Archæologia

“ One leading characteristic of advance at Lincoln is the circular abacus of the columns, which is found throughout."
The work of St. Hugh at Lincoln is of such extraordinary importance to the student of architecture, that it may be well to closely follow an eminent authority in tracing the parts which date from this bishop's time. J. H. Parker, who remarked that the architecture of Lincoln Minster was his favourite study for thirty years, carefully investigated the matter, and the results were published in the 43rd volume of the Archæologia. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Archæology, or the science of antiquities, searches for all the vestiges of human action in the distant past; the remains of architectural structures, of public works, carvings, inscriptions, coins, medals, heraldic symbols, workmen's tools, articles of use and ornament, and whatever can serve to throw light upon the state of man and society when they were produced. It matters nothing how apparently trivial are the relics of by-gone ages ”

“ Peter’s, as at so many other ancient sites, what the archaeologist digs up is not things but people. The remains in the niche under the Red Wall are not dry bones; they are live history. The breathing of life into that history is a major and largely unsung triumph of the modern science of archaeology, patiently at work over the last eighty years. To come to know a fragment of our past is to recognize a piece of ourselves. Perhaps, as archaeology interprets history, making the mute stones speak, we may come to know our past so well that we shall not be condemned to repeat it. ”

“ So in regard to the buildings of greater antiquity: in those ruins which have long survived the wear of time, simplicity of construction, and an adaptation of the design to the locality, as well as to the materials with which they are built, are strikingly characteristic. The antiquary may derive most profitable information from the distinguishing characters of the different rocks, and may thence frequently determine the age and other circumstances connected with the erection of the structure he is investigating, more accurately than by tradition and imperfect records. ”

“ And it is one of the objects which archæology promotes, to follow up these researches, to trace these resemblances, to deduce these analogies, and thereby to reconstruct, from the minutest and most unpromising fragments, faithful records of all that is grandest and loveliest and noblest in art. For it is with archæology as with its kindred science geology; the triumphs of each are acquired by means of the analytic element carried to the highest point. And in alluding to geology, I speak also of that science which is not indeed the same, but yet which is seldom separated from it in study. ”

“ ISText, the succession of ages to which different classes of remains belong is well marked; the drift implements belong to the palaeolithic or old stone age, when as yet the implements were extremely rude, and not ground or polished; above these in deposit, and therefore later in time, come the artistically shaped and polished celts of the neolithic or new stone age ; above these, again, relics of the bronze and early iron ages, with which historical antiquity in Europe begins. ”

“ For while there are but few who would deny that many of the very choicest relics of ancient art and of ancient history are to be sought for in the Greek and Roman saloons and cabinets of the museums of Europe, yet it must at the same time be admitted that there are other branches of archæology, which are far too 8important to be neglected, and which have an interest, and often a very high interest, of their own. ”

“ If the archeologist depends upon facts instead of his imagination, a credible chronology for the entire region can thus be constructed.
In such a recovery the common life of the people of antiquity is revealed in amazing detail. We learn their customs of living, something of their arts and crafts and their manner of labor. Their knowledge of architecture 130 is clearly portrayed through such ruins as remain, and the general picture of the incidental events that made up their living is clearly developed as the work proceeds. ”

“ I could show, if this were a fitting place, that Archaeology is not at all divorced from life, nor even devoid of emotion as subtle and strange, as swift and moving, as that experienced by those who love and follow Art. She, Archaeology, is, for those who know her, full of such emotion; garbed in an imperishable glamour, she is raised far above the turmoil of the present on the wings of Imagination. ”

“ The Prehistoric period for lack of all other means of dating has been divided by antiquarians, according to the material of which man formed his implements, into the Stone, the Bronze, and the late-Celtic or Iron Ages; the Stone age being further divided into an older, or Palaeolithic, section, in which all the so-called “celts,” or flint implements, were formed simply by chipping, and a newer Neolithic section, in which they were often ground and polished. ”

“ And now, since the Mound-builders left no written history behind them, we must get acquainted with another branch of science in order to obtain the information we desire. This new science is known as Archæology, and the man or woman who works at it is called an archæologist. Archæology is really the science of old things; that is, it concerns itself with the things which human beings did before they became intelligent enough to write and leave behind them their own histories. ”

“ What has been called ‘prehistory’ cannot be written without knowledge of archaeology; but from the historical standpoint archaeological details must be handled, not for their own sake, but only in so far as they illustrate the development of culture. ”

