I think the relevant factor is the surrounding material: very fine sediment and anaerobic conditions may even preserve soft tissues. Being buried in concrete seems a good bet.
Mafia’s enemy’s feet may be overrepresented in some fossil records in the future.
Being buried in the desert, with or without coffin / embalming, should help preserve some bones and teeth.
Cremation is out.
Worst case scenario, you’d still get the negative-shape of the concrete. Maybe eventually filled in by some other material. Fossil impressions still count as fossils.
I would guess that the best preserved fossil of a human possible would be someone whose body was infused with liquid sodium silicate, which was then hardened into silica gel, dehydrated, then buried in a suitable location for forming sedimentary rock in the future.
Where do I sign up?
After a natural death 50+ years from now of course.
Yeah, I’d settle for being a med-school cadaver or whatever, but my ideal final resting place would be as one of those museum exhibits where there’s a preserved human body in slices embedded in lexan.
I see myself being constricted by a large snake who chokes on my body and rolls into a convenient peat bog or tar pit.
Drleted
You mean something like the “plastination” technique shown in this exhibition by Dr Gunther von Hagens?
Yes, that would probably work IMO.
“Scholars are still debating whether the current period is post-postmodern or neo-contemporary.”
English from the King James Bible and Shakespeare going forward is Modern.
While Shakespeare and the KJB are legible, in my opinion the dropping of thee, thou, thy, thine etc. from the language was a significant alteration.
There was definitely a big shift around the 16th century; Shakespeare is much closer to Chaucer time-wise than to us, but Shakespeare is comprehensible while Chaucer barely looks like English at all.
Maybe there’s just a tipping point for when language in the past shifts from incomprehensible to comprehensible; maybe people 200 years ago understood Chaucer like we understand Shakespeare.
Or maybe it’s just that the printing press and the King James Bible standardized spelling (retroactively in Shakespeare’s case).
Eh, Chaucer’s not too bad, if you take it slow.
Old English, though, the language of Beowulf, is incomprehensible.
Part of the issue with reading Chaucer is that, for some reason, almost all modern editions retain Chaucer’s spelling. Chaucer is much more readable if modern spelling is used. Not translated, no need to actually change any words, just spell them as they are spelled today and the text becomes much more comprehensible. I don’t really understand why this is routinely done for Shakespeare but very few editions of Chaucer’s works take this approach.
For example, here are a few lines from The Miller’s Tale as usually presented, in Chaucer’s spelling:
Ful brighter was the shynyng of hir hewe
Than in the Tour the noble yforged newe.
But of hir song, it was as loude and yerne
As any swalwe sittynge on a berne.
Therto she koude skippe and make game,
As any kyde or calf folwynge his dame.
Modern spelling makes it much easier to read:
Full brighter was the shining of her hue
Than in the Tower the noble y-forged new.
But of her song, it was as loud and yearn
As any swallow sitting on a barn.
Thereto she could skip and make game,
As any kid or calf following his dame.
Yes, there are still a couple of unfamiliar usages like “yearn”, but it’s not necessary to make things deliberately difficult for the modern reader by obfuscating words like “Tower”, “swallow” and “barn” that are easily recognizable by a minor change in spelling.
Apparently they’re trying to indicate the pre-vowel shift pronunciation.
That doesn’t explain the use of all of the old spellings, like “swalwe” for “swallow”. In any case, English spelling at that time was not a reliable guide to pronunciation. But even if that were the reason … WHY? Why would anyone except a student of Middle English care what Chaucer’s pronunciation was? Why don’t editions of Shakespeare retain the original spelling if it helps indicate Elizabethan pronunciation? Why does Sonnet 129 read
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe,
Before, a joy proposed, behind, a dream.
rather than what Shakespeare actually wrote:
A bliſſe in proofe and proud and very wo,
Before a ioy propoſd behind a dreame.
I’m pretty sure the long-s was pronounced like the modern s, not as an f. And i/j and u/v gets into the whole Latin spelling thing.
Yes, that’s the point. Using “ſ” instead of “s” in an edition for general readership is a pointless archaic spelling that would just make it hard to read for no benefit. Same with Chaucer’s “Tour” rather than “Tower”, “sittynge” rather than “sitting”, “koude” rather than “could”, etc.
Academic gatekeeping?