Archaeology Quotes

Archaeology is the study of humanity itself, and unless that attitude towards the subject is kept in mind archaeology will be overwhelmed by impossible theories or a welter of flint chips. ~ Margaret Murray

I'm not an historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past. ~ Penelope Lively

Programming went back to the beginning of time. It was a little like the midden out back of his father's castle. ~ Vernor Vinge

It's one of the central paradoxes of archaeology that in order to excavate a site so as to study it, we must consume it and destroy it in that process. ~ Ken Liu

Where can one buy a lit of that *Right Stuff* bravado required to shrug off the fact that your airplane is now a convertible? ~ Josh Gates

The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories ... Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration. ~ Igor Stravinsky

A team of Japanese engineers had recently tried to build a 35-feet-high replica of the Great Pyramid (rather smaller than the original, which was 481 feet 5 inches in height). The team started off by limiting itself strictly to techniques proved by archaeology to have been in use during the Fourth Dynasty. However, construction of the replica under these limitations turned out to be impossible and, in due course, modern earth-moving, quarrying and lifting machines were brought to the site. Still no worthwhile progress was made. Ultimately, with some embarrassment, the project had to be abandoned. ~ Graham Hancock

I teach myself archaeology, I teach myself Spanish, and that's because it can be fun, it can be useful. So I keep studying. I read books because I still want to study. I don't want to stop. ~ Philippe Falardeau

To become aware of what is constant in the flux of nature and life is the first step in abstract thinking. The recognition of regularity in the courses of the heavenly bodies and in the succession of seasons first provides a basis for a systematic ordering of events, and this knowledge makes possible a calendar ... Simultaneously with this concept, a system of relationships comes into the idea of the world. Change is not something absolute, chaotic, and kaleidoscopic; its manifestation is a relative one, something connected with fixed points and a given order. ~ Hellmut Wilhelm

Archaeology, I found, comprehended all manner of excitement and achievement. Adventure is coupled with bookish toil. Romantic excursions go hand in hand with scholarly self-discipline and moderation. Explorations among the ruins of the remote past have carried curious men all over the face of the earth ... Yet in truth, no science is more adventurous than archaeology, if adventure is thought of as a mixture of spirit and deed. ~ C. W. Ceram

They couldn't turn back time. What was done, was done.
He dropped his arms and lowered his head. Despondency filled him to the very brim. He was a dragon. A creature of magic and fire. A being that was lethal and dangerous.
The Kings had forgotten that. All but one. ~ Donna Grant

I'm not a believer in the future. The most interesting things are always behind us. I look at everything as archaeology. ~ Robert Polidori

The trend of all knowledge at the present is to specialize, but archaeology has in it all the qualities that call for the wide view of the human race, of its growth from the savage to the civilized, which is seen in all stages of social and religious development. ~ Margaret Murray

THE BARROW

In this high field strewn with stones
I walk by a green mound,
Its edges sheared by the plough.
Crumbs of animal bone
Lie smashed and scattered round
Under the clover leaves
And slivers of flint seem to grow
Like white leaves among green.
In the wind, the chestnut heaves
Where a man's grave has been.

Whatever the barrow held
Once, has been taken away:
A hollow of nettles and dock
Lies at the centre, filled
With rain from a sky so grey
It reflects nothing at all.
I poke in the crumbled rock
For something they left behind
But after that funeral
There is nothing at all to find.

On the map in front of me
The gothic letters pick out
Dozens of tombs like this,
Breached, plundered, left empty,
No fragments littered about
Of a dead and buried race
In the margins of histories.
No fragments: these splintered bones
Construct no human face,
These stones are simply stones.

In museums their urns lie
Behind glass, and their shaped flints
Are labelled like butterflies.
All that they did was die,
And all that has happened since
Means nothing to this place.
Above long clouds, the skies
Turn to a brilliant red
And show in the water's face
One living, and not these dead."

