Many, many, many years ago, there was creative story in Reader’s Digest along the basic lines of what would an archeologist say if they discovered rements of today’s society thousands of years from now.
The discovery was an old hotel. Apparently, they determined it was a temple for some sort of cult. The alter was this plastic box with a glass front and funny dials on it and wires inside of it to resemble some sort of being. The diety’s name must have been Zenith because of the label printed on the front.
The chief priest’s name was Tootandcomein based on a sign on the door. There where ritual baths, shrouds, and some sort of device that made people think there where spirits by shaking the seating platform.
I can’t remember the whole thing, I was probably ten when I read it, but I recall it was funny, and it did make me think twice whenever I see archeologists label everything as a temple.
Farside did something like that too, iirc.
I seem to remember one where an archaeologist held an old dial type phone and claimed it was, obviously, a religious device that priests used to try to contact the gods.
The dial proved the (our) culture had a rudimentary grasp of numbers. And the device was used by banging the two parts (hand set and base) together over head to make the bell jingle.
I can’t remember the whole thing, I was probably ten when I read it, but I recall it was funny, and it did make me think twice whenever I see archeologists label everything as a temple.
Same here. If they find an object that they can't identify or that looks too technologically advanced for the strata it was found in, they label it a "shamanistic" or "religious" device.