H.— ANTHROPOLOGY 153 



barbarism and utterly to be condemned, to a minimum. This is the true 

 ideal, but in practice it proves impossible to execute ; science retires baffled 

 before the conspiring avarice of the land-owner and the collector. Never- 

 theless a vigilant and determined government can do much to mitigate this 

 evil, and it is to be noted that both Italy and Greece have been remarkably 

 successful in their systems of close supervision and control of export. 



A very intelligent and practical policy was long ago adopted by the 

 Egyptian Department of Antiquities, which goes far to satisfy the smaller 

 buyer though it cannot cope with the bigger gangster. The Cairo 

 Museum maintains an official sale-room in which duplicates and objects 

 of small value are sold to the tourist. These are officially guaranteed to 

 be genuine, which is incidentally no small advantage in a country where 

 forgeries are so frequent and sometimes so clever as to deceive even an 

 expert. It would be very useful if this system were extended and adopted 

 also in other lands. Even objects of real value might be placed in the 

 sale-room when they are already abundant in the national collections. 

 There are several European countries in which the store-rooms of the 

 great museums are crowded with thousands of duplicates, that can never 

 be exhibited or used and are practically waste material. If these were sold 

 the result would produce large sums which could be used in financing 

 new excavations ; knowledge would be usefully disseminated, and the 

 destructiveness of private dealing might be a little restrained. 



Now let us consider what happens and what ought to happen when 

 a museum, a university, or a scientific body of any kind sends out its 

 duly qualified explorer. Both this explorer and his employers have 

 certain perfectly clear duties to discharge, and I suggest that on one side 

 these are not sufficiently recognised. It is the explorer's business not 

 only to furnish his home museum with collections of valuable specimens, 

 but also to make the most complete study of all the conditions under which 

 they are found and to publish this study in the fullest possible form. But 

 here he is very often fettered by the unthinking or deliberately selfish 

 egotism of his employers. A great deal of pressure is often brought to 

 bear on the explorer to make him not only excavate the most lucrative 

 sites, which may be quite legitimate, but neglect the less attractive and 

 remunerative parts of his concession. This is so notorious that I need 

 not quote instances. I prefer rather to recall the admirable public spirit 

 shown by a great American institution, which ungrudgingly and uncom- 

 plainingly supported its representative through several years of expensive 

 and quite unremunerative trenching which he judged to be necessary. 

 And it is pleasant to relate that this generosity was rewarded by the 

 eventual discovery of prizes which excelled their wildest dreams. 



If it is the explorer's duty fully to study and record whatever he finds, 

 it is a duty which is never neglected in these enlightened days by any 

 scientist at all worthy of the name. But it is not quite so invariably 

 a part of his creed that the privilege of exploration carries with it the 

 implied promise to publish, and to publish quickly and fully. The 

 record of British archaeologists is very honourable in this respect, and there 

 is hardly any important field work that has not been published or is not 

 in process of publication. A great deal of credit for this happy state of 