- Anthony Thwaite, from The Owl In The Tree ~ Anthony Thwaite

Archaeology is the only branch of Anthropology where we kill our informants in the process of studying them. ~ Kent V. Flannery

Water has its own archaeology, not a layering but a leveling, and thus is truer to our sense of the past, because what is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present's surface. ~ Ron Rash

Steel tempered by fire," she said aloud, without thinking.
"Am I?" he asked.
She smiled sadly. "Aren't you?"
He let out a long, slow breath and some of the tension drained out of him. He looked at her quizzically. "You give me peace," he said unexpectedly. "The only time I ever feel it is when I'm with you. God knows why, when you set me off like a bomb."
She searched his eyes. "Tate, Senator Holden has a reason for what he did," she told him seriously. "I don't pretend to know what it is, but I know him. He's not like some politicians who lie when the truth would suit better. He has integrity. He doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't backstab. You know that," she added with conviction.
He scowled. "Yes, I do." His narrow eyes searched hers. "What do you know, Cecily?"
"I know archaeology," she replied.
He reached out and touched her firm little chin with hard fingers. "You're keeping something from me," he said in a low, deep tone. "I'm not sure why I sense that, but I do."
"You think you know all about me," she replied, trying to draw back. "Don't…do that," she muttered, reaching up to catch his hair-roughened wrist in her warm fingers.
His breath caught. "Fatal error, Cecily," he said huskily, moving in, giving in to the hunger that had really brought him to her apartment at this hour of the night. "You shouldn't have touched me… ~ Diana Palmer

The evidence of a Jewish civilization going back more than two millennia is overwhelmingly borne out in the archaeology of the region. The heritage of the Jews in Palestine is documented. ~ Jack Schwartz

What's interesting in archaeology is that we always understand other cultures by digging up their cities; architecture is almost always a way for us to formulate a diagram of how people used to live. ~ Jimenez Lai

The work of lifetimes has been put at risk, reputations have been damaged, an astounding amount of silliness and even profound stupidity has been taken as serious thought, and always lurking in the background of all the argumentation and gnashing of tenets has been the question of whether the field of archaeology can ever be pursued as a science. ~ J.M. Adovasio

I could write a treatise on the sudden transformation of life into archaeology ~ Zbigniew Herbert

Tedious as it may appear to some to dwell on the discovery of odds and ends that have, no doubt, been thrown away by the owner as rubbish ... yet it is by the study of such trivial details that Archaeology is mainly dependent for determining the date of earthworks ... Next to coins fragments of pottery afford the most reliable of all evidence ... ~ Augustus Pitt Rivers

Archaeology is not a science, it's a vendetta. ~ Mortimer Wheeler

The geologist takes up the history of the earth at the point where the archaeologist leaves it, and carries it further back into remote antiquity. ~ Bal Gangadhar Tilak

The stories abounded, both recounting these cross-continental journeys and perhaps inspiring them – how Hellenic Jason gathered his Argonauts together (including Augeas, whose vast stables Herakles would be forced to clean) for adventure and profit, how he stopped off along the Bosphorus and discovered the land of the rising sun before other Greek heroes headed to Asia in search of Helen, Troy and glory. In the Homeric epics we hear of Jason travelling east where he tangles with Medea of Colchis, her aunt Circe and the feisty Amazon tribe. Lured by the promise of gold (early and prodigious metalworking did indeed take place in the region – perhaps sparking the Greek idea that the East was 'rich in gold') and then detained by the potions and poisons of Princess Medea, Jason succeeded in penetrating the Caucasus – a land which, in the Greek mind, wept with both peril and promise. It was here that Prometheus was chained to a rock with iron rivets for daring to steal fire from the gods. Archaeology east of Istanbul demonstrates how myth grazes history. ~ Bettany Hughes

Recognising such dimensions implicit to the reading experience can distract from the immediacy of our response; it can substitute literary archaeology for novelistic reality. That is one pole. But the other extreme is equally limiting. By failing to realise the issues involved in communicating with fictional modes that are different
to our own, in effect we do not read in the fullest sense. Between intellectual pedantry and cultivated ignorance I would pose a third approach to reading - that of the informed imagination. After occupying this position true evaluation can begin. ~ Ian Gregor

If you find that you're going through hell, keep moving. You will get to the end eventually. ~ Kimberly Brouillette

Egalitarians often claim that we cannot look to the Bible to settle these types of disputes; rather, we should look to church history or elsewhere. Most of the new egalitarian arguments are rooted outside of the Bible and instead seek credibility through history, archaeology, and manipulation of original Bible language. Each of these arguments is an attack on one of the perfections of Scripture: its authority, sufficiency, verbal plenary inspiration, and clarity. When these areas are undermined, the inerrancy of Scripture is ultimately at stake. ~ John Piper

