The Three Archaeologists is a joke, in probably the lowest form possible. Like the "Fuck You, Clown!" Story, it is long, drawn out, and ends in probably the most godawful, stupid, retarded pun possible. Beware if you tell this though, I have witnessed people getting thorougly beat down for even SUGGESTING that they tell this story. In fact, this node will probably be downvoted more than any other node in history. Also, I am SO not hardlinking this story, it takes too much time to edit and type in the first place. However, for you diehards who really want to read this and piss off the next party group you go to, here it is, as told to me by a friend on IRC.


The Three Archaeologists

     There were once three archaeologists. The first one, whose name was Nelson was giving a lecture one day. He claimed the existence of the third tomb of Tutenkhamen, which was supposedly a myth. He said that he had proof to back it's existence, but everyone who was at the lecture slowly one by one got up and left. At the end there were only two people in the room. The first archaeologist, Nelson, and what was to become the second archaeologist, John.
     John walked up to Nelson and said, "The talk that you gave really sounded like you believe that there really is such a tomb."
     Nelson said, "I certainly do, and my friend Akbar has the knowledge and know-how to get us to this tomb. It is said to have limitless amounts of ancient Egyptian treasure. Are you interested in coming on this excavation with me?"
     John's eyes got very large and his mouth opened wide. In awe, he asked, "You want me to come with you?"
     Nelson responded, "Certainly, I need at least one more person besides Akbar and myself, and you seem to have the conviction to stay through to the end. You are welcome to come along with us." So later that week, after tying up all their loose ends, and arranging for the care of John's elderly grandmother who he had been taking care of, they boarded the plane for Constantinople, which is now called Istanbul.
     After a long, horrific flight, with Crossroads as the in-flight movie, they touched down in Turkey. As soon as they stepped off of the plane, they saw a sign with their names on it. They walked up to the man holding it, and he said, "Are you Nelson and John, the two archaeologists from America?"
     They replied that yes, in fact, they were. The man asked them to follow him so that they might meet his master, Akbar. They hired a Taxi at the airport to take them and their luggage to the hotel that they had arranged for. They unloaded and took showers, in their separate rooms, before getting dressed and going downstairs to meet Akbar. They walked to the front door and through the revolving door and they proceeded to go to Akbar's house, where he was to entertain them for the evening, provide dinner, and then discuss this expedition. They arrived on time, and John met Akbar.
     Nelson had known Akbar for a number of years, but it had been a long time since they had seen each other. So as they sat down after enjoying a long, tasty meal of lamb and couscous, they began to discuss this excavation that they wanted to undertake.
     At first John and Nelson did much of the talking, but after a while they sat back and allowed Akbar to tell them what he knew of this tomb He began to tell a story that started many many years before the Roman empire came into existence.
     "It was said, that long ago, there was a King named Tutankhamen..."
     John interrupted, "Yes, and there has been proof of his existence, they found his tomb already"
     Akbar went on, "Please do not speak when I am talking. As I was saying, this we now know to be the truth, but there was a time when there was no proof to back up the existence of such a king. The first recorded legend of such a king was from a group of men who had walked through a part of the desert, and they claimed to have found the remains of a king’s tomb. They brought back with them an inscription that they had traced off of one of the walls, along with some moderately pried golden trinkets. The inscription was translated, and believed to be a curse upon the trespassers of the tomb of Tutankhamen.
     "The men who had found this tomb were now very scared, and refused to tell anyone of the location of this tomb for fear that more people would have this curse fall upon them, which they quickly realized that the curse was no farce, as one by one the members of the party mysteriously disappeared and were found dead days later.
     "As the last two men realized that they were doomed, they set out a map to this tomb, which was given to a good friend of theirs, and left in his safekeeping as they died the next day. Due to having lost 9 good friends within the week, the man to whom the map had been given hid it, never wishing anyone to know of its existence.
     "The true story soon became regarded as a half true story, then a legend, then a myth, and finally it was forgotten entirely. Then, ten years ago, I found the account as it was set out in the friend's diary, which had passed to me, along with the map, as a part of an auction lot. I verified the location of the tomb using satellite photo data. As soon as I had enough proof to begin this excavation, I called you, Nelson, and asked you to bring another archaeologist to aid in the dig.
