opinionator, available at: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/in-praise-of-failure/
20. Lévi-Strauss, C. 1963, Structural Anthropology, translated from French by Clair Jaboson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf, New York: Basic Books, p.13.