“ Or, when that thread breaks, Archæology, which is the interpretation of the unrecorded remains of man's works, belonging to the epoch since the world has reached its present condition, may still guide him. And, when even the dim light of archæology fades, there yet remains Palæontology, which, in these latter years, has brought to daylight once more the exuvia of ancient populations, whose world was not our world, who have been buried in river beds immemorially dry, or carried by the rush of waters into caves, inaccessible to inundation since the dawn of tradition. ”

“ In considering the condition and prospects of art in the present age, let us, as heretofore, glance at the several departments of architecture, sculpture, and painting, consecutively, according to their natural order and relative merits.
Archæology is at present achieving for prospective art just what geology is contributing to the progress of natural science. Crumbling relics and fossil impressions are everywhere exhumed, classified and published for the purpose of ascertaining our true relation to historical art and progressive civilization. ”

“ Throughout the various topics of Prehistoric Archæology, the force and convergence of its testimony upon the development of culture are overpowering. The relics discovered in gravel-beds, caves, shell-mounds, terramares, lake-dwellings, earthworks, the results of an exploration of the superficial soil in many countries, the comparison of geological evidence, of historical documents, of modern savage life, corroborate and explain one another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our historical horizon has been pushed back very considerably, and every year adds new knowledge concerning the Palæolithic and Neolithic races, and the first users of bronze and iron tools and weapons. We have learnt to prize what they have left, to recognize the immense archæological value of these remains, and of their inestimable prehistoric interest. ”

“ Nor does there appear to be any reason why those methods of examination which have proved so successful in geology, should not also be used to throw light on the history of man in prehistoric times. Archæology forms, in fact, the link between geology and history. But, while other animals leave only teeth and bones behind them, the men of the earliest ages are to be studied principally by their works; they have left behind them houses, tombs, fortifications, temples, implements for use, and ornaments for decoration. ”

“ All we can gather from historical documents leads to the belief that the stone implements, the pottery, the fortifications, the skeletons found, and the large mound (if it be one) were the work of a people existing anterior to the historic period and more advanced than the Knoshioni, or Powhatanic stocks. One argument grows out of the fact that all the relics have been dug or plowed up. Stone axes, flint or chert arrow and spear heads have often been found on the surface or just below the surface of the land, while the pottery, gouge, amulet, &c., have been found at various depths. ”

“ Archæological research has laid out before us the pathway of man through the ages and shown his gradual and steady development, through the successive periods of chipped stone and polished stone implements, of bronze and iron tools and weapons, with his gradual development of pottery, ornament, art, architecture, etc.
The most striking and notable fact in anthropological science is the total reversal of our ideas concerning the length of time man has dwelt upon the earth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But here again it has to be borne in mind that historical time is continually being set back by archaeological research, and further, the difficulty of employing artefacts of stone as chronological indicators is shown by the fact that even at the present day implements of stone are still in use, and that different local races of early men must have been in diverse stages of development in Pleistocene as in later ages. ”

“ And the same observations apply to the attestation by archæology to the scriptural records. Nothing is more remarkable than the recovery of ancient monuments, unless it be the deductions of science which are marking the intellectual activity of the age. ”

“ The study of ancient monuments, in addition to its high degree of interest, is moreover of great practical value in the development of historical science, as a source of positive information, as a corroboration of annals otherwise recorded, and as an incentive to continued research. ”

“ Men write of and wonder at the strange gap between what are called the Paleolithic and the Neolithic ages, that is, between the ages when the spearheads and ax and arrowheads were of stone chipped roughly into shape, and the age of stone even-edged and smoothly polished. ”

“ It will be well at this point to give a brief summary of the modern classification of the Palaeolithic implement-bearing deposits of Europe. From the labours of many geologists and prehistoric archaeologists, especially in France, a definite succession of types of implement has been established, and in some cases it has been found possible to correlate these with actual human remains and with certain well-marked events in the physical history of Pleistocene times, especially with the advance and retreat of ice-sheets. ”

“ DURING the unlettered youth of the race there were no written records from which the antiquity of man can be read. So the anthropologist on the one hand, and the geologist on the other, have sought to construct an early human history from prehistoric relics, and from the formations in which they are imbedded or the fossils with which they are associated. ”

“ Archaeology is generally regarded as a dead and dry study, though it need not be so. But its animating power is history, and to bring it into life it must be combined with history, not in its narrowest, but in its widest sense. To a life-long student of classical details, it may be a matter of vital importance whether a stone on the Palatine is of the time of the kings or the Republic; but to the casual visitor to Rome, to the ladies who form so great a portion of my present audience, this can scarcely be a question of thrilling excitement. ”