Ruminations on a Lifetime Spent in Archaeological Research

Old World archaeology used to be a rich man’s hobby, but now it’s a poor person’s job. Historical antecedents are a good guide to the evolution of the discipline as the famous (and infamous) antiquarians and excavators of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries AD, like the Earl of Elgin, Heinrich Schliemann, and Arthur Evans, all had money or made enough to conduct their own operations in the field, while those who began turning the pursuit into a profession, like William M. F. Petrie, lacked private means and had a long struggle to make ends meet. Less worthy than any of these were Luigi and Alessandro Palma di Cesnola and Max Ohnefalsch-Richter, who financed themselves from the sale of Cypriot antiquities without adding much that is reliable to our knowledge of the island’s ancient history. Fortunately, that option is not available to us today. Two centuries ago the study of archaeology started out with the collecting of antiquities by amateurs, and this practice continues today. Some of the greatest breakthroughs in revealing the past have been made by people like Michael Ventris who, without any university training in philology, deciphered Linear B. There will always be a role for these talented and motivated individuals. Indeed, without the band of dedicated hobbyists and volunteers, much fieldwork and other related activities could not be properly carried out, and defense of archaeological activities increasingly depends on mustering community support. The Nicholson Museum at my alma mater in Sydney, Australia, is an experienced and successful practitioner of this art. They even manage to do a little academic work on the side. I do not include excavation under this heading.

Today, archaeology is a highly professional, mostly ethical, but unremunerative occupation. No one ever got rich working at a university or museum in archaeological departments. Private researchers by definition have private means or other sources of financial assistance. At the same time, the discipline has become very expensive to perform since not only is excavation a costly undertaking but the follow-up, involving empirical and scientific analyses as well as publication, makes great demands on time, effort, and particularly budgets. It is no wonder that so many digs in recent years have not yet been fully and finally published. A classic and regrettable case is the exceptional Uluburun shipwreck excavation, which is very much a work still in progress. It is not that the will to complete the exercise is missing—no one could be more devoted to the task and assiduous in carrying it out than Cemal Pulak—it is the increased and justifiable expectation by the archaeological community that the written-up results will be as comprehensive and thorough as techniques and resources allow. There comes a time, however, when perfection has to make way for expediency. Meanwhile, we are dependent on preliminary reports, specialized studies, and exhibition catalogs for much of our information on recent finds from the Old World, and these, by definition, are not the last word, though there is a fatal attraction to treat them as so. This has caused some singular academic upsets along the way.

I set out to be an archaeologist 60 years ago and acquired my basic training at the University of Sydney under the direction of Professors Stewart and Hennessy who oriented me away from Egypt and towards Cyprus, which I have since made my own specialization. I later discovered that I was one of the very few of my generation still active in the field who had studied Cypriot prehistory as an undergraduate. Many came, and still come from other areas of research, such as the Classical world or Near Eastern antiquity. Learning about it on the job doesn’t always yield the best outcomes. I took part in excavations in Cyprus and Nubia and obtained my doctorate in the Department of Egyptology, University College London, in 1965. By that time I had already joined the Australian foreign service, which put paid, not unhappily, to my digging days. That did not, of course, stop me during my annual leave acting as a pottery consultant...