My biggest frustration as a student of Ancient History is sifting through some of the most unreadable, needlessly confusing textbooks on Earth looking for a straight answer on anything. Right now, I'm looking through sourcebooks for examples of Phoenician coins and inscriptions, but I spend most of my time trying to decipher the endless abbreviations and archaeological terminology that seem designed to make it difficult. That's what bothers me more than anything else, the gatekeeping of knowledge and the systems/styles that have developed so that only a few people can possibly understand it without getting a massive headache.
Thanks so much Guy, you have a great gift for story telling that complements your amazing knowledge of, and dedication to, your passion. We live in an incredible world.
I'm surprised that archeological records aren't routinely attached with property records. It's pertinent information for owners and we know that property records are extraordinarily well-preserved over time with documented chains of ownership and improvements extending back sometimes centuries
This is amazing. I must say thank you sincerely for the honest opinions across the board. I first was introduced to you through Time Team, and even then, in practice, I saw much of what you stated here to be true. I enjoyed and still enjoy Time Team, but there are scores of times that I can recall fanciful suggestions of what was about to be found, and often times you were the sole voice of reason and realism. On the other side of that, I can also recall several moments where you got excited about finds, or a particular structure, and in my mind, I knew that meant business, something significant was here!! It was for those reasons that a few years back, I was digging around for good information about the Praetorian Guard, and I came across your book Praetorian!! As soon as a I saw your name I ordered a copy as I already knew you were an expert on so many things Roman, and more importantly I knew how honest you were, that nothing would be exaggerated. I have since purchased several of your books and found them all incredibly accessible and informative!! I had even already picked up the one you referenced in this video, The Buildings of Roman Britain!! Populus is on my nightstand currently, I haven't finished it yet, but I love what I'm reading so far!! I cannot say enough, thank you sincerely for the work that you do. Not just in the books and the videos here, but in general, preserving all that history in a meaningful way, and across multiple medians and platforms, including in the case highlighted here at the end, by LITERALLY saving a beautiful fragment of a church that would have otherwise been completely lost to bureaucracy!! One final side note, an additional thank you for extended reading recommendations you've made!! I ordered Allison Weir's The War of the Roses at a suggestion you had made in a prior video, and that was such an enjoyable book I've already read it a second time!! Cheers and Semper Fi from an Arizona Jarhead who absolutely loves history!!
Once more, Guy speaks his truth to the world. And, once more, the world responds with: "Well, that's no fun!". Jokes aside, this is a very important aspect of the world to understand (not just archaeology). I think there are many, many worse heads to talk off the top of. Thank you very much!
Thank you for covering a subject most commenter here seem to make light of. Archaeology is supposed to be a scientific study of the past, but instead, it is a mad rush to dig up finds before someone puts a road through it. Museums rarely buy anything, and if they do, a few years later it ends up on ebay. I have two Indus Valley pots from 3000BC, two Minoan broken jugs from 2500BC, and various other bits of jewellery. When I began to look at Carthage-period rings and various historical pendants and crosses, I began to realise that these were dug up, grave goods, and people are digging up the bodies for a quick buck, especially in the Ukraine and parts of Africa. It's a scavenger hunt. I once saw a roman mosaic on Time Team, and Phil didn't even number the tiles as he took them out. In the end, they had 10,000 tiles, and no way of putting the floor back together as to how it was. It broke my heart to see something which had lasted 2,000 years being destroyed in the name of 'preservation'. Somewhere out there is a bag full of those tiles being thrown away. It would have been better for future generations to leave it where it is. Not only that, but any old bones are stored in bags in sealed rooms, and they are never assembled again,. Imagine if you were buried with all your goods to rest in pieces? In the future, because deep echo scanners can penetrate the earth and send back signals from every layer, we will be able to read stratification layers and build 3d models of how it used to be, without digging anything up. This will be essential once the next ice age kicks in, because everything we see today; every warehouse, every church, every house, every gravestone, would be under 8 miles of snow, being slowly gouged out by glaciers, for the next 100 million years. We know nothing new about history, because each new generation is ignorant of the work which has gone on before, and unless it is transcribed on to the internet as an audio book, to drip feed the few people who care, the rest wont have the slightest idea or care to read it. 'Reference' books are now Wikipedia, and in an ADHD world, bored out of it's brains on super-concentrated nicotine and caffeine, booze and junk food not fit for pigs, it seems the 'quick fix' society is not too overly concerned about restoration, and would rather just consume it all. I've always said Archaeology is just volunteer Grave Robbing, and you've already forgotten more about historical civilisation than any of us will ever know, until A.I comes along, and scoops up everything into one huge pulpy mess of anecdotes.