Liam began to dance from leg to leg, feeling alive, the burning nobility of words still coursing their flame through him. "We have to go, Boyoh. This is the reason why we went into archaeology. Science has laid before us a mystery and we can't insult it by not accepting its invitation." ~ Chapter 6 The Garden of Souls ~ Cheri Vause

Miss Mapp had experienced a cruel disappointment last night, though the triumph of this morning had done something to soothe it, for Major Benjy's window had certainly been lit up to a very late hour, and so it was clear that he had not been able, twice in succession, to tear himself away from his diaries, or whatever else detained him, and go to bed at a proper time. Captain Puffin, however, had not sat up late; indeed he must have gone to bed quite unusually early, for his window was dark by half-past nine. To-night, again the position was reversed, and it seemed that Major Benjy was "good" and Captain Puffin was "bad". On the whole, then, there was cause for thankfulness, and as she added a tin of biscuits and two jars of Bovril to her prudent stores, she found herself a conscious sceptic about those Roman roads. Diaries (perhaps) were a little different, for egoism was a more potent force than archaeology, and for her part she now definitely believed that Roman roads spelt some form of drink. She was sorry to believe it, but it was her duty to believe something of the kind, and she really did not know what else to believe. She did not go so far as mentally to accuse him of drunkenness, but considering the way he absorbed red-currant fool, it was clear that he was no foe to alcohol and probably watered the Roman roads with it. With her vivid imagination she pictured him--

Miss Mapp recalled herself from this melancholy reflection and put up her hand just in time ~ E.F. Benson

As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment - an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, 'Can you see anything?' it was all I could do to get out the words, 'Yes, wonderful things. ~ Howard Carter

The limitations of archaeology are galling. It collects phenomena, but hardly ever can isolate them so as to interpret scientifically; it can frame any number of hypotheses, but rarely, if ever, scientifically prove. ~ David George Hogarth

Those who brush off the Biblical accounts as "ancient fiction" and "legends" only reveal their ignorance of these archaeological discoveries. ~ Charlie Campbell

Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking. ~ W. H. Auden

We should tell forensics that the murder weapon may be archaeological," I said.
"Archaeological?" asked Seawoll.
"Could be," I said.
"Is that your professional opinion?"
"Yes. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

Oral myths are closer to the genetic conclusions than the often ambiguous scientific evidence of archaeology. ~ Bryan Sykes

Archaeologists gave the military the idea to use aerial photographs for spying and field survey. We are fortunate that the spatial and spectral resolutions of the imagery available to us are so broadly useful for archaeology. ~ Sarah Parcak

There are two types of collector, I think. There are those who are quite academic, and get into the archaeology of finding the earliest example of a particular idea. Then there are those interested in what's new. ~ Adam Clayton

Calm down please, sir, if you will,' said the bobby, still retaining a firm hold upon the horse's reins. ' "Stolen" is such an ugly word. It is not technically stealing if you are a British archaeologist and you acquire items of historical significance in the savage realms and liberate them to civilisation. ~ Robert Rankin

At least she was good at archaeology, she mused, even if she was a dismal failure as a woman in Tate's eyes.
"She's been broody ever since we got here," Leta said with pursed lips as she glanced from Tate to Cecily. "You two had a blowup, huh?" she asked, pretending innocence.
Tate drew in a short breath. "She poured crab bisque on me in front of television cameras."
Cecily drew herself up to her full height. "Pity it wasn't flaming shish kebab!" she returned fiercely.
Leta moved between them. "The Sioux wars are over," she announced.
"That's what you think," Cecily muttered, glaring around her at the tall man.
Tate's dark eyes began to twinkle. He'd missed her in his life. Even in a temper, she was refreshing, invigorating.
She averted her eyes to the large grass circle outlined by thick corded string. All around it were make-shift shelters on poles, some with canvas tops, with bales of hay to make seats for spectators. The first competition of the day was over and the winners were being announced. A woman-only dance came next, and Leta grimaced as she glanced from one warring face to the other. If she left, there was no telling what might happen.
"That's me," she said reluctantly, adjusting the number on her back. "Got to run. Wish me luck."
"You know I do," Cecily said, smiling at her.
"Don't disgrace us," Tate added with laughter in his eyes.
Leta made a face at him, but smiled. "No fighting," she said, shaking a fin ~ Diana Palmer

