152 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



it must surely be art. Herodotus writes an epic, and Thucydides com- 

 poses a tragedy ; Gibbon displays a pageant, and Macaulay delivers an 

 oration. We value them not for their scientific accuracy, which may or 

 may not be unimpeachable, but for the beauty and philosophic truth 

 of their artistic production. 



Having now to some extent defined the place of archaeology as a science, 

 I will speak of the organisation of its material. 



The organisation of archieology may be treated under three headings. 

 First there is the collection of the material in the field and the recording 

 of it. Secondly there is the housing, conservation and exhibition of 

 this material in museums. Thirdly there is the comparative study of 

 all such material, and the digesting and dissemination of the results in 

 books of synthesis and popularisation. Each of these activities demands 

 separate consideration. 



The collection of material in the first instance is due to the work of 

 the explorer. He may either travel through a country observing its visible 

 features and monuments, or he may seek to discover new material by 

 excavating what has been hidden underground, either deliberately in 

 tombs and treasuries or accidentally by the accumulation of sand and 

 soil over the deserted ruins of ancient buildings. At the present moment 

 our chief attention is centred on excavation and our most sensational results 

 are being obtained thereby. Recent excavations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, 

 Greece and India are of vivid interest to every cultivated person. 

 Now as one who excavated himself for a good many years and has had 

 constant opportunities of studying all aspects of the excavator's problems, 

 I have been able to form some very clear ideas as to the policy and general 

 necessities of science in this regard. First there are one or two elementary 

 axioms, which were once generally ignored, but are now so universally 

 recognised that they need only be mentioned and emphasised as axioms. 

 The most important of these is that no person who is not qualified by 

 special knowledge and study should ever be allowed to excavate at all. 

 And since individuals are not impartial judges of their own capacity, this 

 comes to mean that no one must excavate unless he is endorsed by a 

 scientific institution or at least by a committee of scientific men. This 

 necessity is explicitly recognised almost everywhere, though I can remember 

 some flagrant instances of the violation of the rule even in these last few 

 years. It is a rule, however, which can admit of no exceptions. The 

 days are long past when the looting of sites for the amusement or personal 

 profit of a private individual could be tolerated, and no government 

 with any pretensions to enlightenment will ever again allow it. But 

 various countries which have only recently arrived at autonomy may 

 need warning in this respect, and it would be well that public opinion 

 should be fully alive to the danger. Powerful interests, both individual and 

 political, are often enrolled against our science, and we may sometimes 

 regret that there is no scientific League of Nations to which we might appeal. 



If the right to excavate is only granted by the licence of government to 

 a properly qualified individual, it ought to follow as a corollary that 

 digging for antiquities even by the owner of an estate should be forbidden. 

 Such a restriction would reduce the trade in antiquities, which is a survival of 



