Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

“ The sacred shell must never touch the ground, for, if it should, a devouring fire would come from it. If any one but the keeper touches any of the objects, he will be afflicted with grievous sores but the evil may be averted by going through certain ritual ablutions. All of these objects have been given, with the consent of the chiefs, to the Peabody Museum of Archæology. ”

“ But to ensure the fullest knowledge, and the most complete preservation of things, in the long run, should be the real aim. To raid the whole of past ages, and put all that we think effective into museums, is only to ensure that such things will perish in course of time. A museum is only a temporary place. There is not one storehouse in the world that has lasted a couple of thousand years. Only two or three bronze statues have come down to us from classical times preserved by each generation. ”

“ It will be seen, therefore, that the reproach brought against excavations in Egypt by Mr. Rhind in 1862 still holds good of excavations in Babylonia and [42] Assyria. The first stage in their history is only just passing away. The idea that excavation is a trade which any one can take up without previous training, and that all the excavator need think about is the discovery of objects for a museum, is only beginning to disappear. ”

“ Notwithstanding all the zeal of British archæologists of late years, so much of this spirit still remains among us, that it [Pg 18] would be easier, perhaps, even now, to secure the purchase by the Trustees of the British Museum, of a Roman statue or an Egyptian tablet, than of valuable relics of British antiquity.
One man has within the last thirty years accomplished, not for Denmark only, but for Europe, what the whole united labours of earlier archæologists failed to do. ”

“ Hoarded apart, the pieces are nearly without value, and to new possessors become even meaningless. But should the whole, by some fortunate chance, be re-assembled in a single collection, it becomes possible for a skilful manipulator to piece the fragments together, and replace them with an elegant and valuable work of art. Thus it has proved with more than one archæological museum. In 1780 the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland was established, and its collection of national antiquities begun. ”

“ Since then these collections, with additions of similar character, have formed by far the most important feature of the British Museum. But in the mean time archaeology has become a science.
Within recent years the natural history collection has been removed in toto from the old building to a new site far out in South Kensington, and the casual visitor is likely to think of it as a separate institution. The building which it occupies is very modern in appearance as in fact. ”

“ PLANS FOR AN ARCHÆOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION There are something like three hundred museums or institutions in the United States that contain archæological collections. These exhibits range from more than a million objects, as in the case of the Smithsonian Institution, or Field Museum of Chicago, or the American Museum of Natural History, to private collections of one to ten thousand specimens each. I have roughly estimated the number of prehistoric artifacts available for study, or those of aboriginal manufacture that show little influence of European culture, at about eight million objects. ”

“ It represents no one institution and no one interest. Its purpose is to protect the interests of archaeological science, to secure a sane and enlightened administration of antiquities in the lands which are now being more fully opened to research, and to promote the advance of knowledge in the spheres to which its competence extends. ”

“ The object of archaeological travel and excavation is not to collect antiquities so that they may be arranged according to the existing catalogues of museums, but to collect fresh information to amplify and correct what we now know, to make our knowledge of the past more complete and useful. ”

“ Much knowledge is lost because it comes in the way of those who do not know how to profit by it or to record it. Accordingly, just as the Natural History Museum has issued a series of pamphlets of advice to the collectors of natural history specimens, so it has been thought that a handbook of elementary information and advice may be found of service by travellers with archaeological tastes ”

“ Regarding, then, the existence of palæolithic man as established by the finding of four hundred of his relics in the Delaware valley near Trenton, we have next to inquire whether there is evidence that in that region man made any progress towards the neolithic condition. For an answer to this question we have only to study the immense collection of objects gathered by Dr. Abbott, and now deposited in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. This seems to warrant a conclusion exactly the opposite to Professor Whitney’s, who states that “so far as California is concerned ... ”

“ We see the results of the physical labors of the people; the houses with their smooth walls and bright paintings, the storage rooms, kivas, open courts, narrow winding passageways, firepits, and in the back of the cave, the trash room where the turkeys roosted.
In the nearby museum we see the actual physical remains, the skeletons and mummies, of the people themselves. We see their clothing and their jewelry. There also are the utensils and tools; pottery, basketry, bows and arrows, stone knives, bone awls and needles, grinding stones, fire drills, planting sticks, stone axes and mauls ”

“ There were also many examples of rude instruments belonging to the Bronze Age, some Roman swords and a skeleton in a prehistoric stone coffin. The interest of these curiosities lay not only in their intrinsic value to the antiquary, but in the fact that they had all been dug up from the tumuli in the Commune of Carnac. But to me they assumed at once a far more vivid interest, when the custodian explained that the antiquary who had discovered most of them, and whose money had founded the museum, was "M'sieu Meelin 210 of Dundae." ”

“ The preservation of the whole of the needful material is still more utterly beyond the limits of any of the present museums. Every year a great deal of entirely irreplaceable material is thrown away, or neglected on the spot, because there is no hope whatever of preserving it. In the British Museum space costs several pounds a square foot, and only objects of133 great value can be reasonably preserved there. We are driven, then, to the conclusion that the progress of archaeology and the preservation of the past, as it comes into our hands year by year, is essentially a question of free space. ”

“ In all this we are stating field practice only, and not dealing with86 museum methods, which differ by having far more command of resources, and by not having to deal with any of the troublesome cases which do not survive to reach a museum. ”