I was a bad student. I liked archaeology actually, I was interested in maybe becoming an archaeologist but I was such a bad student and had such bad grades that I wasn't going to get into any really good college so I fell back on acting. ~ Ben Stiller

As novelist Margaret Atwood wrote to explain women's absence from quest-for-identity novels, "there's probably a simple reason for this: send a woman out alone on a rambling nocturnal quest and she's likely to end up a lot deader a lot sooner than a man would."3 The irony here is that thanks to molecular archaeology - which includes the study of ancient DNA to trace human movement over time - we now know that men have been the stay-at-homes, and women have been the travelers. The rate of intercontinental migration for women is about eight times that for men.4 ~ Gloria Steinem

Gunner Ainslie made a face at his sister-in-law. "'Amateur' is a bit rough, Alice. I took a degree in archaeology, after all."
She looked even more confused. "Then why are you a photographer now instead of an archaeologist?"
"Because he didn't want to be a burden to the estate like all my other siblings," his brother Elliott, the current Baron Ainslie, answered, giving his wife a squeeze. "Or so he said. Frankly, I think it was a cover so he could take pictures of unclothed women. ~ Katie MacAlister

Does the world really need another long essay on environmental archaeology and freshwater mollusks? Well, it's going to get one, whether it likes it or not. ~ Elly Griffiths

There's even an aircraft sensor system that sends down hundreds of thousands of pulses of light measured at different return rates. It allows you to literally strip away vegetation and see entire cities beneath the rain forest canopy. This is the unbelievable future of archaeology. ~ Sarah Parcak

Indiana Jones: Archaeology is the search for fact ... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall ... So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and "X" never, ever marks the spot. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research. Reading. ~ Jeffrey Boam

The most exciting moment as an archaeologist happened when I was looking at the great archaeology site of Tannis, which of course we all know from 'Indiana Jones.' We got satellite imagery of the city of Tannis, we processed it, and literally from thousands of miles away from my lab in Alabama, we were able to map the entire city. ~ Sarah Parcak

I read a lot of archaeology and early history in a general way, not thinking particularly of this book, and this provided me with the background. It showed me how, possibly, the people lived back then. ~ Naomi Mitchison

Palaeontology and archaeology and other skulduggery were not subjects that interested wizards. Things are buried for a reason, they considered. There's no point in wondering what it was. Don't go digging things up in case they won't let you bury them again. ~ Terry Pratchett

Biological evidence indicates that man, evolving with his food plants, developed horticulture and agriculture in both hemispheres at a time which may well have reached far back into the Pleistocene. ~ Russell Lord

Archaeology is not only the hand maid of history, it is also the conservator of art. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

When you think about archaeology, archaeology is the only field that allows us to tell the story of 99 percent of our history prior to 3,000 B.C. and writing. ~ Sarah Parcak

Many questions come to mind. How influenced by contemporary religions were many of the scholars who wrote the texts available today? How many scholars have simply assumed that males have always played the dominant role in leadership and creative invention and projected this assumption into their analysis of ancient cultures? Why do so many people educated in this century think of classical Greece as the first major culture when written language was in use and great cities built at least twenty-five centuries before that time? And perhaps most important, why is it continually inferred that the age of the "pagan" religions, the time of the worship of female deities (if mentioned at all), was dark and chaotic, mysterious and evil, without the light of order and reason that supposedly accompanied the later male religions, when it has been archaeologically confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language were initially developed in societies that worshiped the Goddess? We may find ourselves wondering about the reasons for the lack of easily available information on societies who, for thousands of years, worshiped the ancient Creatress of the Universe. ~ Merlin Stone

What's it mean; are you determined
To make modern all mankind?
If so, you should be be-sermoned
And brought back to healthy mind. ~ Charles C. Abbott

Archaeology is a deeply conservative discipline and I have found that archaeologists, no matter where they are working, have a horror of questioning anything their predecessors and peers have already announced to be true. They run a very real risk of jeopardizing their careers if they do. In consequence they focus--perhaps to a large extent subconsciously--on evidence and arguments that don't upset the applecart. There might be room for some tinkering around the edges, some refinement of orthodox ideas, but God forbid that anything should be discovered that might seriously undermine the established paradigm. ~ Graham Hancock

Eventually someone will find out the truth. It could be you. ~ Criag Whitman

Some people have goodness and merit buried deep inside and we glimpse it and see its value but ultimately it's covered by so much dirt that it's a 24/7 exercise in archaeology. ~ Kelli Jae Baeli

