Archaean

“ The scope of the archaeologist’s studies must include every department of the ancient history of man as preserved in antiquities of whatever character, be they tumuli along the Baltic, fossil skulls and graven bones from the caves of France, the flint implements, pottery, and mummies of Egypt, tablets and bas-reliefs from Mesopotamia, coins and sculptures of Greece and Rome, or inscriptions, waxen tablets, parchment rolls, and papyri of a relatively late period of classical antiquity. ”

“ Greece and Rome; India, China, and Mexico; Denmark, Germany, Britain, and the other nations of modern Europe, all have their archæology. The field of inquiry,” he continues, “is boundless, and in the multitude of objects presenting themselves the enquirer is bewildered. It has been wisely provided therefore by the founder of this Professorship, 7that we shall direct our attention more immediately to one particular class of Antiquities, and that the noblest and most important of them all, I mean the Antiquities of Greece and Rome [2] .” ”

“ Buried Herculaneum, once more given back to the sunbeams, reveals to us the domestic life of ancient Rome; the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the paintings and sculptures of Nineveh, tell us stories of their kings, and show us symbols of their splendour. What geology is to us in relation to the early earth, such are ruins in regard to its human habitants: they are their history in stone. ”

“ A world of material splendour, moulded clay, beaten gold, polished stone;—the informing, reasonable soul entering into that, reclaiming the metal and stone and clay, till they are as full of living breath as the real warm body itself; the presence of those two elements is continuous throughout the fortunes of Greek art after the heroic age, and the constant right estimate of their action and reaction, from period to period, its true philosophy. ”

“ The relation of archæology to Egyptian history deserves especial notice. We have not here, as in pre-historic Europe, a mere multitude of uninscribed and inconsiderable remains; but we have colossal monuments of all kinds—temples, gateways, obelisks, statues, rock sculptures—more or less over-written with hieroglyphics; also sepulchral-chambers, in many instances covered with paintings, in addition to a variety of smaller works, mummy cases, jewelry, scarabæi, pottery, &c., upon many of which are inscriptions. ”

“ And there, right opposite, stood the rock which of all rocks in the world's history has done most for literature and art—the rock which poets, and orators, and architects, and historians have ever glorified, and can not stay their praise—which is ever new and ever old, ever fresh in its decay, ever perfect in its ruin, ever living in its death—the Acropolis of Athens. ”

“ But if we penetrate into the recesses of the earth, and search the tombs of plants and animals, the fossil remains thus brought to light not only manifest a distribution of forms at variance with the present climates, but they also reveal colossal structures, which exhibit as marked a contrast with the small types that now surround us, as does the simple yet dignified heroism of the ancient Greeks, when compared with what is recognized at the present day as “greatness of character.” ”

“ In the modern alliance between archæology and geology, and the novel views which have resulted as to the antiquity of man, the characteristic disclosures of primitive art, alike among ancient and modern races, have given a significance to familiar phases of savage life undreamt of till very recently. ”

“ Already mountains are wearing down and sea bottoms are building up with their refuse. Sediments carried by the rivers are depositing in strata, which some day will harden into rock.
We are looking now at the close of the era which [Pg 10] geologists call Archean, because it is ancient beyond knowledge. A few of its rocks are known, but not well enough for many definite conclusions. All the earth's vast mysterious past is lumped under this title.
The definite history of the earth begins with the close of the dim Archean era. ”

“ In many cases the discovery of single inscriptions has had results of unexpected importance. We may instance the new light thrown upon the laws of Crete by the inscription at Gortyn, and upon Roman municipal law by those at Malaca and Salpensa, in Spain. Nor has epigraphy been the only department of archaeological research. The excavations of ancient sites have not only thrown new light upon the temples, tombs, theatres, and domestic architecture of the Greeks and Romans, but have yielded many treasures of art, pottery, and ornaments, illustrating the domestic life of the ancients. ”

“ But the disclosures of archæology in its later co-operation with the researches of the geologist have familiarised us with phases of human history that relegate the builders of the Birs Nimrud, and the sculptors of Nineveh or Thebes, to modern centuries. The handiwork of the palæolithic cave-dwellers and the primitive drift-folk produce to us works of industry and skill, fashioned when art was in its infancy, and metallurgy unknown. ”

“ When we turn from historical records to ancient monuments and inscriptions, none of them seem to claim a higher antiquity than about fifteen centuries, B.C. Those now extant of Rome, Etruria, Greece, Judæa, and Assyria, carry us back no farther into the history of past ages than the temples, obelisks, cities, tombs, and pyramids of Egypt, and the exact date of these last, after they have been studied with so much patience and sagacity for centuries, remains uncertain and obscure. ”

“ Minoan Architecture and Fresco Painting
Perhaps the most vivid traces of the ancient civilization of Crete are the remains of the buildings which have been found in the soil. Here you have the rooms that were lived in, and the appeal to the imagination is direct. The relics of buildings are more extensive than those of any other kind, and they were the first discovered by the excavator, just as they are the first points of interest to the visitors who nowadays go to the island. ”

“ When we were there the Greek School of Archæology was engaged in digging near the great temple of the god, the foundations of which have now been completely explored to a considerable depth, and it was interesting to see the primitive way in which the excavation was being carried on. Men with curiously shaped picks and shovels were loosening the earth and tossing it into baskets of wicker stuff, which in turn were borne on the heads of women to a distance and there dumped. ”

“ Never have I seen the huge strength of Roman antiquity appear more sweetly venerable, more assimilable to the unshaken granite structure of the globe itself, than thus, decked and garlanded with the transitory blossoms of its eighteen-hundredth spring. ”

