Excavation

“ Together with it were found sherds of a fine-textured buff ware, painted with wide bands (fasce larghe) of tomato red. There were also very thin burnished bowls in cream and gray.
After excavation, the archaeologist must return to the study and to the comparative method; an exacting and exciting pursuit of parallels, especially for the pottery, in the hope of dating it and tracking down its origins. The facts7 are recorded in technical excavation reports, often buried in obscure or local journals. Oftener, the results of excavation are unpublished (it is always more fun to dig than to write.) ”

“ An excavation is first of all made in the rocky plateau, of the breadth and depth of a room, and this is afterwards arched over with a solid stone roof. The dwellings made in this manner have all the appearance of cellars or tunnels. ”

“ Owing to the numerous sections of poor rock, interspersed throughout the work with stretches of sound rock, the progress of the excavation was very irregular, especially in 32d Street. The rate of excavation in good ground is shown in Table 1. In the sections of bad ground, the operations of excavation, timbering, and lining were often carried on alternately, and it is impracticable to include them in the table. ”

“ I have not had the good fortune to see fire-walking myself, but it must be very exciting as many eye-witnesses have often described it to me. A great circular excavation, the bottom of which is paved with stones, is made and filled with logs of wood. ”

“ Near the latter were a quantity of very bright-red ocher, pieces of pottery, and at a short distance a stone pipe of peculiar construction. Many bright fragments of stone, a few arrow-heads, and flakes of chert were found in the process of excavation. Throughout the undisturbed portion of the base, and about 1 foot from the original soil, a very hard layer of earth was discovered, 2 inches in thickness, beneath which were the skeletons. ”

“ An excavation is made below the level of the dining room to a depth of about two feet, and, after the ground has been rammed down, the mass of broken stones or the pounded burnt brick is spread on, at such an inclination that it can find vents in the drain. ”

“ On the whole, the archaeologists—developing a new and sound technique in stratigraphic excavation and pottery study—have held back more than the physical anthropologists from the acceptance of a variegated array of early men at quite early dates. ”

“ There is considerable refuse on and in the dry earth as far back as the inner end of the front chamber, and were it not for the many rocks, too large to be removed, which cover nearly the entire floor and would make excavation very difficult and incomplete, the deposits would probably repay investigation. ”

“ If other curiosities are found near, or around such vessels of clay, as for instance small stone cists with burnt bones, and ashes, and the like, the excavation should be continued; and it will soon appear whether the barrow contains chandlers of stone, or not. If the explorer meets with very large stones, which form the roof, or cover of a chamber of stone, he should follow the direction in which the stones are placed, in order to find the entrance to the chamber, which almost always faces the east, or south. ”

“ Further, if we are to refer the cemetery to the mound-building race, we must admit that the race disappeared within a very recent period. On a level bank near the Little Miami River is a circular excavation about forty feet in diameter and seven feet deep. "An old settler relates that fifty years ago remains of stakes or palisades could be seen surrounding this excavation." [18] These have since disappeared, but their being there shows within how recent a period the ground was abandoned. Then the age of the forest-trees growing on the ground argues against any very great antiquity. ”

“ Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. In the following pages I have sought to reveal some of the romance of excavation, to tell the fascinating story of the men who have gone out into the desert places and dug up long-lost cities and the fabled treasure of ancient kings. Brilliant men, who have played their part in unearthing the glories of the past, have written many volumes on the subject which is nearest their hearts, and if, after closing this book, the reader and student feel a desire to seek them out, I shall be content. ”

“ I will conclude with a warning to the archæologist, and one which applies to all amateurs who go to visit excavations, and cannot see what has been reported by the actual excavators. As no one is able to see what the evidences of digging are, except the trained man, who knows not only archæology, but architecture, and who has studied the accumulation of soil in various places and forms, so the observer who comes to the spot after some years, and expects to find all the evidences unchanged, commits a blunder of the gravest kind. ”

“ The only safe plan of excavation seems to require the removal of all the earth between the side walls to a depth below the mud. If the rock bottom, or any solid bottom, is at a depth of 120 feet, there is small chance that man lived in this region at a time when it was easily accessible. ”

“ I see a large number of men at work in the excavation. Some are engaged in lining the sides with huge cut stones, which are mechanically lifted and laid with much precision, some kind of cement being used to fill the interstices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When time and the character of the ground admit, and larger capacity is desired, the shaft may be made wider and deeper, the gallery wider and longer, and the powder-chamber deeper, longer, and wider, if desired.
The excavation for the entrance and approaches, the placing of balks, and the levelling and ramming of the earth-cover, should be done by night; the mining work can be carried on both night and day. ”

“ Just as in excavations of prehistoric tumuh, or in geologic formations, it is necessary to notice the strata and exact position of the various objects as they come to light, so is it necessary in every excavation into human society to note the strata and exact position of the various phenomena as they are brought into prominence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A shallow excavation made to a depth not exceeding six inches over the whole area of one hundred and forty acres would have given a sufficient supply. The methods of digging the ground, and of conveying the earth must necessarily have been very primitive, and it is surprising that, with all the difficulties that had to be overcome, works of such magnitude should have been raised. ”

