In this article from the very first volume of Studies, author Daniel (D.J.) Finn, SJ, writes in defence of archaeology as a scientific discipline, against a public that perceived of it as something indulged in by wealthy dilettantes and a popular idea of the archaeologist as a “cabinet collector of general nick-nacks”.
D.J. Finn was born in Cork City in 1886. Educated at St Stanislaus College in Tullamore, he went on to study Archaeology first in UCD and later at St John’s College, Oxford. He was ordained in Poland in 1919, and traveled extensively throughout his life, living and working for many years in Hong Kong. He died in London in 1936. For more information on his life, please see his entry in the Jesuit Archives.
D.J. Finn, ‘Classical Archaeology: Its Place in the Round of Knowledge’, Studies: An Irish Review, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Sep., 1912), 483-495. JSTOR link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30083976
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Archaeology is a decried study. A French playwright hits off public opinion very well when he brings on the old father in an ecstasy of delight with his finds; he has rushed from his back garden, with the newly dug-up lid of a pot in one hand and an old poker in the other; at last he has unearthed the long-sought documents, a Roman shield and sword. The public, in a flash, recognises and enjoys this real archaeologist; which proves that the character is not a real archaeologist at all. The true specimen should be possessed of great store of information, keen observation, sound judgment and vivid imagination.
Why does the misunderstanding exist? Perhaps it is because antiquaries and their kind are associated with the gleanings of scrap-heaps, that they get full credit for all the maimed relics of a museum, and nothing besides. There are, of course, bogus archaeologists, and they are never far to seek; they, too, have done injury to the name. Yet, the chief reason seems to be that the word “archaeologist” covers too much, and the subject matter has not been allowed to leaven other studies in its proper measure. A man is not dubbed a physiologist for knowing what the Eustachian tube is; nor a chemist if he dissolves grease with benzine, but he may be dubbed an archaeologist if he can distinguish a Roman legionary from a Greek hoplite. The beginner is regarded as imbued with archaeology if he attains a correct impression of the elements of ancient civilisation, and to make him advert to such knowledge is regarded as not less unprofitable than teaching him the correct interpretation of the “archaic smile”.
The difficulty arises in this that both may be called archaeology, yet one is essential to a proper understanding of the written word, the other obviously is not. There is nothing even novel about the former instruction; some of the finest reproductions ever produced of the antiquities of classical times were printed in the seventeenth century to illustrate the classics. Give anything a bad name and its fate is sealed; disguise the name, and you may carry that same thing anywhere on its merits. Call your archaeological handbook “Life in Athens”, or “The Sea Kings of Crete”, and you start free from handicap. Our first task must be to distinguish the different measures of knowledge labelled archaeology, and our next to ascertain how these measures should be doled out.
Archaeology is as wide-ranging as universal history. It may be concerned with problems of political or social history, of art or of religion; it claims for its own all the history that has been recorded by man in monuments other than the written scroll. Such a field is enormous. Far from being the microscopic panorama in which the archaeologist of popular fancy revels, it is the whole past history of the human race, and the most human part of that history, too…Archaeology will tell us much of the unrecorded past of our own land and kindle a new fire in the heirs of a great past. It is not a dull science; it has a living voice, an appeal to the intelligent master of this earth, who must ever be proud of his past, and in that pride, work for the future. Nobody will deny that such branches of the study are all important merely as knowledge, and pregnant with interest. Yet the name of archaeology is abhorrent. A chain is to be judged by its weakest link. The sins of the most barren, most meticulous branch are to be tracked and laid bare: they are the sample by which the whole is to be judged. It matters nothing that no genuine archaeologist would claim to be a guide over the whole range of the science from prehistoric cave-dwellers to Georgian house-dwellers, from Timgad to Yucatan. The popular idea is modelled on the cabinet collector of general nick-nacks and all his enthusiasms. No greater error could be made. As an accurate study, archaeology would be impossible if its fates were not ruled by a whole Olympus of specialists with highly-specialised functions.
