The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 12, 1906, Page 1

MAGAZINF. SECTION HE newest of the sclencea.!s " the sclence of excavating, | It stands to archaeology tn | much the same relation that the scientific study of fos- sils stands to geology, and provides the materials for the archaelogist just 2s the sclentific study of fossils pro- vides the geologist with the materials, for tracing the past history of the | earth. | But whereas the geclogist 15 chiefly concerned with the history of life on the globe before man came into exist- ence, the materials brought to light by the excdvator In the shape of pot- tery, tools and weapons,- contempora- | neous inscriptions, and the like, en-| able the archaeologist to reconstruct | the history of civilized man. Archaelogy, in fact, takes up the his- tory of the past whers geology lays it | down, and supplements the history of nature with the history of human| intelligence. | The sclentific excavator is bound to be an archaeologist, just as the archae- | ologist ought to be a scientiflo exca- | vator. The practical work of exca- vating ought to be accompanied by a training in sclentific method, by the power of understanding and appre- clating inductive evidence, and by a skilled and observant eye. It is not enough to have turned over the soil of an anclent tumulus In the haphazard fashion of the olden “antiquaries,” or 'to have disinterred e e s tion in.order to M. with them the rooms of a museum; such methads of excavation have, unfortunately, been only ‘too prevalent in the past and b have done infinife mischief by destroy- ing evidence which the excavators had not enough’sclence to comprehend or record. The grohaeologist has conatant rea~ son for regretting that excavating de- gan before. the modern sclence of archaeology was born. Sclentific excavation had its rise In Northern Europe: then followed the excavations of Dr. Schllemann and ‘others In Greek lands; and finally the new sclence was systematized and perfected in Egypt, where the climate and sand have preserved the relics of countless generations, sad the British occupation has given facilities to the xcavator which It is dificult to find elsewhere.” The methods of excavating thus brought to perfection in Egypt are now being imitated in othes parts of the world, more especially ip Pales- tine, where the recent work of the English and Austrian explorers is at last revealing to us not only the his- tory of Israelitish Canaan, but also of the Canaan which the Israelites con- quered. Bgypt ls, however, above all othar countries the excavator's happy hunt- ing-ground. In a land where raln and frost are practically unknown the products of man’s art perish only by the monuments of some early civiliza- [ Tontlaued on Page &