“ Between neighboring excavations there stand up dividing walls, tall and thin as those of our city buildings, and in some cases broken at their upper edges into rows of sharp pinnacles or inaccessible turf-coped turrets; while at the bottom of the hollows, washed by the runnels which, in the slow lapse of years, have been the architects of the whole, we find cairn-like accumulations of water-rolled stones,—the disengaged pebbles and boulders of the deposit. ”

“ Square acres of earth on the hill-sides may thus be swept away into the hollows without the aid of a pick or a shovel in excavation. Water performs all the labour, moving and washing the earth in one operation, while in excavating by hand the two processes are of necessity entirely distinct. ”

“ This part of the business generally takes about a fifth of the time of the excavations; and much care and arrangement has to be bestowed on the security of heavy stones, or pottery, or fragile stucco, or glass, for a long journey of railways and shipping. Packing with pads, with clothes, with chopped straw, or with reeds, hay, or straw, is more or less suitable in different instances. Finding things is but sorry work if you cannot preserve them and transport them safely. Most people think of excavating as a pleasing sort of holiday amusement ”

“ The excavations methodically carried on unobtrusively, at different points of the old grounds of culture, are inundating antiquaries with a flood of discoveries, enough to engage the industry of generations. ”

“ One gazes at the wall of earth and rubbish, fifteen feet deep, marking the present limit of the excavations in this direction, with a profound longing that the obstruction could be removed at once, and the rich antiquarian treasures lying hid underneath brought to light. ”

“ Archæological work appears to have revealed several occupations, and the implements, utensils, and ornaments of different tribes have probably been mixed. Hence, it is often difficult to distinguish them with certainty.
Some of these objects of manufacture have been found uncovered upon the surface of the ground, or partially covered by the soil; others have been dug or ploughed out by the farmer and road-maker in their operations; and other artifacts as well as human skeletons have been taken from pits or excavations six to eight feet in depth. ”

“ When the necessity for great haste exists, the excavation of the powder-chamber, entrance, and passages may be carried on at the same time, the excavated earth being thrown in front and on the sides of the powder-chamber until the balks are in position, and then thrown back upon them, levelled and rammed. ”

“ Artifacts were entered according to type, or category, and level, and then packed for transport. Atypical specimens or those to be used for illustration were set aside for separate shipment and more intensive examination.
This system had many advantages. Records were readily kept up to date, problems that suggested themselves as excavation progressed could be more closely defined and investigated, and artifacts could be expeditiously and finally cleared from the work area. The data sheets served as a field catalogue and covered the groundwork of the final statistical compilation. ”

“ Sometimes people have been discouraged and have given up. At other times six hundred men have been working busily. Kings have given money. Emperors and princes and queens have visited the excavations. Artists have made pictures of the ruins, and scholars have written books about them. But it is a great task to uncover a whole city that is buried ten or twelve feet deep. The excavation is not yet finished. Perhaps when you are old men and women the work will be completed, and a whole Roman city will be open to your eyes. ”

“ Excavations were consequently made all around the mound, for a distance of 10 to 15 yards from its base, through the alluvial soil, down to the limestone rock, a distance of 6 inches to 2 feet. These excavations brought to light enormous quantities of fragments of crude, coarse pottery vessels, for the greater part the remains of large hourglass-shaped incense burners, which had been decorated on their outer surfaces with either a human head or an entire human figure. ”

“ The gradual progress of the excavations, important and stimulating as it is for the explorers, appears of less interest to those who take little share in it or who look back on it after a lapse of years. ”

“ The slow excavation of certain river-beds during the present geological period, thus bringing to light in their banks relics of man, above which the soil has accumulated in depths varying according to known historical periods ”

“ When they have advanced a few feet in the excavation, they cease to discharge the material excavated in their advance, but thrust it behind them, and leave it lying in the chamber, which it entirely closes. ”

“ It was not until the middle of the eighteenth century, that it was suspected that the water which served to turn a mill in the immediate vicinity had been obstructed by the ruins which impeded its course. This obstruction led to excavations, the result of which was the discovery of the remains of buildings, columns, statues, inscriptions, and fragments of rare marbles. ”

“ Excavations were made in other high level gravels, caverns were carefully and minutely examined, Kent's Cavern, England, was dug out to its rock bottom, dozens of important finds resulted, and the antiquity of man was proved to extend back from thousands to tens of thousands, if not to hundreds of thousands, of years. ”

“ It involves no depreciation of the labours of our predecessors when we say that they are superseded in almost every detail by the results of our many years of excavations, so far as the knowledge of the city ruins are concerned, and thus it would hardly be worth while to controvert expressly their numerous errors. ”

“ During the last forty years, and especially during the last twenty, the steady growth of archaeological study and increased attention to excavations have enormously increased both the material at command and the power of utilising it with scientific method. ”

“ A little higher up the valley, on the western side, there occurs in the clay what may be termed a group of excavations, composing a piece of scenery ruinously broken and dreary, and that bears a specific character of its own which scarce any other deposit could have exhibited. The excavations are of considerable depth and extent,—hollows out of which the materials of pyramids might have been taken. The precipitous sides are fretted by jutting ridges and receding inflections, that present in abundance their diversified alternations of light and shadow. ”

“ Also it is required that all excavations for buildings shall be properly guarded and protected so as to prevent them from becoming dangerous to life or limb, and shall be sheath-piled where necessary by the person or persons causing the excavations to be made, to prevent the adjoining earth from caving in. ”