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For the vulgar throng the study has two aspects; there is, if we may continue the simile, the ritual acts and the application of the doctrines to general manners. No doubt, the ritual acts should attract attention; they are the action, the part that appeals most to the vision. There is the endless burrowing to unearth secrets – often no more mysterious than ground plans – the piecing together of scattered limbs, the ingenious and often meritorious experiments in restoration. Now, there is no need for every one of the believers to be capable of going through such performances; too many cooks spoil the broth is a homely saying that fits most circumstances; the supernumerary cooks generally do nothing but sample the tastes. No devotee wants every person to be a priest or an interpreter. That is one of the misunderstandings from which the propagandist movement suffers…To call the matter archaeology is merely to encourage misunderstandings; it helps to confound the specialists’ knowledge with the degree suitable for the novice. For centuries the knowledge of realien, which is desirable for the reading of the classics, has been called antiquities, and under this name it has been tolerated, but when a more certain, better illustrated knowledge is called archaeology, it stands condemned. The new stirrings endeavour to make that knowledge more interesting and more real; they get the credit of being more pedantic and abstruse. The orders of the hierarchy have been confused with one another, and even with the mere neophytes.
…The historian, as we properly understand the name, cannot cut himself free from archaeology. If he is not capable of manipulating that class of documents, he must obtain expert assistance. The leading archaeologists are, in fact; historians who make it their business to discover or arrange certain classes of documents that are needful for the realisation of antiquity. As these sources of knowledge are not written documents, but such objects as statues, gems, vases and the like, a considerable amount of technical knowledge is requisite which repels many a scholar supreme in literary achievements. An element of “scientific” training – inveterate rival of the humanities – wins disfavour for the study in the eyes of a scroll-loving community. Whether it be in the field-work of excavation or the study-work of discussion, the scholar is led on by that peculiar detective interest of investigation; for those who have a liking for such work, the labour involved is weighed lightly in comparison with the satisfaction of success.
…There are such men to be found working in the excavation pits, or in home museums or in universities; none of them could be successful unless he were a man of enthusiasm, gifted with a ready imagination and an unflinching devotion to truth. It would be only consistent to quarrel with all historians if once we question their right to devote them selves to such investigations. Historians have, at least, a very strong prescriptive right to exist; there should be no grounds for exterminating archeeologists.
The ranks of those who do this original work are divers. Some bring to light subject matter, others arrange existing material, while others again seek to make reliable deductions. All are helping to build up a sum of knowledge. If we were to suggest a more restricted meaning for the word archeeology, it would be the science of methods by which that knowledge is attained.
…To diffuse the amount of knowledge necessary for intelligent appreciation of the conditions of ancient life falls at present mostly to the task of books. The writer of a book possesses enough knowledge, let us suppose, to understand the criteria of antiquarian dating and description. He is able to convert this knowledge into reliable guidance for his readers. At present, his readers consist largely of teachers, who, in turn, impart to others; the unintelligent medium of paper and ink makes many mistakes possible, even inevitable…Publishers determined to keep abreast of the times are furnishing elementary texts with pictures of antiquities. At first sight, one is tempted to say that this clears up all difficulty for the master. Far from it – his position becomes worse; there is usually no hint as to the date of the original source; it may be a Greek vase-picture on one page, but a Roman column on the next, and the text illustrated may be Virgil…The only sure way is that the teacher should have acquired a knowledge that will steer him safe through such straits. It will then be in his power to direct others to a truer realisation of what they read, to teach them to be critical scholars, but, beyond all, to give them whatever may be helpful from his own fund of knowledge.
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However inspiring archaology may be, its enthusiasts cannot live on that breath alone. Much less can any advance be made in the study. It may be laid down, without much fear of contradiction, that no private individual - we exclude millionaires and their kind – could collect sufficient apparatus to do effective work. Excavation is tuition at a very high fee; mother earth is rather dense and does not give her advice easily when it is being deliberately sought. Generally, nations pay their children’s fees for such instruction: it is education on a royal scale. So it is that excavation parties are recruited from universities, and, whatever be their ostensible character, they are university enterprises…The different national schools of archaeology in Athens and Rome are just such off-shoots of universities patronised by nations and by governments. They are at once the centres of exploration and the training-ground of young archaeologists.
Next to the digging work, comes the Museum with its care for preservation and arrangement…A museum could hardly enjoy a vigorous life except in local contact with a university…A university finds that a museum is an essential part of its equipment, and a museum must draw its life-blood from a university.
Recently an article appeared in a learned classical quarterly asking for some indulgence, as the writing was done far from an adequate library: yet the subject of the article was merely, pardon the word, a literary one. Much more difficult is it to do archaeological work away from a home equipped with books and material documents. A university requires a museum; the individual requires the university with its men, its books, its museum. Even in this country, we require very little insistance on the doctrine that the play of mind on mind in one tilting- ground is all important; Maynooth College has long been the one example by which all might realise the great educational force that resides in university life.
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Archaeology is not for the school…The whole study is no new apparition. It is merely an old and reserved science brought into line with modern ideas of technical precision and made less secretive.
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