PART I

The value of the treasury.

“History no longer shall be a dull book.  It shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man.  You shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read.  You shall make me feel what periods you have lived.  A man shall be the Temple of Fame.  He shall walk, as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all over with wonderful events and experiences....  He shall be the priest of Pan, and bring with him into humble cottages the blessing of the morning stars, and all the recorded benefits of heaven and earth.” 
          
                                     Emerson.

CHAPTER I.

The value of archaeology.

The archaeologist whose business it is to bring to light by pick and spade the relics of bygone ages, is often accused of devoting his energies to work which is of no material profit to mankind at the present day.  Archaeology is an unapplied science, and, apart from its connection with what is called culture, the critic is inclined to judge it as a pleasant and worthless amusement.  There is nothing, the critic tells us, of pertinent value to be learned from the Past which will be of use to the ordinary person of the present time; and, though the archaeologist can offer acceptable information to the painter, to the theologian, to the philologist, and indeed to most of the followers of the arts and sciences, he has nothing to give to the ordinary layman.

In some directions the imputation is unanswerable; and when the interests of modern times clash with those of the past, as, for example, in Egypt where a beneficial reservoir has destroyed the remains of early days, there can be no question that the recording of the threatened information and the minimising of the destruction, is all that the value of the archaeologist’s work entitles him to ask for.  The critic, however, usually overlooks some of the chief reasons that archaeology can give for even this much consideration, reasons which constitute its modern usefulness; and I therefore propose to point out to him three or four of the many claims which it may make upon the attention of the layman.

In the first place it is necessary to define the meaning of the term “Archaeology.”  Archaeology is the study of the facts of ancient history and ancient lore.  The word is applied to the study of all ancient documents and objects which may be classed as antiquities; and the archaeologist is understood to be the man who deals with a period for which the evidence has to be excavated or otherwise discovered.  The age at which an object becomes an antiquity, however, is quite undefined, though practically it may be reckoned at a hundred years; and ancient history is, after all, the tale of any period which is not modern.  Thus an archaeologist does not necessarily deal solely with the remote ages.