Gilgamesh

• I. Objectives of the Archaeology Project
  • A. To simulate the process of archaeology
  • B. To promote collaborative learning
  • C. To develop analytical skills
  • D. To communicate the process and the outcome to peers and teachers
• II. Process of the Archaeology Project
  • A. Each section of Great Books I will be divided into groups of four or five members. Each group will select a leader.
  • B. Each group will be named after a university, museum, or archaeological research team.
  • C. The groups will have three weeks to explore “Warrenia,” an imaginary region into which the school building has been divided.
    • 1. Those rooms located in lower Warrenia (first floor) will be regarded as friendly territory to outside researchers. Those located in upper Warrenia (second floor) will be regarded as hostile.
    • 2. Teachers on both floors will possess fragments of a lost story. Those on the second floor may ask you to perform a task in order to “dig” for their fragments or may create a situation that makes “digging” difficult in some way or another.
    • 3. You will be allowed to copy (either by photographing, recording by hand, or photocopying) the recovered fragments.
    • 4. The time for searching for and examining fragments will end in three weeks.
  • D. The second phase of the project involves your team translating what you have recovered.
    • 1. Not all fragments will belong to the story your team is working to recover. Your team will have to discern which do and which do not belong.
    • 2. The fragments will be in at least four different languages. You will have to translate them.
    • 3. Your team’s ultimate goal is to create a recension of the story. (That recension may include gaps as did the original recension of the Epic of Gilgamesh.)
    • 4. The team’s next goal is to prepare a written report of your archaeological experience that explains the origin points of all the fragments you were able to examine, details of how you were able to examine them, and a discussion of the recovered story.
    • 5. Your team will also be interviewed in a “press conference” to which other teachers and administrators may be invited.
  • E. You will be graded as both a team and as individuals.
    • 1. Your report will have to include a document from each individual member of your team that explains tasks that the individual completed on his/her own, responsibilities assigned to that individual, and any other relevant information that will make clear whether your work was, in fact, a team effort or not.
    • 2. Each individual will assign himself/herself a grade that must be defended in a short paragraph.
    • 3. Each team will receive a team grade based largely on cooperation and sharing of responsibilities.
• III. Faculty Involvement
  • A. Participating faculty members will receive a packet of fragments. These packets will receive fragments in relatively good shape, others somewhat damaged, most or all in a language other than English.
  • B. Participating faculty members will decide how teams will access the fragments in their possession.
  • C. In the past, participating teachers in hostile territory have designed a number of challenges for the archaeological researchers:
    • 1. Fixing them to the bottom of a table and draping the table so as to simulate conditions in a cave.
    • 2. Requiring researchers to perform some ritualistic task in order to gain entry into the “holy space” where the fragments may be found.
    • 3. Requiring researchers to fill out a formal request to explore.
  • D. Both hostile and friendly holders of fragments may also require some less demanding task to be performed. In the past teachers have had researchers:
    • 1. Solve a math problem.
    • 2. Balance an equation or chemical change.
    • 3. Conjugate a verb in a foreign language.
    • 4. Diagram a sentence.
    • 5. Answer questions relevant to the discipline they teach.
    • 6. Sing a song or play a musical instrument.

These examples are far from exhaustive. They are merely examples used in the past.