There is an allure to the ruins of past civilizations, but perhaps some things are better left buried…. Archeologists Amara Thornton and Katy Soar explore this notion in a new collection, Strange Relics: Stories of Archeology and the Supernatural, 1895-1954, which came out from Handheld Press last month. Y’all know I love a themed anthology, and I’ve been particularly enjoying the collections of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century weird/horror/ghost stories from this publisher, which so far have also included Women’s Weird (volumes one and two), The Outcast and the Rite, and From the Abyss. If you’re a fan of ancient civilizations or the people who study them, this collection provides some fascinating insight into how the boom in archeology influenced our horror literature.
The goal of this collection, as set out in the introduction, is to present stories that “capture ‘fantastic,’ one might say magical, encounters with the material remains of the past,” though the editors avoided including more obvious tales of intrepid archeologists exploring tombs and discovering mummies and treasure. Instead, the stories here are more subtle, and while a few take place abroad, the majority of them are set within Great Britain, where most of these authors called home. In the introduction, Amara Thornton and Katy Soar lay out the historical context behind this wave are archeology-inspired literature, which includes the height of British imperialism in Egypt, the experiences of British soldiers in the Mediterranean during both World Wars, and the excavations of Roman sites in Britain during the early twentieth century. They also discuss some of the recurring themes in these stories, such as the secret survival of ancient beliefs, practices, or beings; psychic imprints left on places by past inhabitants, and a blurring of the boundaries between past and present. The introduction is followed by short biographies of each of the authors included in the collection which not only give a general overview of their life and works but also touch on each author’s connection to archeology (if applicable) and highlight some of the major themes related to this anthology’s topic that show up throughout that author’s body of work. Then come the twelve short stories, written by both well-known authors such as M. R. James and Arthur Conan Doyle and more obscure writers.
Authors of this era were particularly entranced by the Greek god Pan, and the stories in the collection that feature this figure happened to be some of my favorites. Often depicted with the hindquarters of a goat, horns, and a set of pipes, Pan was the god of shepherds and flocks, but he was also associated with wild woodlands, fertility, and sex. It was these latter associations that made him such an appealing figure to British writers of the early twentieth century. My absolute favorite story in this book was “Cracks of Time” by Dorothy Quick. In this tale, a woman in an unhappy marriage suddenly begins seeing a face formed by cracks in some decorative floor tiles that she had brought back from Spain. The face grows clearer and clearer over time, and the narrator quickly identifies it as that of the god Pan, recognizing him not just by the horns but by his particularly sensual mouth. She becomes equally afraid of and entranced by this figure, which seems to promise to indulge her desires in a way that her philandering husband has failed to. The story deals surprisingly frankly with the subjects of sex and female desire for a work of the 1940s. Another of the stories, “The Next Heir” by H. D. Everett, gives a unique take on Pan, linking him to the Biblical figure of Cain. This connection is proposed by one of the characters in the story, Mr. Quinton, whose estate contains the remains of an ancient Roman villa and evidence of Pan worship. Quinton argues that Pan’s half-animal form is a result of the “mark” that God put on Cain in the story of Genesis and that Cain has been unjustly presented as the villain of the story. Of course, the reader soon discovers that Mr. Quinton may have his own reasons for wanting to rehabilitate the image of a figure who slew his own brother…
Indeed, beyond just Pan, almost all of the stories in this collection involve the deities, adherents, or artifacts of pagan cultures—whether the pre-Christian inhabitants of the British Isles or the cultures of foreign lands that the British protagonists are exposed to through war and imperialism. The earliest story in the collection, Arthur Machen’s “The Shining Pyramid” (1895), centers on a horrifying ritual performed by a band of a primitive race of miniature people who have survived in hiding alongside the modern-day inhabitants of Britain. Several of the other stories, like “The Next Heir” discussed above, involve remnants of the Roman Empire’s expansion into Britain, while Rose Macaulay’s “Whitewash” reckons with the legacy of Roman rule much closer to home, on the Italian island of Capri. In Alan J. B. Wace’s “The Golden Ring,” two British soldiers in the Mediterranean during World War I encounter a small piece of Greek myth. Then there are the two tales set in Egypt: E. F. Benson’s “The Ape” is a fairly typical, though fun, tale of a powerful magical object discovered among ancient Egyptian tombs. Margery Lawrence’s “Curse of the Stillborn,” however, paints a picture of Egypt as containing not just ancient civilizations with exotic magic but also modern people whose beliefs and cultures deserve to be respected. The story has a surprisingly anti-colonialist stance, as embodied by the narrator Frith who urges the local minister and his wife to allow a young Egyptian mother to bury a stillborn baby according to her own beliefs. When the minister and his wife force a Christian burial on the family anyway, they are haunted by an apparition that seems to affirm the local Egyptians’ spiritual beliefs.
If you love both ancient history and spooky hauntings, you’ll definitely want to check out this collection. You can order a copy directly from the UK-based publisher Handheld Press or order it from this Bookshop.org affiliate link and support The Gothic Library in the process. If you’ve already read it, let me know your favorite story in the comments below!