Methods & Aims in Archaeology

by W. M. Flinders Petrie

With the responsibilities before us of saving and caring for this past life of mankind, what must be our ethical view of the rights and duties of an archaeologist? Conservation must be his first duty, and where needful even destruction of the less important in order to conserve the more important. To uncover a monument, and leave it to perish by exposure or by plundering, to destroy thus what has lasted for thousands of years and might last for thousands to come, is a crime. Yet it is the incessant failing of the thoughtless amateur, who knows nothing of the business; and far too often also the inexcusable malpractice of those who know better. To wantonly destroy a monument by cutting pieces out, whether to put them in a museum or to hide them in a pile of curiosities, is unjustifiable if the whole can be preserved entire. In the case of only fragments remaining, a selection often must be chosen; yet even then copies of the whole of the material should be made and published all together. To unearth whole tombs or chambers full of objects, whether in an Egyptian cemetery or a Roman camp, and neglect to record and publish the facts of the position or groups of the objects, should debar the inefficient explorer from ever touching such places again. To remove things without ascertaining all that is possible about their age, meaning, and connections, is as inexcusable as it is easy. To undertake excavating, and so take the responsibilities for preserving a multitude of delicate and valuable things, unless one is prepared to deal with them efficiently, both mechanically and chemically, is like undertaking a surgical operation in ignorance of anatomy. To turn over a site without making any plans, or recording the positions and relations of things, may be plundering, but it is not archaeology. To remove and preserve only the pretty and interesting pieces, and leave the rest behind unnoticed, and separated from what gave them a value and a meaning, proves the spirit of a dealer and not that of a scholar. To leave a site merely plundered, without any attempt to work out its history, to see the meaning of the remains found, or to publish what may serve future students of the place or the subject, is to throw away the opportunities which have been snatched from those who might hate used them property.

To suppose that excavating—one of the affairs which needs the widest knowledge—can be taken up by persons who are ignorant of most or all of the technical requirements, is a fatuity which has led, and still leads, to the most miserable catastrophes. Far better let things lie a few centuries longer under the ground, if they can be let alone, than repeat the vandalisms of past ages without the excuse of being a barbarian.

Future of Museums.

We must always have regard to what may be the condition of sites and of knowledge five hundred or five thousand years hence. For if you will deal with thousands of years you must take thousands of years into account. If a site is certain to be destroyed by natural causes, or the cupidity of man, then an imperfect examination and a defective record of it is better than none. But to ensure the fullest knowledge, and the most complete preservation of things, in the long run, should be the real aim. To raid the whole of past ages, and put all that we think effective into museums, is only to ensure that such things will perish in course of time. A museum is only a temporary place. There is not one storehouse in the world that has lasted a couple of thousand years. Only two or three bronze statues have come down to us from classical times preserved by each generation. A few pieces of gold work have been treasured for a little over a thousand years, but only in North Italy. And the whole of our present active clearance of things, that have hitherto lasted safe underground for six thousand years or more, practically ensures that they shall not last one thousand longer. The gold work will be the first thing to disappear, as it is even now disappearing every few years from museums into the melting-pot. And it is a serious question whether we are morally justified in thus ensuring its destruction by exposure. As a counsel of perfection I should like to see twenty electrotypes made of every bit of ancient gold and silver work, and these dispersed over all countries. It might then be considered whether it would not be a noble act to bury the whole of the gold where it would cost a national undertaking to recover it, say in a hundred fathoms of water, and so preserve it for future ages, when only a few wrecks of the electrotypes would have survived. The future of the rest of museum treasures cannot so certainly be anticipated. Bronze is sure to disappear in warfare sooner or later, especially as metals grow scarcer owing to exhaustion of mines. Ivories will probably vanish, like most fragile things, by mechanical damage. Pottery and vases will go the same way as the museum of Kertch, which was bashed to pieces by a disappointed European soldiery. Stone carving has a promise of longer life, especially if it is reused in buildings, and so saved from exposure and wear; for instance, whenever the Baptistry of Pisa may fall to pieces, a mine of Latin inscriptions will come to light. But, broadly speaking, there is no likelihood that the majority of things now in museums will yet be preserved anything like as long as they have already lasted. The hordes of anarchy and of Asia have never left Europe alone for more than a few centuries.

Publications.

It is then to the written record, and the published illustrations, that the future will have mainly to look. Our books will probably not last more than a few hundred years; and it will be reprints of the most valued, and summaries of the others that will be the sources of knowledge in the future thousands. The wide spread of publications in different countries, which are never likely to all undergo eclipses simultaneously, is the best guarantee for the permanence of knowledge. But by the time the First Dynasty has doubled its age, we cannot expect, that the greater part of our record of it will still be known. Certainly the inefficient and inconclusive books will vanish first; and the more compact and generally used a work is, the longer are its chances of life. We must always remember therefore that in archaeological work we are removing what would be as solid proof to future ages as it is now to us; and we are trusting all future knowledge of the facts to inflammable paper, and the goodwill of successive generations, many of whom may have very different interests. Had any past age of civilisation dug up and removed every trace of the earlier times, and committed all the results to their literature, we should not be able to learn anything but some brief summary, nor glean but a few trifling fragments, which would have lost their meaning and connection.

State Claims.

And here we come against another large ethical question of the rights of the individual against the community, in the claim made by the state to interfere with property in antiquities, in ways in which it does not interfere with any other property. From past ages the English law has claimed for the Crown all treasure accidentally discovered. Such a law is the best way to ensure that no such discoveries are made known, and to drive the finder to put all such treasures in the melting pot. The actual gain to the Crown is ignorably trivial, certainly not an average of a thousand pounds a year; yet, in order to grab this trifle, the law drove all such treasures to destruction. At last an improvement was made by the Crown only demanding specimens needed for the national collection, and paying intrinsic value for them. Even some old candlesticks, the proceeds of an XVIIIth century burglary, were claimed when accidentally found.

And when the state does not claim, the landlord or tenant makes a claim, which is just as bad, as such claims lead workmen always to conceal and sell surreptitiously the antiquities which are continually found in all working in old towns. The only law which could act for the full preservation of antiquities would be the grant of the entire rights to the finder if he proclaims his find, but no rights in what he does not proclaim. The actual average gains of an average landlord per annum by discoveries of antiquities are at present incalculably small, probably not a farthing in the pound on the rental or anything near that. Hence there would be no perceptible loss by granting finds to the finder; and everything would be saved and preserved as it was found. At least a beginning could be made by landlords and public bodies offering full intrinsic value for any gold and silver found on their premises; they could not lose by that, and they might gain large profits in the archaeological value of things. To suppose that (without great precautions) they can get the whole value of finds by simply claiming them, is fatuous.

This same fatuous idea pervades many governments. It is thought that by simply making a law, digging can be prevented, or antiquities can be kept in a country. Such laws merely enforce an extensive illicit system, through which valuable and important things can readily be removed in defiance of law, whenever they are found. There is not a country from which any antiquity could not be removed by sufficient care in smuggling. Every national museum has its underground feeders, knows how to defeat the laws of other countries, and incessantly grows in spite of laws. To seize property without paying its real value is seldom a profitable proceeding in the long run, and that is what every government tries to do with antiquities. The Italian government has confiscated a large part of the values of private collections, by forbidding the exportation of any important picture or statue. And yet such things can and do leave Italy. The Greek government, as well as the Turkish, forbid the exportation of any and every kind of antiquity; yet fine things from both lands continually come over to the West.