“ The most familiar teaching entitled archaeological is that of Classical Archaeology, which in the ways of most teachers means Greek sculpture and vase paintings. In spite of all the professorships and schools of that subject, we are still so profoundly ignorant of the archaeology of Greece and Italy that there is scarcely a single class of common objects of which any one knows the history and transformations. Certainly we know far less of the archaeology of classical lands than we do of that of Egypt. ”

“ If at one time the monuments of Greece and Rome claimed the almost undisputed attention of the archaeologist, that time has long since passed. For the most important historical records that have come to us in recent decades we have to thank the Orientalist, though the classical explorer has been by no means idle. It will be sufficient here to point out in general terms the import of the message of archaeological discovery in the Victorian Era in its bearings upon the great problems of world-history. ”

“ The sensational discoveries at Crete provide a wholly new standpoint whence to survey prehistoric civilisation, and they place the evolution of human art and appliances in the last Quaternary Period on a higher level than had ever previously been suspected. ”

“ But meanwhile the geologist, without seeking to reanimate these extinct vertebrata, learns much regarding the past from the investigation of their colossal remains, and so too may the archæologist see into the living spirit of the medieval era by the earnest study of its creations, though he hopes better things of his own age than that it should expect perfection in those immature centuries, or seek for life in the beautiful sepulchres wherein they lie entombed. ”

“ The incredulity and even contempt with which the application of a system of archæological periods to the antiquities of Britain was received, in recent years, by a certain class of critics, was inevitable, from the exclusive attention previously devoted to Roman and medieval remains. But the attention of the antiquary, as well as the geologist, is now being directed to conclusions forced on both by the traces of man in the stratified gravel of post-pleiocene formations. ”

“ Archæology is the study of the facts of ancient history and ancient lore. The word is applied to the study of all ancient documents and objects which may be classed as antiquities; and the archæologist is understood to be the man who deals with a period for which the evidence has to be excavated or otherwise discovered. The age at which an object becomes an antiquity, however, is quite undefined, though practically it may be reckoned at a hundred years; and ancient history is, after all, the tale of any period which is not modern. ”

“ But since the commencement of the present century Archæology has been equally active in Europe. It has, by its recent devoted [Pg 8] study of the whole works of art belonging to Greece, shown that in many respects a livelier and more familiar knowledge of the ancient inhabitants of that classic land is to be derived from the contemplation of their remaining statues, sculptures, gems, medals, coins, etc., than by any amount of mere school-grinding at Greek words and Greek quantities. ”

“ A further interest in Greek archaeology has been awakened in all civilized lands by the excavations of Troy, Mycenae, Tiryns, Epidaurus, Sparta, Olympia, Dodona, Delphi, Delos and of important sites in Crete. The extensive discoveries of papyri in Egypt have greatly extended our knowledge of the administration of that country in the times of the Ptolemies, and have materially added to the existing remains of Greek literature. Scholars have been enabled to realize in their own experience some of the enthusiasm that attended the recovery of lost classics during the Revival of Learning. ”

“ It may be that we have here parts of a continuous historic piece; in any case these unique illustrations of great crowds of men and women within the walls of towns and palaces supply a new and striking commentary on the familiar passage of Homer describing the ancient populousness of the Cretan cities.' [*] Only the wonderful tomb paintings of ancient Egypt can excel these vivid miniatures in bringing before us the life of a bygone civilization; nothing else to approach them has come down from antiquity. ”

“ As Greek and barbarian brought hither their well-wrought schemes and passionate desires, so they brought also, in offerings to the god, their best skill in architecture and sculpture and painting, their rarest workmanship in marble and bronze and gold and silver. Ghostly proofs of the existence of some of these offerings the French excavators have within twenty years evoked from the reluctant soil. Gallic precision and insight have even made of ruined walls and broken stones an orderly array easily perceived by the traveller who is patient enough to follow his guidebook. ”

“ The people who founded them came from central Asia. They had reached a considerable degree of culture, which suggests that they themselves came from earlier centers of civilization.
The study of prehistoric antiquity is termed archæology. Its principal periods have been divided, for convenience, into the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. Each of these is distinguished by the substances used for tools. In the Stone Age men used stone spearheads, arrows, and knives, whereas in the Iron Age similar things were made of iron or copper.
The science of mankind is known as Anthropology. ”

“ THE PERIODS OF ART
3. Prehistoric
4. Earliest dynastic
5. Old Kingdom (IV)
6. Middle Kingdom (XII)
The Prehistoric work (8000-5500 B.C.) shows much more mechanical than artistic ability. The treatment of the hardest materials was masterful; granite and porphyry were wrought as freely as limestone and alabaster; perfectly regular forms of vases were cut entirely by hand without any lathe. But with this there was a very tentative idea of animate forms. ”

“ Before passing from these pre-historic remains, as they are badly called, to the historic, let me beg you to observe a striking illustration of the relation of archæology to history. Archæology is not the handmaid of history; she occupies a far higher position than that: archæology is, as I said at the outset, the science of teaching history by its monuments. Now for all western and northern Europe nearly the whole of its early history must be deduced, so far as it can be deduced at all, from the monuments themselves ”

“ No impartial observer can fail to have been struck by the immense strides made within the last generation by Greek archaeology, as compared with the very small amount of progress made from the literary side—at least if progress is to be judged by the attainment of any general consensus of opinion. Experienced archaeologists can now very soon determine whether the remains which they find are those of a village or a palace, and whether they belong to (let us say) the classical or the geometrical or the Mycenean period. ”