“ The ancient structures themselves do not tell the whole story, nor do the artifacts in the museum. The well-built walls and the skillfully made artifacts are ample evidence of the abilities of the people but these articles of stone, bone and wood do not tell us all we would like to know. ”

“ Thus linguistic science has begun to invade the field of American ethnology: and let it not be forgotten that this science is as little bound, as it is qualified, to perform the whole task alone: archæology must lend a helping hand. We must have museums, in which the plastic remains of the ancient American civilizations, either original, or in faithful imitations, shall, in as large numbers as possible, be collected, and duly grouped and labelled, according to the place and circumstances of their discovery. ”

“ There are grave dangers inherent in too great a concentration on material culture. It has been said of the archaeologist that “sometimes he cannot see the people for the walls” [125] and it is the people themselves, after all, who are important.
Two examples will show how ethnology and archaeology may complement each other. In certain prehistoric sites are found circular underground rooms with highly specialized characteristics. ”

“ Thus it is a kind of ethnological museum, where specimens may be found of countless races and languages, some of which probably belong to the early ages of the world; races that seem to have little affinity with their present neighbours, and of whose history we know nothing except what comparative philology can reveal. ”

“ These are dug up by the thousand in all the provinces of France, in Switzerland, in England, in all Europe; they are found even in Asia and Africa. It is probable that they exist in all parts of the world.
These remains are called prehistoric because they are more ancient than written history. For about fifty years men have been engaged in recovering and studying them. Today most museums have a hall, or at least, some cases filled with these relics. A museum at Saint-German-en-Laye, near Paris, is entirely given up to prehistoric remains. In Denmark is a collection of more than 30,000 objects. ”

“ Most, if not all, of the countries with which we are concerned, have their Laws of Antiquities. It cannot be too strongly insisted that those laws, even if they might be better than they are, should be obeyed by the traveller. He should familiarize himself with their main provisions, which are summarized in an Appendix. The traveller who makes it his object to loot a country of its antiquities, smuggling objects out of it and disguising the sources from which they are obtained, does a distinct dis–service to archaeological science. ”

“ In this way it is reasonably inferred that even in countries now civilized, savage and low barbaric tribes must have once lived. Fortunately it is not left altogether to the imagination to picture the lives of these rude and ancient men, for many relics of them are found which may be seen and handled in museums. It has now to be considered what sort of evidence of man’s age is thus to be had from archæology and geology, and what it proves.
When an antiquary examines the objects dug up in any place, he can generally judge in what state of civilization its inhabitants have been. ”

“ I have no hesitation in saying that the craze for recklessly bringing away unique antiquities from Egypt to be exhibited in western museums for the satisfaction of the untravelled man, is the most pernicious bit of folly to be found in the whole broad realm of archæological misbehaviour.
A museum has three main justifications for its existence. In the first place, like a home for lost dogs, it is a repository for stray objects. No curator should endeavour to procure for his museum any antiquity which could be safely exhibited on its original site and in its original position. ”

“ No description can produce the feeling that one experiences when viewing the imposing ruins found in our National Monuments and Parks. Even a short time spent looking at pottery and other artifacts in a museum will give a far better idea of their appearance than will photographs, drawings, or the most detailed descriptions. A visit to a modern pueblo makes it possible to visualize something of the life of bygone centuries and to think of the ancient inhabitants of the area as living, breathing people rather than as lifeless specimens. ”

“ The immense practical value of collections to the archæologist renders their proper arrangement a matter of grave importance, and one which cannot be allowed to rest in its present extremely imperfect state. [7]
In Scotland no national collection exists, though a small body of zealous men have struggled to maintain an Archæological [Pg xix] Museum in the Scottish capital for the last seventy years, in defiance of obstacles of the most harassing nature. ”

“ Other good spots for antiquities than tells are rare. In the mountainous and stony country of the North we may meet with rock– sculptures, as at Bavian, and these should always be recorded by a traveller, even if he is not certain that they have not been remarked before: something new may turn up at any time. Antiquities acquired in the neighbourhood of such monuments should be noted, and their precise place of origin ascertained, if possible, as in this way the site of some ancient settlement adjoining the monument may be identified. ”

“ The Museum of Archæology shows the progress of the race from the most archaic times, the different types of human beings, their mode of living, their forms of worship, their games, their weapons, their implements, the natural products which they used for subsistence, in their industries, and in their arts, the objects of manufacture or of art which they produced, and the manner in which they disposed of their dead. ”

“ It was Mariette’s custom to send a native overseer to conduct the work for him, and it was his boast that numerous excavations under his direction were being carried on throughout Egypt at one and the same time. The antiquities were dug out at a terrific rate, and were hurled pell-mell into the museum in cart-loads. In more recent years European gentlemen, and even native antiquity-dealers, have been given excavating concessions, and have ransacked the ancient tombs and temples in a{100} mad search for loot, no records being made and no scientific information being gleaned. ”

“ It was only after persistent inquiries that we found it in a store-shed with other fragments of ninth-century carving and some Roman antiquities thought of little importance, though the inscriptions and other marble fragments and the stone funerary urns are in their company. In the show museum are Roman fragments, lamps, Pansiana pottery stamps, bronze vessels and utensils, iron fragments, glass phials, &c. On the hill, not far off, prehistoric tombs with interesting objects have been found; but the greater part of the finds have been sent to more important museums. ”