While I agree with what ya said there’s the flip side too. Native Americans don’t actually care and knowledge. Well some do but those in political power don’t care. I remember reading how Harvard has lots of skeletons and the tribe wanted them back but said don’t you dare do a dna test on them. It’s like wtf? If a dna test is good enough for court and lawsuits why can’t we dna test a skeleton? Surely if they’re the descendants they’d want to know. I wouldn’t care if someone dna tested my great great great great grandpa to prove I’m related. The pauites tell how they killed another Native American tribe that was taller and had red hair. They were giants in comparison they said. But the museum housing the remains from lovelock Nevada was told by the federal government they can’t show anyone. We got old photos of em. Here’s the thing. Why cover it up? And the laws made me wonder? Why did the federal government make a law for those institutions receiving federal funds to return skeletons etc to native Americans? The law is very racist. Don’t Egyptians deserve to have mummies returned to Egypt just as much as native Americans deserve skeletons returned? And the Paiute tribe talking about red headed native Americans their history should be investigated by archaeologists and shouldn’t be covered up. The statutes on Easter island have beards and today’s Native Americans can’t grow beards.
@@koltoncrane3099 - Archaeologists uncover things, and institutions cover it up. Sounds about right. Tall humanoid races with red hair are a bit different, because acording to myths, when Atlantis was ripped apart and flooded at the end of the last ice age, the remnants split into at least three groups. One in africa which died out, one went to turkey and became the Aesir - who moved to Scandinavia - and is why half of the days of the week are still named after them. The last group I presume are the ones you speak of. I doubt DNA would reveal much about any relativity with modern humans.
I recall the Treasure of Priam found by Schliemann at Troy, which disappeared at the end of WW2. It was presumed destroyed, as the Russians spent the whole Cold War denying any knowledge of them, and then turning up in the 1990's in the storage basement of a Russian museum who didn't even know (or claimed not to know) what they had.
Re: Must Farm bronze age settlement. There are several small videos on this site on youtube. In one of them, it was mentioned that most of the sit was destroyed by road works before it was identified. Given the enormous significance of the material found, it struck me that even the buldozed fragments would be worth finding, because the context could be reconstructed from the six intact houses.
The great thing with Must Farm is that the site has been well documented, and the entire project report (over 1000 A4 pages) has been published online and is open access. One of the problems is that many of the reports are stuck behind paywalls unless you work within an academic institution that has corporate access.
I must say that I preferred the delusion that everything was recorded in great detail and safely stored away! Seriously though, thanks for speaking about this.
I live in the US, and like so many of my countrymen, only discovered Time Team during Covid lockdown. I shall never forget, at one villa site, Guy describing the Romans' aesthetic tastes as being "like footballers' wives."
Thank you, Guy, for your deft touch of reality about what is commonly perceived as a glamorous occupation. Been interested in ancient history since my undergraduate studies at Monash University ( Melbourne). Regrettably, the then faculty ( now disbanded) was not offering the subject to higher levels and I missed out on the opportunity to experience the excitement, camaraderie and camping on a dig in Australia. Cheers from a long term admirer of your presentations.
I am sure is not all lost. I display in my humble cottage on the banks of the Danube near Noviodunum fort bits of pottery found while digging my garden. I do not know much about them but i amaze my guests with the storry of the ancient fort. I am sure that will remain in their memories for a while. For sure your storry will remain in my memory forever. Thanks.
(2nd comment after actually watching it) Thanks for this thoughtful video that highlights my worst fears really I've been harboring for years. Sometimes I think we should dig not as fast as we do just so we leave something to be discovered for posterity.
To answer your question, I have never, not once, watched a program showing the excavation of an archaeological site. That capital from the ruins of St. Botolph's Church is indeed an impressive piece. As a former museum technician, employed at the Smithsonian Institution of Washington DC, I assure you it was not at all unknown that a significant accession be lost.
Aloha Guy, I've been a huge fan from early time team episodes! Your efforts are informative, inspiring, and vital. Thank you and Mahalo from Puna, Hawaii 🌋 🤙✌️🤘🖖
I suppose another point is that, a field like palaeontology has a very similar problem- the results of digs going unpublished, and being buried in draws in museum storerooms. But, time and again, I've heard palaeontologists talk (on screen, that is) of museums being extremely happy for them to "look through draws" to see what they could find, and what they could make of it. That's a far cry from the situation with the retired archaeologist being denied access to the artifacts of a dig he had actually taken part in, and that he was actively publishing on!
Can't say I'm surprised that the initial interest and excitement during excavation soon dulls into apathy, when faced with the dull reality of writing a report. Interesting video Guy and learning of your rescue of that fragment of a masons work and also Roman pottery from dumping ground, and the risk or even near certainty of being totally forgotten about and if found at a later date, when the shopping centre itself is demolished in years to come, leading to false believes ! An anathema to some academics, but the interest of collectors in their wish to study, and the commercial value to dealers, at least for some of the Roman coins found, allowed for them to be, by chance of your effort to be recorded and published.
Makes the work of Squier and Davis here in Ohio all the more remarkable. They both had other jobs and still managed excellent excavations and published.
