DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6641#0048
34 INTRO!
that excavation the connection of its contents,
forming the most important item of the evidence,
is hopelessly disturbed, and it will depend entirely
on the observation and records made by the
individual excavator at the moment of discovery
whether any profit is to be derived from the ex-
ploration. An inscribed stone or a papyrus is,
happily, not so constituted, and with ordinary
care can be made to tell its tale from century to
century; errors in the copy of a document may
always be corrected, but the observations of an
excavator can be proved false only by a painful
balancing of evidence.
With regard to Egyptian archaeology in
particular, it is certain that at present we are
very much in the dark, and that strange surprises
await us. Mr. Petrie's discoveries at El Lahun
this year—the work of a master in the art of ex-
ploration—give a glimpse of what we must expect.
For my own part I am determined on reasonable
evidence to accept everything that comes as a
fact until disproved, but not to hope that any of
these bare facts will be explained immediately.
Coins, Chinese glass bottles, sprouting corn,
certain inscriptions, and certain modern inven-
tions alone are to be excluded from the rule that
whatever opinion one may have as to the age of
objects, the Egyptologist's mind should always be
open to conviction.
The archaeologist who wishes to make a steady
advance should take a work like Canon
Greenwell's " British Barrows " for his guide, and
be content so to arrange his operations that
only one grave at a time is actually opened, and
always in his presence. One fairly productive
grave well described is worth far more for science
than a hash of fifty. It would perhaps be too
much in the brilliant field of Egyptian archae-
ology to expect the painful minuteness of descrip-
tion which is necessary in a record of British
barrow-digging, but the observations, if not
always recorded singly, should at the time be as
painstaking as in the monumental work which I
have just mentioned. It must be understood
that the explorer's method varies according to
circumstances; a single person may without fear
employ 200 men on one occasion, while on
another, and, in my opinion, more frequently a
score of hands are as many as a person of
ordinary activity can manage by giving them his
whole attention during the working hours.
It is perhaps impossible to stop the depreda-
tions of the Arabs, but it is incumbent upon us
at home to encourage the most careful of our
explorers to be yet more exacting and minute in
their difficult researches, carried on in a somewhat
trying climate ; and above all to see that a rising
generation is trained to exploration in accordance
with the highest standard of archaeology.
The present memoir may be divided into two
sections ; in the first I have attempted to describe,
from an antiquarian point of view, the results
of work at Tell el Yahudiyeh and Tukk el
Qaramus during the season of 1886-7. In the
second are recorded some minor explorations
which I was commissioned to undertake by my-
self in the following season. Besides the sites
which I have there mentioned, I visited the ruins
of Canopus at the kind invitation of Mr. William
Grant, who has prosecuted with so much energy
the scheme of reclaiming Lake Abu Qir. Every-
thing visible there dates from the Boman occupa-
tion, excepting some Saite sphinxes that lie just
that excavation the connection of its contents,
forming the most important item of the evidence,
is hopelessly disturbed, and it will depend entirely
on the observation and records made by the
individual excavator at the moment of discovery
whether any profit is to be derived from the ex-
ploration. An inscribed stone or a papyrus is,
happily, not so constituted, and with ordinary
care can be made to tell its tale from century to
century; errors in the copy of a document may
always be corrected, but the observations of an
excavator can be proved false only by a painful
balancing of evidence.
With regard to Egyptian archaeology in
particular, it is certain that at present we are
very much in the dark, and that strange surprises
await us. Mr. Petrie's discoveries at El Lahun
this year—the work of a master in the art of ex-
ploration—give a glimpse of what we must expect.
For my own part I am determined on reasonable
evidence to accept everything that comes as a
fact until disproved, but not to hope that any of
these bare facts will be explained immediately.
Coins, Chinese glass bottles, sprouting corn,
certain inscriptions, and certain modern inven-
tions alone are to be excluded from the rule that
whatever opinion one may have as to the age of
objects, the Egyptologist's mind should always be
open to conviction.
The archaeologist who wishes to make a steady
advance should take a work like Canon
Greenwell's " British Barrows " for his guide, and
be content so to arrange his operations that
only one grave at a time is actually opened, and
always in his presence. One fairly productive
grave well described is worth far more for science
than a hash of fifty. It would perhaps be too
much in the brilliant field of Egyptian archae-
ology to expect the painful minuteness of descrip-
tion which is necessary in a record of British
barrow-digging, but the observations, if not
always recorded singly, should at the time be as
painstaking as in the monumental work which I
have just mentioned. It must be understood
that the explorer's method varies according to
circumstances; a single person may without fear
employ 200 men on one occasion, while on
another, and, in my opinion, more frequently a
score of hands are as many as a person of
ordinary activity can manage by giving them his
whole attention during the working hours.
It is perhaps impossible to stop the depreda-
tions of the Arabs, but it is incumbent upon us
at home to encourage the most careful of our
explorers to be yet more exacting and minute in
their difficult researches, carried on in a somewhat
trying climate ; and above all to see that a rising
generation is trained to exploration in accordance
with the highest standard of archaeology.
The present memoir may be divided into two
sections ; in the first I have attempted to describe,
from an antiquarian point of view, the results
of work at Tell el Yahudiyeh and Tukk el
Qaramus during the season of 1886-7. In the
second are recorded some minor explorations
which I was commissioned to undertake by my-
self in the following season. Besides the sites
which I have there mentioned, I visited the ruins
of Canopus at the kind invitation of Mr. William
Grant, who has prosecuted with so much energy
the scheme of reclaiming Lake Abu Qir. Every-
thing visible there dates from the Boman occupa-
tion, excepting some Saite sphinxes that lie just