[ ... ] the success of Egyptian surgery in setting broken bones is very fully demonstrated in the large number of well-joined fractures found in the ancient skeletons. ~ James Henry Breasted

I was thinking recently, I've always loved the ocean. If I could do it all again, I might do an oceanography degree. You can do ocean archaeology, and I thought that might be fascinating to do - man-made structures, where the sea has risen above the structures. ~ Theo James

I'm not reinventing myself. I'm finding myself. There's a difference! ~ Michele Jennae

I sometimes feel that I am trying to dig in the world around me. I'm involved in another kind of archaeology to look for another kind of truth, and the moment I find, the moment I am separated from that life, the moment I am sort of in a world, every time I have gone out and performed in the, in the cinema for example, if you do two or three films on the trot you suddenly have this impression that you're becoming separate or separated from the world around you. ~ Simon McBurney

I'm not an academic; I'm not an archaeologist. I'm a writer, communicating ideas to the public. There is a model of how the past is, and a lot of academic archaeology is about refining the model. It's not about changing the model radically. I'm not aware of any current which is about radically changing the model. It's just me, really. ~ Graham Hancock

I have not tried to write the history of that language, but rather the archaeology of that silence. ~ Michel Foucault

Archaeology profs aren't supernatural minions of a vengeful goddess," Patricia pointed out.

"Want to bet? ~ Allyson James

It would be ironic for an archaeologist to catch something nasty from the past, perhaps the ultimate in experimental archaeology! ~ Paul G. Bahn

You said that it would be the two of us from now on, if this happened. That there would be no more Audrey, no other woman. That you'd come to me to be comforted, to be cared for."
He took great handfuls of her own wonderfully soft hair and framed her face in his lean hands. He bent to kiss her with breathless tenderness, savoring her warm mouth. "I will. Even if I don't know that I can cope with that again," he said huskily.
"With lovemaking?"
He took a long, long look at her. "You don't know much about this," he said finally. "There are…degrees of pleasure. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's even great. Once in a lifetime or so, it's sacred."
"I don't understand."
"You were a virgin," he whispered solemnly. "But we joined souls. I was inside you, but you were inside me, too." He nuzzled her nose with his. "I remember wondering if a man could die of pleasure, just at the last. It was so good that it was almost painful."
She smiled. "I know. I love you," she said softly.
He looked away from her. His hands on her shoulders were bruising.
"Sorry," she murmured, pulling away. "You don't want to hear that. But it's a fact of life, like middens and projectile points and horizons in archaeology. I can't help it, and it isn't as if you didn't already know. I couldn't have slept with you only because I wanted you. Not with my past."
He knew that. He knew it to the soles of his feet. He was confused and afraid and overwhelmed by the passi ~ Diana Palmer

So what we can answer [as geneticists] is questions about biology, about biological ancestry. But to make any sense of that historically we have to contextualize it
the archaeology, the linguistic pattern, even the climatology. ~ Spencer Wells

I've been accepted at Cambridge University. I want to study Chinese history and archaeology. I want to become a student. I want to read Chinese history and go on a dig. ~ Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

The world,' he said, 'grows hourly more and more sceptical of all that lies beyond its own narrow radius; and our men of science foster the fatal tendency. They condemn as fable all that resists experiment. They reject as false all that cannot be brought to the test of the laboratory or the dissecting-room. Against what superstition have they waged so long and obstinate a war, as against the belief of apparitions? And yet what superstition has maintained its hold upon the minds of men so long and so firmly? Show me any fact in physics, in history, in archaeology, which is supported by testimony so wide and so various. Attested by all races of men, in all ages, and in all climates, by the soberest sages of antiquity, by the rudest savage of today, by the Christian, the Pagan, the Pantheist, the Materialist, this phenomenon is treated as a nursery tale by the philosophers of our century. Circumstantial evidence weighs with them as a feather in the balance. The comparison of causes with effects, however valuable in physical science, is put aside as worthless and unreliable. The evidence of competent witnesses, however conclusive in a court of justice, counts for nothing. He who pauses before he pronounces is condemned as a trifler. He who believes, is a dreamer or a fool. ~ Amelia B. Edwards

'Satellite archaeology' refers to the use of NASA and commercial high resolution satellite datasets to map and discover past structures, cities, and geological features. ~ Sarah Parcak

