Empirical Schliemann

In speaking of the system by which this

technique was developed in its early stages, I have used the word “empirical”,

for it would seem to be an appropriate one. The Oxford Dictionary defines it

as—“based or acting on observation and experiment rather than theory”; and that

in this case seems exactly applicable.

One might perhaps alternatively use the

phrase, “trial and error”; but in that case one would claim that

such errors as there were, occurred in the early stages only and were soon

corrected. For it is necessary to bear in mind the general situation in field

archaeology at the end of the second decade of the present century. It was not

possible in those days to leam how to excavate a mound from textbooks or

university courses. One could profit to some extent from the mistakes made by

one’s predecessors in the field, as far back as Schliemann or even Layard.

One could leam something from the

meticulous reports of the German excavators at Babylon and Ashur, (strangely

inarticulate as these were when any explanation of practical expedients was

concerned). One could, in addition to the Germans, visit and see excavations

which had been started since the first German War by British, French and

American archaeologists, each with its own complement of improvised expedients.

American expeditions

There were the American expeditions, with

their multiple card indexes and photographic kite balloons, often seeming to be

involved in trying to apply a kind of prefabricated methodism under obstinately

unsuitable circumstances: British expeditions, usually under subsidised and

dependent on the popular interpretation of their finds to obtain funds for the

continuation of their work and French missions, still curiously intransigent,

inspired by Champollion but clinging to the methodical dogma evolved by de

Morgan at Susa.

There was a limit to the amount one could

leam from all these. Admittedly it was possible at some sites even for an

inexperienced eye to see how the technical inadequacies of the actual digging

could impair the logic of the excavator’s conclusions. But at others, little

could be leamt at all, either about technique or about logic, since both the

strategy and the purpose of the various operations seemed to be an esoteric

mystery, whose understanding was the exclusive prerogative of the mind

directing the excavations. The field staff were then mere acolytes, each with his

appointed routine of practical duties.