     "Now that you two are here, I will show you all the evidence that I have collected, and tomorrow we will leave for Egypt. I have had the expedition equipment prepared since the day that I contacted you, and I sent my servant out to buy provisions before dinner began. As soon as we wake up tomorrow morning, we will board a plane, which I have already acquired tickets for."
     As the evening went on, Nelson and John realized just how much time and effort Akbar had put into making this dig a success. As it approached midnight, he finished telling them all that he knew of the tomb. He called taxicabs for them, and arranged with the servant to have everything at the airport in the morning. They said good night, and they returned to the hotel, set an alarm for the morning, and went to bed.      The next morning they arose, gathered everything of theirs, and went downstairs to the waiting transport. At 7:00 they boarded the waiting plane and took flight.
     Akbar had apparently done a considerable amount of research since the previous night, as they each had a 200-page packet of data that they read during the flight. As they landed in Cairo, and disembarked, Akbar explained to them the plan that he had already formulated in his mind for their stay. He decided that they would achieve more success if they hired a party of local laborers to come and dig up the tomb for them, leaving them to oversee. They went to the Easily Frightened, Superstitious Local Laborers Union, and hired 25 men to assist them in their dig.
     By the time that Akbar had finished negotiating the price, it was already too late to leave the city and reach an encampment for the night, so they arranged for a stay in the city for the night. That next morning they awoke, hired transportation (read: camels) and set out across the desert.
     After three days of traversing the hot, arid climate that they were traveling through, they reached the supposed location of the tomb that they had been seeking. The natives set up a camp, and the three archaeologists began to stake out the area that they felt the entrance was most likely to be at. As the sun set, the camp was fully erected, and they had had enough time to set out for the workers exactly what they wanted done the following morning.
     They all climbed into their beds and after such an overbearing three days, they fell instantly asleep. They woke up with the sun, and began to dig. They did this for seven days in a row without even a sign of anything remotely indicative of the tomb.
     On the eighth day, they uncovered what appeared to be the lintel for an entrance. All 25 workers were set to uncovering the remainder of the door, with the archaeologists putting in work as well. After 4 hours of hard, grueling labor, the door had been entirely revealed, cleaned off, and the three archaeologists began to work at opening the door. As the archaeologists began to try and figure out how this door opened, Akbar touched it, and it swung inwards. They looked at each other, with a look of "Well, that was easy."
     John led the way into the tomb, with a torch in one hand, and his digital camera in the other. They walked through an antechamber, and reached a door. The door had an inscription on it that seemed familiar. Akbar retrieved the journal and map, and they saw the inscription that the first group had traced mimicked exactly on the door. They translated it with the latest and most accurate tools for doing so, and recognized the inscription as a curse that threatened death to anyone who passed through that door. The Laborers from the Easily Scared and Highly Suspicious Local Laborers Union, heard them discussing a curse and took off running back towards the city.
     As these archaeologists were men of science, they had no need to fear a curse from such a primitive culture. They opened this door with the same ease with which the outer door had been opened. As the torchlight swept across the cavern they saw more riches than they had ever seen before. Gold, diamonds, rubies, large wooden rabbits, everything a man's greedy heart could desire. They slowly but surely inventoried everything, took pictures with the digital camera, and proceeded to pack up every last trinket into their sacks.
     Realizing that removing all this treasure by hand would be next to impossible Nelson and John remained behind to protect the treasure as Akbar sped back to Cairo to hire a large workforce to come out and bring all the bags into the city for them. After many long days of being out in the desert, Akbar, John, and Nelson were all back in Cairo, their booty safely placed away in numerous locations for storage.
     Over the next year the three of them slowly divided up their treasure, and placed it into storage all around the world in over 300 individual banks. After all their money was safe beyond any doubt, they parted ways, agreeing to meet in Cairo once every decade, to make sure everyone was OK, and they kept in contact for a good while after that.
     John acquired a professorship at a prestigious northeastern university (read: Harvard). Nelson went to Hollywood and produced poorly made blockbusters. Akbar opened up an import store in Turkey, and with the right connections soon became the largest single non-government entity in Turkey. They emailed each other frequently, and stayed good friends for many years after that.
