Afterdays Media focuses on archaeological views of our contemporary culture. Artifacts, art, or cultural phenomena that picture us in the past tense.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Fossil Aerosol and Postmodern Egypt

A new Fossil Aerosol recording for the close of 2013 – released December 15 on bandcamp.com.

“Three Days at Qurna” considers the commodity of antiquity and the fakery of the ancient. The title refers to the Egyptian village of Qurna, which was recently destroyed by Egyptian authorities to provide a "cleaner and safer" environment for tourists approaching the Valley of the Kings. The village was built atop and within a series of ancient tombs - used for dwellings, workshops, and (many years ago) sources of antiquities. For generations, many of the residents of this village made their living by selling relics found literally beneath their homes. More recently, craftsmen in the village had taken to making reproductions and fakes of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

There are no synthetic sources in this piece. It is composed primarily of fragments of vintage Egyptian folk recordings, processed and mixed live in the studio. Falsified ethnography