Ten years' digging in Egypt, 1881-1891

by W. M. Flinders Petrie

We can now see somewhat of the wide results which have come to a great extent from the study of Egyptian civilization recorded in these pages, and the comparison of it with other countries. That vastly more remains to be worked out is painfully seen. We are only yet on the threshold of understanding the sources of the knowledge, the arts, and the culture, which we have inherited from a hundred generations.

CHAPTER XII.
THE ART OF EXCAVATING.

Probably most people have somewhat the ideas of a worthy lady, who asked me how to begin to excavate a ruined town—should she begin to dig at the top or at the side? A cake or a raised pie was apparently in her mind, and the only question was where to best reach the inside of it. Now there are ruins and ruins: they may differ greatly in original nature, in the way they have been destroyed, and in the history of their degradation. The only rule that may be called general, is that digging must be systematic; chance trenches or holes seldom produce anything in themselves, they are but feelers. The main acquirement always needed is plenty of imagination. Imagination is the fire of discovery; the best of servants, though the worst of masters. A habit of reasoning out the most likely cause, and all other possible causes, for the condition of things as seen, is essential. If there is a slope of the ground, a ridge, a hollow—Why is it there? What can have produced it? and Which cause is the most probable for it? The mere form of the ground will often show plainly what is beneath it. Is there a smooth uniform mound of large size? Then a mass of house ruins of a town may be expected. Is there a steep edge to it around? Then there was a wall, either of the town or of some one large building which forms the whole ruin. Is there a ring of mounds with a central depression? Then there was a temple or large permanent building, with house ruins around it. Is there a gentle slope up one side, and a sharp fall on the other? Then it is a rubbish mound. Is the mass high above the general soil? Then several successive layers of habitation may be expected. So, even from afar, some ideas may be gleaned before setting foot on a ruined site.

112. Forms of Rubbish-heap, and of Ruins of Building.

When we reach our town and walk over it, much more can be seen of what is beneath. Very likely it seems all irregular, hillocky, dusty ground, and who can say what it may cover? In one place, however, we find that there are no chips or potsherds lying about: track around, and find the space of this clearance, probably it runs along for some distance; you are on the top of a mud-brick wall, denuded down to the level of the rubbish in which it is buried. Follow the clear space, and you will outline the fortifications of the city or its temple. Or perhaps you notice a difference in the vegetation—no plants will grow on particular ground; here is probably a mass of hard mud-brick or stonework, without moisture or nutriment, and you will thus find the walls. Or there is a hollow or old pit met with; here the modern natives have been digging out stone masonry, and around it, or below, may be the rest of a building. Some symmetrical form of the mounds can be detected, and we are perhaps led at once to the temple, or to trace out the streets of the town. Or a patch of ground is reddened with fire, showing that a house has been burnt there, and probably stone and metal and pottery may remain intact in the ruins. But our special notice must be given to the potsherds lying strewn all over the surface. Pottery is the very key to digging; to know the varieties of it, and the age of each, is the alphabet of work. Not that it is more distinctive in itself than most other products of various ages; but it is so vastly commoner than anything else, that a place may be dated in a minute by its pottery on the surface, which would require a month’s digging in the inside of it to discover as much from inscriptions or sculptures. A survey showing the form of the ground, and the position of every fragment or indication that can be of use, is essential to understanding it; and will often point out, by the probable symmetry of parts, what are the best spots to examine first.

Having then made out as much as possible beforehand, we begin our diggings. If there appear to be remains of a temple, or some larger building, which should be thoroughly examined, we first make pits about one edge of the site, and find how far out the ruins extend. Having settled that, a large trench is dug along the whole of one side, reaching down to the undisturbed soil beneath, and about six or eight feet wide at the bottom, all the earth being heaped on the outer edge of the trench. Then the inner side is dug away, and the stuff thrown up on the outer side by a row of men all along the trench. Thus the trench is gradually swept across the whole site, always taking from one side, and throwing back on the other. Each block of stone or piece of building found is surveyed, and covered over again if not wanted; sculptures or inscriptions are either removed or rolled up on to the surface of the stuff, or remain exposed in pits left in the rubbish. Thus the earth does not cover over and encumber the surrounding ground, which may very likely need to be excavated in its turn; the stuff is removed a minimum distance, which means occupying a minimum of time and cost; and the site is covered over again, to preserve from the weather and from plunderers any foundations or masonry that may remain. Every ounce of earth is thus examined, and all it contains is discovered. Town ruins may be treated in the same way; all the chambers along one side of the town, or along a street, may be cleared out and measured; then the next chambers inwards are cleared, and the stuff all thrown into the first row of chambers; thus gradually turning over every scrap of rubbish without destroying a single wall, and leaving the place as well protected by its coat of débris as it was before the work.

The most fatal difficulty in the way of reaching what is wanted is when an early site has been occupied in later times. A city may have been of the greatest importance, and we may be certain that beneath our feet are priceless monuments; but if there are twenty or thirty feet of later rubbish over it all, the things might almost as well be in the centre of the earth. Tanis was the Hyksos capital, but it would cost tens of thousands of pounds to lay bare the Hyksos level. The town of the twelfth dynasty at Illahun, on the contrary, yielded a harvest of small objects and papyri, revealing all the products and habits of that remote time, at a cost of two or three hundred pounds; simply because it was unencumbered. The temple of Ephesos cost sixteen thousand pounds, and almost a life’s work, to discover it, owing to its depth under the surface. Naukratis and Defenneh, on the contrary, gave us the remains of the archaic Greeks, merely for the picking up and a little grubbing, both together not costing a thousand. It is plain enough that the main consideration is an accessible site.

An excellent rule in excavating is never to dig anywhere without some definite aim. Form at least some expectation of what may be found; and so soon as the general clue to the arrangement is known, have clearly in the mind what you expect to find, and what is the purpose of every separate man’s work. One may be following the outside of a fortification, another trenching across it to find its thickness, another sinking a pit inside it to find the depth of the soil, another clearing a room, or trenching to find the limits of the town, or removing a rubbish deposit layer by layer. Unless just beginning work on a very featureless site, the aimless trenching or pitting is merely an excuse for a lazy mind. Far better have some theory or working hypothesis, and labour to prove it to be either right or wrong, than simply remain in expectancy. When you know what to look for, the most trivial indications, which otherwise would seem to be nothing, become of great importance and attract the eye. And the workmen should be encouraged to know what to expect beneath the surface, as it prevents their destroying the evidences. A vertical junction a few inches high, clean sand on one side and earth on the other, will lead to tracing the whole plan of a destroyed temple; a little patch of sand in the ground will produce a foundation deposit to your hands, and give the age of a building which has vanished; a slightly darker soil in a trench will show you the wall of a town which you are seeking; some bricks laid with mud instead of sand in a pyramid will point the way to the sepulchre. A beginner is vastly disappointed that some great prize does not turn up after a week or two of work; while all the time he is probably not noticing or thinking about material for historical results that is lying before him all the time. Perhaps in some place nothing whatever may be found that would be worth sixpence in the antiquity market; and yet the results from walls, and plans, and pottery, and measurements, may be what historians have been longing to know about for years before.