[The Internet is a repository for everything anyone has ever done, anywhere. We will be sampling its lesser-known treasures from now until the heat death of the universe, and thereafter. Below, the official transcript of an un-broadcast episode of the popular PBS collectibles program, Antiques Roadshow.–Ed.]
What you have brought us today resembles a clay tablet of the kind the Sumerians might have had in about 3000 B.C. You say your father told you that he picked it up from an old Sumerian war buddy. Is that right?
Well, this should have been the first clue that the item is not what it seems to be. You see, Sumer, which is where the Sumerians lived, perished in the sack of Ur in 1940 B.C., so your father was very unlikely to have met a Sumerian, and still less likely to have served in their wars.
Another factor that casts doubt on the authenticity of this piece is the material of which it is comprised. It is clearly not clay at all, but a more modern medium, specifically Play-Doh, hardened with age. You see how it’s crumbled here at the corner, revealing softer Pay-Doh underneath, and releasing that distinctive Play-Doh smell many of us recognize from our childhoods. I see you’re excited by this, but please hold on a moment.
Finally we come to the markings on this tablet, and I have to say these fail every test of authenticity. For one thing, the words were etched into the material — hardened Play-Doh, as I mentioned — after it had dried, which reverses the process by which the Sumerian tablets were inscribed. And for another, the markings are not cuneiform, but rather a form of English known as Pig Latin, whereby the initial letter of a word is removed and put before the syllable “ay,” as in this passage: “Oot-fray oops-lay.”
So this artifact seems to have been made as a joke, probably by children who had learned about Sumerian tablets in school.
Now an authentic Sumerian clay tablet in whatever condition is a great rarity, and at auction could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars — yes, again I see you’re excited, but you shouldn’t be, at all, because, as I’ve been trying to tell you, this is a block of Play-Doh inscribed in Pig Latin, and its value is, well, really, nothing.
***
Though we don’t normally speak to the condition of the object till later in the investigation, I [coughs] must observe that this page from Godey’s Lady’s Book from 1831 is extremely poorly preserved, and that while the [coughs] method of preservation is certainly unique — this adhesion of the paper to the, the skin of a muskrat [coughs] — it appears the skin [coughs] was not cased and dried as [coughs] as is normal practice but left [coughs] left to, well, rot, as it were, in your grandfather’s barn — the paper [coughs] was just stuck to it and you can see [coughs] — if we can zoom in here, I can’t look at it because, well, I just can’t [cough] — oh dear — [coughs] signs of [coughs] insect [coughs] insect burrowing and [coughs] decayed husks of, oh dear, I [cough] I have to go I’m sorry.
***
I’m not a geologist, but I do know that some rocks may be millions of years old, and the oldest rocks extant are 3.8 billion years old. Now, you say you found this rock in your yard. Tell me, were there other rocks around this one? I should say there were. You probably have seen rocks elsewhere, lots of them, yes? Well, all of them are very old, probably as old as this one. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Did you come with someone? A parent, perhaps, or an auntie or uncle or someone? Can you hear me?
***
I see this is a first edition of Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston, Lippincott 1935, cover intact, light foxing on some of the pages but in what dealers call good condition, and I recognize it as such because it was my first edition, up until a few months ago. I see no purpose in your bringing it here except to hurt me. But why? I did everything for you. Introduced to you to all the top antiquarians. You didn’t even know what a colophon was when I — That’s right, walk away. Walk away, bitch. Take your fucking jackpot with you [flings book]. Now it’s foxed, Sarah! Now it’s foxed!
