User:Tsu Dho Nimh/prurok

Byron Khun de Prorok

Born in 1896 at Mexico City, son of Leon S. Kuhn, a naturalized U. S. citizen, "Count" de Prorok attached his courtesy title from an uncle, the late Count Theophile Konerski de Prorok, who adopted him. His first name was affixed upon the discovery that he was descended from a relative of Lord Byron. Young, dashing, romantic, his contributions to archeology as chief of the Franco-American efforts at Carthage are already very considerable. (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721961-3,00.html)

Publications: Dead Men Do Tell Tales ... 1933-34 African expedition into Abyssinia. Digging for Lost African Gods (1926), (with Alonzo Pond http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonzo_Pond) Mysterious Sahara (1929) In Quest of Lost Worlds (1935)

Count Byron Kuhn de Prorok was a popular – and highly controversial – archaeologist active from the mid-1920's through the early 1940's. In his classic Dead Men Do Tell Tales he describes his

This is not an academic dissertation. De Prorok tells about raiding tombs, flirting with native women, outrunning murderous warlords, and wading hip deep in political intrigue in one of the most remote regions of the world. One night, he was spying on cult ritual:

Crouching like animals, the dancers advanced and receded to the savage rhythm. They were not only imitating, they were impersonating lions, tigers, leopards, hippos, elephants, and smaller animals; even to their cries and roars and calls. As they trumpeted and grunted in their dance, the tempo of the rhythm increased gradually until they worked themselves into a state of fanatical frenzy.

For the most part, de Prorok's cultural and political observations are detailed and sound, and while the language is polite, he doesn't often shrink from the grisly truth, as when describing the details of orgiastic dances, human sacrifices, female circumcision, human-animal relations, and slavery. For example, he tracks down a slave caravan and gives us a graphic image:

Achmed led us to a door which opened on a courtyard shaded by palms. Lying on the hard-packed, earthen floor were over twenty women, sleeping soundly. So completely exhausted were they that not one of them opened her eyes when we entered. They had no manacles or chains; those were no longer necessary so far along the road toward Arabia. Surrounded by the terribly desolate and waterless country, escape was almost an impossibility.

But some of Byron de Prorok’s exploits are so fantastic they defy credibility (this edition contains a fascinating biographical profile of the man).

http://www.beloit.edu/belmag/04spring/04spr_features/04spr_sahara.html

Byron Khun de Prorok began excavating Carthage and Utica in 1921. Digging for Lost African Gods is an almost lyrical account of archeology, the passage of time, and connections between people from century to century. "The twelfth tomb was not rich, but it contained a surprise. The objects were near the motionless hands, telling their tale as plainly as though men from the past had been standing by interpreting for us. The little cubes within reach of the dead man's fingers were a pair of dice! They were made of bone, and identical in shape, size, and numbering, with those used to-day." Digging for Lost African Gods tells us more about the science of archeology, as it was practiced in the early 1920s, than any of Prorok's other books. After Carthage, Prorok went deepsea diving (in the huge old headgear) looking for a sunken city off Djerba. Later, he took a thousand-mile drive in custom-made, six-wheel Renault cars across the Algerian and Libyan deserts to the Hoggar mountains. Some of his techniques were brand new at the time: This was the first use of the Aeroplane in archaeology. "In 1922, we took our first films and photographs from different heights, which resulted in our being able to trace the great submerged walls of ancient Carthage. Flying above the Gulf of Tunis, we were able to film clearly six miles of submerged wall, showing constructions a hundred and fifty yards from the present shore." The aeroplane was piloted by Captain Peletier d'Oisy, the famous French ace, who recently made the phenomenal flight from Paris to Tokyo. As in all of Prorok's books, there is plenty of hair-raising adventure. At one point Prorok and his camera man face a small army of Mohammedan dancers driven on by priests: "Faster, ever faster they revolved, until hysteria caught them, and then, it seemed, hypnotized epilepsy. They foamed at the mouth, and as they reached the climax, priests caught them, and threw them almost at our feet. The fanatics barked like dogs, and handsful of broken glass were presented to the delirious performers by the priests. As a famishing man would relish a handful of crumbs, the glass was chewed by the dancers. After the glass, nails, and after the nails the priests gave knives to the writhing madmen. The nails and knives were thrust through the flesh, and the dancers cried for more. The priests maintained a certain poise throughout it all, increasing the frenzy and leading to more diabolical exhibition step by step. Even while the glass was being chewed, and the nails and knives were thrust into the living bodies of the zealots, the priests procured masses of live scorpions and plied the dancers with them. They might have been shrimps, so eagerly were they devoured." This book makes you want grab and shovel and go ... well, maybe not. But we're glad Prorok was there, and that he wrote about it.