Discoveries in many “Uncharted” territories

From raiding burials to getting burials raided, Dr. Keith Eppich, a history/anthropology professor, shares the same characteristics as Nathan Drake from the video game “Uncharted.” 

Q: What turned you on to the field of anthropology?

A: I’m an archeologist by inclination. I’ve always been interested in exploring the human past. When I was in college, I liked history quite a bit, but I was very frustrated with historical research, it seemed very repetitive and sterile to me, or at least that was my perspective. Reading the same nine books and trying to squeeze some novel meaning from them seemed very restrictive. I didn’t like that at all.  I had a very charismatic professor at my institution, which was Louisiana State University, she kind of turned me on to archeology, in which you go into the field where you unpack the archeological record, and that is your novel perspective. Archeology acts as a corrective to the historical record, so you have what history says about something, and archeology can either confirm, modify, or reject that altogether, because the archeological record is ultimately objective, the historical record is not, it’s subjective. So that’s what drew me to archeology and the study of the archeological record, and it got me hired here at TJC to start the anthropology program here. 

Q: What was your beginning major? 

A: It was engineering, and I wanted to do engineering, and then military, and then I did my little stint in the fake army (ROTC). There I discovered I’m a terrible soldier. I was legitimately awful at it, listening and being on time, following every single little dinky rule without having it explained to me. I was not a very good soldier, and it was the early 90s, so the military was radically downsizing. So that entire career path shriveled up, and I was kind of at loose ends and didn’t know what I wanted to do, and a very influential and talented professor named Heather McKillop at Louisiana State University sunk her hooks in me deep, and I just proceeded to take every class she offered, and that was it. Now, I was doomed at that point.

Q: You take a handful of TJC students to go excavate every summer and you made TJC the only Texas institution invited to this project, how?

A: I’m part of this multi-institutional archeological project down in Guatemala called Proyecto Arqueológico Waka and I’ve been associated with it for a while. I was invited in during graduate school. We are invited to this project. My philosophy is that teaching and research are coeval efforts. We research, and that improves our teaching, and in teaching, that improves our research.  Research improves the teaching. You go into a classroom, or you go into a seminar, and you’re able to say things like, this is the current cutting edge of research. I know this because I’m there, all right, this is what we are working on. 

A: TJC students and I went on a survey of it last year, and the site hasn’t been touched in decades. I expected nothing. I expected it to be a plowed field of sugarcane, all right? I was expecting nothing. But it was in beautiful shape, gorgeous shape. We also follow all the rules. The thing about Guatemala is everything seems based on personal reputation and sort of personal association. We’ve worked in Guatemala for 20 years, and they know us. They know we aren’t going to do anything weird or strange or unusual, and they know we follow every single line, every single rule they do. So, our relationship with the Guatemalan government is really good overall. 

Q: How is handing off the items you find to the Guatemalan government?

A:  Working in Latin America is always an adventure. We have been extremely lucky in Guatemala. There was a group of graduate students from the United States and a group of graduate students in Guatemala, and we all were at school at the same time, and then we took over the project. I’ve known the Guatemalan side of the project for literally years. 

I’ve known these people, and they have made it easy to work in Guatemala. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about trying to work in Guatemala. I haven’t experienced anything like that. The people are warm, friendly and professional. Now they want certain things done in a certain way. There’s nothing wrong with that. But frankly, it’s not any less paperwork than dealing with the Park Service. I’ve dealt with the Park Service looking at archeological sites in national parks, and it’s a lot of paperwork, and they want things done in a very set way. And it’s the only difference is that the Guatemalans want it in Spanish, but then sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t, but  whether it makes sense to me or not, is irrelevant. If they want the document signed in blue ink, it’s getting signed in blue ink. 

Q: Which one of the seven tombs did you uncover? 

A: The name was Pharaoh 38, it’s in the Parque Nacional Laguna del Tigre, and the city is most famous for its eight major tombs that have been found over time. 

I was burial 38. It was incredible. We had applied to National Geographic for fun, and National Geographic turned us down. That was the year we found three royal tombs at the same time, burial, 37, 38 and 39, all of them were opened at the same time. 

The one I excavated was a neat tomb chamber that had Jade in it. The roof had been removed in antiquity and burial.

Q: What is the most interesting thing you have excavated? 

A: Me and one of my companions from Guatemala, a woman called Marielos. We opened the structure up, and everything about the structure started screaming at her. We found many obsidian artifacts and a large amount of burned material. And we found a heavily remodified structure. And everything about this is just a tomb. 

We had a broken stone monument, and came across this bowl. There was a decapitated skull in the bowl sitting on a stack of bones, so humerus and femurs. There was a stone hatchet embedded in the left side of the skull.

This is like a human sacrifice. Everyone at this point, is like, it’s a tomb. Even the local Mayans who have been working in various archeological sites for decades. They have really good instincts. Everybody’s sitting around going, “Oh, this is a tomb. This is a tomb.” And everybody’s getting ready for the tomb. Down in the tunnel, you could smell the charcoal. Everybody’s getting ready for what happens when we finally come down on the top of the tomb, and there were these bundles of Stingray spines from the Gulf of Mexico. There was this lid. And we’re like, here we go. So we lift the lid, and it’s bedrock, nothing. And everyone went “Oh,” and just forgot about it. But on the other hand, the more I think about it, I like that better than an actual tomb. Because why did they make a fake tomb? I mean literally, they made a false tomb. They set everything up as if this is the resting place of somebody important, but there’s nobody. There’s no tomb chamber. There’s nothing there, but it has every other hallmark of a royal burial. They make this false tomb for his spirit to hold his soul, but they don’t have his body, so they make this false tomb that will give him a place and kind of becomes the building in which he’s transfigured into the building they built for him, and therefore they don’t need to have his body anymore. That’s when you start getting into interesting stuff like how the classic Maya viewed the world and how you can cope, and the politics of having to cope with a dead ruler whose body is gone because he’s been captured by this enemy city. That’s the type of stuff that gets interesting. That’s the coolest thing to find. It’s not the most valuable, it’s not the most bizarre, but it’s the most interesting.

Q: Do you have any other hobbies besides archaeology and history?

A: Yes, one that is completely normal, and the other that is incredibly shameful. I find myself fascinated with gardening, and I bought this house with a row of dying azaleas.

I brought all the azaleas back to life, and I replaced the dead Azaleas with new azaleas. And I’m like, I’m into azaleas. 

I’m seriously worried about my peach tree. I’ve read about it, it’s ridiculous. I’ll be grading papers, and I’ll be like, I need to look up, I need to look up something online, and you take care of this freaking peach tree.

On the other hand, I have gotten weirdly into Dungeons and Dragons. I got talked into being the faculty sponsor for the local club, and I’m trying to resist jumping into it with both feet.

 Q: Have you by chance played the game “Uncharted” on the PS?

A: No, I enjoy video games. I just don’t have the time to play them. Usually, I just jump in and play mindlessly for a minute or two then jump out. I have a couple of unplayed video games at home just staring at me shamelessly. 

Q: Is there anything you would like to add that you think is beneficial for the student body? 

A: The anthropology program is brand new. It is exciting. It is innovative. We are building a collection here at TJC and you should participate. Feel free to sign up for my classes or join me on many of the mini excursions we make with the TJC History Club when we run around East Texas and do wacky things. You should jump on board.