DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12249#0303
HOW SHOULD EXCAVATIONS BE CONDUCTED. 267
we were determined to secure every trophy, we were
absolutely compelled to demolish the walls in which
the inscriptions were embedded. This process of de-
struction, under other circumstances inexcusable, pre-
vented us from ascertaining the real nature of the
building itself. Whether it was a temple or palace, or
a sumptuous edifice of a private citizen, will, in all pro-
bability, after the havoc Ave were under the necessity
to cause, never be ascertained." *
Again, I repeat that, as in the case of the Prussian
Commission in Egypt, I do not allude to these doings at
Carthage for the sake of having something unpleasant
to say, which I would much rather avoid, but to ask,
could I hope to be heard, — if this method of dealing
with ancient vestiges is to be recognised as right,
above all, when Governments take the field professedly
in a representative character as for the benefit of
scientific inquiry ? That this should be decided is of
importance, not now as affecting what has been done
in the past, but what may be done in the future.
At the present time excavations are in progress in
* In the same work (p. 571) occur the following remarks, and
as they seem to show the writer's opinion as to the destruction of
ancient monuments for the purpose of carrying away fragments of
them, they may be transcribed as a strange commentary on the passage
quoted above. Eeferring to the overthrow of a mausoleum, since Sir
Grenville Temple's visit, it is said : " In order to secure the bilingual
inscription, and to dispose of it to the British Museum, the greater
portion of the mausoleum was barbarously pulled to pieces, and re-
duced to the present shapeless heap of ruins! But the crime (for a
crime it was) met with its due reward."
we were determined to secure every trophy, we were
absolutely compelled to demolish the walls in which
the inscriptions were embedded. This process of de-
struction, under other circumstances inexcusable, pre-
vented us from ascertaining the real nature of the
building itself. Whether it was a temple or palace, or
a sumptuous edifice of a private citizen, will, in all pro-
bability, after the havoc Ave were under the necessity
to cause, never be ascertained." *
Again, I repeat that, as in the case of the Prussian
Commission in Egypt, I do not allude to these doings at
Carthage for the sake of having something unpleasant
to say, which I would much rather avoid, but to ask,
could I hope to be heard, — if this method of dealing
with ancient vestiges is to be recognised as right,
above all, when Governments take the field professedly
in a representative character as for the benefit of
scientific inquiry ? That this should be decided is of
importance, not now as affecting what has been done
in the past, but what may be done in the future.
At the present time excavations are in progress in
* In the same work (p. 571) occur the following remarks, and
as they seem to show the writer's opinion as to the destruction of
ancient monuments for the purpose of carrying away fragments of
them, they may be transcribed as a strange commentary on the passage
quoted above. Eeferring to the overthrow of a mausoleum, since Sir
Grenville Temple's visit, it is said : " In order to secure the bilingual
inscription, and to dispose of it to the British Museum, the greater
portion of the mausoleum was barbarously pulled to pieces, and re-
duced to the present shapeless heap of ruins! But the crime (for a
crime it was) met with its due reward."