     Then one day, 20 years later, John read in the newspaper of the sudden and mysterious death of Akbar. It wouldn’t have been so much, but apparently Akbar had been into the doctors for a check-up three days prior, and there had been nothing wrong at all, in fact they said that he had been healthier than many men half his age. After having forgotten about the curse for so long, John was beginning to become scared. He talked to Nelson, but Nelson was by no means frightened, he considered the whole thing to be a fluke.
     Partially reassured, but still uneasy, John went to bed, setting himself a doctor’s appointment in the morning. That morning, he received a call that Nelson had died during the night, and it appears that there had been a struggle, it seemed that his entire house had been ravaged and ransacked. Now, increasingly worried, John went to the doctor.
     After a long, and unusually grim exam, the doctor produced a verdict: "As far as I can tell, you are in the utmost shape of any man your age, but for some reason you are dying. You have 24 hours to live, before you will most certainly die." John took this news in stride. Realizing that his two partners in the expedition had died within 24 hours of each other, he was almost certain he would be next, even before visiting the doctor. The doctor confirmed his premonition.
     Deciding that he wanted to have as much fun as possible before his death, he went to the bank and withdrew 5 million dollars. He realized that in all the years that he had been subsisting off of his teachers’ salary, he had never even touched his bank accounts, except when he bought his house and car in cash. He was driving a 1999 Honda Civic, and living in a modest 4-bedroom house in a rural neighborhood. He decided that since he had less than 24 hours left to live, he wanted to do something exciting.
     He went to the foreign car dealership and bought the nicest, flashiest car off the lot without even giving it a second thought. He went inside and paid in cash, which they tested extensively for being counterfeit, because none of them had seen that much hard cash in one place before. As it had been taken out of the bank earlier, it obviously tested out just fine. He took the car, and decided to go shopping.
     First he went downtown, and bought 30 new Armani suits. Then he went around handing the suits out to the homeless men that were lazing around in the area. He did similar generous gifts for the next 7 hours, and then decided to go out and buy stuff for himself. So, of course, he went to everyone's favorite store, Wal-Mart.
     First, he went straight to the clothing section and loaded the first basket full up with clothing. Men’s and women’s, summer and winter, under and outer, everything.
     He quickly gathered another basket and went into the electronics section. He bought a top of the line HDTV, a Playstation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube, with all the accessories, and all the games for each of them. As this basket was also full, he procured a third, and went into the hygiene section, filling the cart with shoe inserts, cotton balls, shampoo, cough drops, cough syrup, cold syrup... Basically he went to every section and filled a basket with the products. He paid for them all and had the store boys load as much as he could possibly fit into his car. He used bungee cords to tie it all down, dropped it all off at home, and then drove to a liquor store, where he bought enough variations of alcohol to keep him drunk until 10 years after he died.
     He drove to the Four Seasons Hotel, and rented a suite for the night, unloaded all the alcohol, ordered party snacks from room service, and announced that he was hosting a massive party in his room that night.
     As the 12th hour since his diagnosis rolled around, the party was in full swing. He had managed to attract almost every single guest of his and the surrounding four hotels all congregating in his room. After four more hours of partying, he noticed that something was knocking over his guest and making a beeline right towards him. He took a circuitous route to the door, and ran to the stairs.
     As he started running downstairs, he looked back and saw that it was in fact a coffin that was chasing him. This gave him a brand new burst of speed. He rushed into the parking lot, into his car and took off out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell. As he headed for his house, he realized that the coffin was following him along the road, and was right behind him. He gave the car a new burst of speed, and swung into his driveway. He quickly ran inside and dead bolted the door.
     The coffin burst through the window and started chasing him through the house, knocking over dishes, and furniture, and everything else he had. He ran around for about 5 minutes before realizing that he was the only one who was getting tired out.
     He saw that he had all those bags from Wal-Mart, and decided to try throwing things at it. He threw clothing, shoes, appliances, electronics, food, drinks, furniture, toiletries, everything at it in one massive assault.
     It fell to the ground, and stopped coming towards him. His eyes got really wide as he stepped up to see what he threw at it that made the coffin stop coming towards him. He looked at the ground, and saw a bag of cough drops, and he smiled to himself, as he realized, "Of course, cough drops stop the coughin'!"


Of course this story can be modified as much or as little as one likes, so long as the key elements are there. Egypt, Archaeologists, cough drops, a coffin, etc. However, if anyone even BEGINS to recognize the story as you tell it, you will probably have to flee the scene.