On the whole, mental archaeology was a sordid digging proposition. The evil men did endured, the good was infinitely more ephemeral. You could generally find out whether a man had been a horse-thief, or an embezzler or a wife-beater, if you worked hard enough, but acts of kindness, of charity, a gay spirit, vanished without leaving a trace. ~ Helen Kieran Reilly

I have a habit of being an archaeologist of my own past, a sentimental collector of personal artefacts which may at first glance appear random, but each of which holds a unique significance. As the years pass me by, I find that the number of objects within my possession begins to accumulate. A torn map. A sealed letter. A boat full of paper animals. Each item encapsulates within itself a story, akin to an outward manifestation of my inner journey. ~ Agnes Chew

There must be a rule of thumb in pop-culture archaeology that states that the allure of any topic is inversely related to its assigned importance in the affairs of humanity. The more trivial the subject, the dearer it is to most of its partisans and the more worthy of scholarship. The smallest things in life often mean the most to people. ~ Paul Di Filippo

The conditions of our knowledge of the native religion of early Rome may perhaps be best illustrated by a parallel from Roman archaeology. ~ Cyril Bailey

There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of Old Testament tradition. ~ William F. Albright

More to the point, odors are important. They have their own story to tell. A sweet smell might point at ethchlorvynol, while chloral hydrate smells like pears. Both might make me wonder about an overdose of hypnotics, while a hint of garlic might point at arsenic. Phenols and nitrobenzene bring to mind ether and shoe polish respectively, and ethylene glycol smells exactly like antifreeze because that's exactly what it is. Isolating potentially significant smells from the awful stench of dirty bodies and rotting flesh is rather much like archaeology. You focus on what you are there to find and not on the miserable conditions around it. ~ Patricia Cornwell

The research I present in this book moves within a complex position: palpable tensions exist alongside exciting possibilities. CBPR methodologies emerged from critiques of conventional researcher-driven approaches and from scholarship and activism that names and problemitizes the power imbalances in current practices. CBPR strives to conduct research based in communities and founded upon core community values. With these broader critiques in mind, I wanted to consider how archaeology might be practiced if the concepts of decolonization and postcolonial theory were applied to the discipline. How might archaeological research change to create a reciprocal practice that truly benefits communities, at least as much as it benefits the scholarly interests of archaeologists? ~ Sonya Atalay

Petra is a brilliant display of man's artistry in turning barren rock into a majestic wonder. ~ Edward Dawson

One early terracotta statuette from Catal Huyuk in Anatolia depicts an enthroned female in the act of giving birth, supported by two cat-like animals that form her seat (Plate 1). This figure has been identified as a 'birth goddess' and it is this type of early image that has led a number of feminist scholars to posit a 'reign of the goddess' in ancient Near Eastern prehistory. Maria Gimbutas, for whom such images are proof of a perfect matriarchal society in 'Old Europe' , presents an ideal vision in which a socially egalitarian matriarchal culture was overthrown by a destructive patriarchy (Gimbutas 1991). Gerda Lerner has argued for a similar situation in the ancient Near East; however, she does not discuss nude figurines at any length (Lerner 1986a: 147). More recently, critiques of the matriarchal model of prehistory have pointed out the flaws in this methodology (e.g. Conkey and Tringham 1995; Meskell 1995; Goodison and Morris 1998). In all these critiques the identification of such figures as goddesses is rejected as a modern myth. There is no archaeological evidence that these ancient communities were in fact matriarchal, nor is there any evidence that female deities were worshipped exclusively. Male gods may have worshipped simultaneously with the 'mother goddesses' if such images are indeed representations of deities. Nor do such female figures glorify or show admiration for the female body; rather they essentialise it, reducing it to nothing more nor less than a re ~ Zainab Bahrani

On all sides, as far as the eye could reach, rose the grass-covered heaps marking the site of ancient habitations. The great tide of civilisation had long since ebbed, leaving these scattered wrecks on the solitary shore. Are those waters to flow again, bearing back the seeds of knowledge and of wealth that they have wafted to the West? We wanderers were seeking what they had left behind, as children gather up the coloured shells on the deserted sands. At my feet there was a busy scene, making more lonely the unbroken solitude which reigned in the vast plain around, where the only thing having life or motion were the shadows of the lofty mounds as they lengthened before the declining sun. ~ Austen Henry Layard

