The Cannibal's Cookbook

 The Cannibal's Cookbook: Mining Myths of Cyclopean Constructions

by Brandon Clifford

Oro Editions, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-951541-43-9

(Amazon)

Read by the author in July 2023, purchased for $20.63

"And there we saw the Nefilim, the sons of 'Anaq are of the Nefilim, and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them."  (Numbers 13:33)

At the time of the Exodus, the city of Hebron had a massive wall constructed in what archaeologists call cyclopean masonry, after the mythical Greek giants mentioned in the Odyssey. Fittingly, the Biblical story also references the Nefilim, giants who were said to inhabit Canaan, and who were so big that the spies stated that they felt like grasshoppers compared to these massive beings. Perhaps the architecture of their cities contributed to this feeling. Ronald Hendel makes this point when he cheekily states "The evidence of giants in the prehistory of Israel and its environs was embedded in the landscape, in ruined walls and megaliths, which served as visible signs of the once formidable presence of the giants." (Hendel, "The Landscape of Memory: Giants and the Conquest of Canaan" in Collective Memory and Collective Identity (Boston: de Gruyter, 2021). 

The provocatively-named Cannibal's Cookbook is more about its subtitle, Mining Myths of Cyclopean Construction than about preparing human flesh for consumption. The main title refers to the idea of reusing concrete rubble, a type of constructive "cannibalism." The author, an associate professor at MIT, identifies a problem - the large amount of refuse produced annually from the demolition of concrete structures - and proposes a solution - reuse of rubble in modern cyclopean construction, the Middle Bronze Age style involving massive, irregularly cut stones that would have been glimpsed by the spies in Hebron. He suggests that technology can be used to sort, shape, and arrange the rubble in order to make the system feasible. I'm not convinced that even the author believes this to be true. 

Here I'll pause to say that reuse of rubble was, historically, a very popular way to save time and money. Stone that was already quarried and shaped could expedite construction significantly. Clifford notes this as well, mentioning the well-known reuse of Colosseum stone during the Middle Ages. We see this in a mishnah in Baba Batra (1:1) which discusses a wall between two courtyards that collapses. The mishnah rules that if the wall was centered on the property line, the rubble is split between the two neighbors. Here the underlying assumption is that the stone is valuable and will be reused. 

Most interestingly, Clifford discusses the methods the ancients used to fit these massive stones together, prop them up, lift them, shape them, etc. He details several different styles ranging in size, shape of stone, and regularity. These are presented as "recipes," interspersed with fantastical biographies of the various giants, including the Nephilim (p.150). 

While in the end I found the book interesting and enjoyable, my impression after the first fifty or so pages was decidedly less favorable. Until I got into the meat of the book, it reminded me of the type of overly gimmicky and rambling tracks produced by architecture undergrads. It seemed to be complete fluff. Luckily the book found its footing as things progressed. I should also point out that the book is crafted quite deliberately. Illustrations are fun, informative, and numerous. The spine is unclad, leaving the binding visible, which I guess is done to make it seem more rustic? The paper color changes halfway through, for unknown reasons. The worst facet of the book, however, is the use of a neon orange ink for headers and footnotes, which is exceedingly difficult to read on both colors of paper. Since my copy is the second edition, I must conclude that the author saw the results and decided it was fine. I can't find any good justification for this. But quibbles aside, it is an interesting book that, while not really solving the problem it sets out to tackle, does raise awareness of it and gives a nice overview of ancient cyclopean construction.