True Principles of Archeology. 53 



real city of Troy, that it was destroyed, as Homer stated, by 

 fire, and that the inference is fair that Homer was speaking- 

 the truth when he told of Menelaus, the faithless Helen, and 

 the treacherous Paris? What bearing upon our conduct of 

 modern life has the knowledge that our remote ancestors 

 knew not the use of metals, and fashioned such implements 

 and weapons as they needed out of stone? Is any one of 

 us wiser, or better, or wealthier for knowing that the mar- 

 vellous civilisation of Egypt, after existing for thousands of 

 years, was swept away and submerged in a flood of barbar- 

 ism? Or, coming to later times and to this island, does it 

 assist us in regulating our business, our pleasure, our rela- 

 tions with other nations, to know that the aboriginal people 

 which inhabited Britain was invaded, conquered, and w€ll- 

 nigh exterminated by the great migrating race of Celts, who, 

 in turn, were subdued by the Romans, to be followed by 

 Saxon, Danish, and Norman conquest? Have you a ready 

 answer to these questions? If not, let me supply one which 

 was given 2200 years ago when Thucydides dedicated his 

 history of the Peloponnesian War to " those who desire to 

 have a true view of what has happened, and of like or similar 

 things which, in accordance with human nature, will probably 

 happen hereafter." 



The purpose of archaeology, then, is to recover and pre- 

 serve objects whereby oral tradition may be checked — written 

 chronicle verified or refuted — so that our knowledge of the 

 past being clear and precise, we may the more surely and 

 safely shape our course for the future. 



And now let me speak an earnest word of entreaty to 

 those who have the opportunity of contributing to our know- 

 ledge of archaeology, and thereby to our acquaintance with 

 history. Thousands — tens of thousands — of objects of human 

 manufacture have been recovered and scattered among the 

 country houses and local museums. I regret to say that 

 many of them in the Observatory of the town have no record 

 of where they were found. The labels have been lost, and 

 with them the knowledge of the conditions under which they 

 were found ; and thus all value in these objects has dis- 

 appeared, for they possess no intrinsic value of their own. 

 For instance, if a stone axe or collection of arrow heads finds 