When talking about writing, I often use the analogy of archaeology. There are these great tunes all around. Your skill as a musician allows you to pick them out without breaking them. ~ Pat Metheny

For me archaeology is not a source of illustrations for written texts, but an independent source of historical information, with no less value and importance, sometimes more importance, that the written sources. ~ Michael Rostovtzeff

to support this privileged class as long as they kept up their end of the bargain with effective rituals. But after 650, deforestation, erosion, and soil exhaustion began reducing crop yields. The working classes, the farmers and monument builders, may have suffered increasing hunger and disease, even as the rulers hogged an ever-larger share of resources. The society was heading for a crisis. Diamond writes: "We have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognize and solve these seemingly obvious problems undermining their society. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other, and extracting enough food from the peasants to support all those activities." (If this sounds familiar, I would note that archaeology is thick with cautionary tales that speak directly to the twenty-first century.) ~ Douglas Preston

Succinctly put, a crime scene is like an archaeology site. If an excavation is botched or bulldozed away, there's no going back. ~ Patricia Cornwell

I had come at last, in the course of this rambling, to the shelves which hold books by the living; by women and by men; for there are almost as many books written by women now as by men. Or if that is not yet quite true, if the male is still the voluble sex, it is certainly true that women no longer write novels solely. There are Jane Harrison's books on Greek archaeology; Vernon Lee's books on aesthetics; Gertrude Bell's books on Persia. ~ Virginia Woolf

All over the world, we're finding out that, you know, whether it's Egypt or Syria or Central America, what satellites are showing is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of previously unknown settlements all over the world, and what archaeology does, it helps us to understand this common humanity that we have. ~ Sarah Parcak

In archaeology, context is everything. Objects allow us to reconstruct the past. Taking artifacts from a temple or an ancient private house is like emptying out a time capsule. ~ Sarah Parcak

Archaeology is the anthropology of the past, and science fiction is the anthropology of the future. ~ Joan D. Vinge

Until humans came and made anthills out of these mountains, Diwan Sahib was saying, looking up at the langurs, the land had belonged to these monkeys, and to barking deer, nilgai, tiger, barasingha, leopards, jackals, the great horned owl, and even to cheetahs and lions. The archaeology of the wilderness consisted of these lost animals, not of ruined walls, terracotta amulets, and potsherds. ~ Anuradha Roy

The irony here is that thanks to molecular archaeology - which includes the study of ancient DNA to trace human movement over time - we now know that men have been the stay-at-homes, and women have been the travelers. The rate of intercontinental migration for women is about eight times that for men. ~ Gloria Steinem

American archaeology has always attracted lots of amateurs ... They were digging up Indian pottery all over the place. ~ Anthony F. C. Wallace

Archaeologists only look at what lies beneath their feet. The sky and the heavens don't exist for them. ~ Agatha Christie

I'm so fascinated with the study of people and why they are the way they are. That's my research and my archaeology, if you will, when I get a role. I'm so excited to attack a part from every angle of what makes a person a person. ~ Sara Canning

Come with me
And you will find
What's been trapped
Inside my mind... ~ K.B. Lewis

In Scandanavia, 'Iverson finds that the whole spectrum of pollen deposits is altered when (in early Neolithic times) ... the first farmers appear. Cereal pollens increase. Plants of oak woodland lessen and disappear; birch pollen increases rapidly
it is one of the trees which can come in after an extensive burn. For the pollen record, the effect of early agriculture is as severe as a shift in climate. ~ Russell Lord

Archaeology holds all the keys to understanding who we are and where we come from. ~ Sarah Parcak

I will tell you a little secret about archaeologists, dear Reader. They all pretend t be very high-minded. They claim that their sole aim in excavation is to uncover the mysteries of the past and add to the store of human knowledge. They lie. What they really want is a spectacular discovery, so they can get their names in the newspapers and inspire envy and hatred in the hearts of their rivals. ~ Elizabeth Peters

Feathers, and a shield and a lance and a sword. His armor and his weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The shield was thirteenth century, while the sword was of the pattern used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I., and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield were very grand - three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents were of the latest brand approved of by our modern War Office, and the whole appearance of camp, army, and leader might have been a shock to some. But Robert was dumb with admiration, and it all seemed to him perfectly correct, because he knew no more of heraldry or archaeology than the gifted artists who usually drew the pictures for the historical romances. The scene was indeed "exactly like a picture." He admired ~ E. Nesbit