Thank you for the interesting information, Guy. It is disgraceful that this information is lost or hidden. I thought the whole point of excavating is to learn, share with the public, and also to admire the beauty, when applicable. You're doing the right thing, Guy. It's not a waste of time. Commendable. ETA: At least these days it is easier and safer to store the data digitally. That's a positive thing.
So sad to hear this i know English Heritage have two huge Warehouses full of Carved Stonework and Artifacts but the carelessness and negligence of those that are supposed to safeguard these valuables is disgraceful but when i browse Antiquarian Bookshops and Websites there are always Excavation reports for sale my last buy was Schliemanns First 3 yrs at Troy and it is mainly lists.Thank you Guy for your Historical Knowledge and keeping us all informed over the years
Hi Guy. Congratulations on the publication of the new book. I do have to say that I prefer the *English* edition of your Pharaohs of the Sun book though, with its much more dramatic chiaroscuro cover (and more of the title displayed). So that's three books by you I own now (the others are Roman Britain and Gladius). I suppose once I've moved back to England in a handful of months, I'll be ready to buy this one, too : )
Denial and obfuscation of important historical artefacts is disturbing, what could possibly be the motivations , could it be just incompetence, lack of professionalism , or could other agendas be at play. The careless handling of our priceless historical record needs to be addressed , and those concerned held accountable.
I remember on one episode of time team you brought this up concerning the gps satellites and how that data would be lost by the time anyone in the future wanted to use it again. since they lose it all or lock it up in basements they could at least be troubled to write a good 10 pages on it that people might actually have time to read and is cheap enough to widely distribute. sure its not a complete record, but its better than nothing, as a minimum failsafe dataset. as much as the modern archaeologists look down on the antiquarians of old, id say they did us more service than the profession does today. 🤔
Please keep sticking your neck out Guy and sharing your years of invaluable first-hand experience, wisdom and common sense. Your videos are far more interesting and insightful than the mostly dumbed-down mainstream documentaries on offer.
One reason I always loved TT was the critical approach taken by the original members as you all approaches your analysis. This video just strengthens my admiration. Love your reflection sir.
Archaeological digs need to be done slowly and carefully. Time Team was tabloid archaeology, looking only for a headline, carried out in what I always considered a totally unprofessional way.
Really interesting, Guy, thank you. I did contract archaeology for some years, so a world away from a summer dig with tents. Mostly a lot of empty trenches in the rain! But, even so, there were some important sites. Post-excavation and publication were built into the tender so a team dealt with that quickly. But I'm not sure the results were useful. I wonder if the way ahead is through digital archiving accompanied by a brief interpretation. Academic publication is so unwieldy and unaffordable, to produce or buy. I was an archaeological archivist for some time and all site records were microfiched. I'm glad they were as, oddly, microfiche will outlast much that came after it! The big digs of the 60s to 80s are another world entirely and I think some of them will never be published, as site directors often have to work on them in their own time as there was no funding for academic archaeology publishing. Fascinating subject.
brilliant analysis. and so true. as for the joy of being at the dig- its treasure hunting. who wouldnt love that? and thats not an insult. its reality and its kept archaeology going for centuries. its kept the past into the present
Thanks be to God!!! I am not within even a million miles of being a historian or archaeologist, but as an outsider, the seemingly lunatic extrapolations from one-off excavations have always totally bewildered me. I am a scientist and have never understood this. Sample size, context etc. They seem to count for nought.
Nor I. Archaeology can answer very few of the questions put to it, but there is a great reluctance either to accept or understand that and the result is often pure invention passed off as fact. Also, by ignoring the fact that 99.9999% of what was once there no longer exists, the result is often assuming the whole story is thus enshrined in the tiny proportion that has survived and which also happens to get excavated. I am not a scientist but I understand what the scientific method means; archaeology's pretension to being a science invariably overlooks the fact that the evidence from an archaeological dig rarely, if ever, reaches the standard necessary for scientific evidence and data. Sadly, this also means archaeological reports are full of a lot of rather useless and unusable information.
@@ClassCiv The past interests me immensely, but I'll go with bald facts and observations every time. I'll even entertainment conjecture,when presented as such, but conjecture is nowhere even remotely near fact. Don't get me started on prehistoric stuff - a line or rocks, or two parallel lnes, suddenly becomes a site of ancient worship............ Where on this sweet earth is there any REAL evidence.
Wow. Having watched the whole thing, there's a lot to think about. It goes to show that however much we care about the past (and the future), what we really care most about is our own present. And that is true for humans ever.
Love the way you think, makes me reconsider the readings on history I've consumed in my earlier years, but then again I always did. But then yet again, that's why I love history, it's a never ending story. Thx. 👍 Dead archeologists still tell tales. Hahahaha ❓
Wow, Guy. Come to Israel to get cheered up. Archeology is a national pastime here, and we publish like hotcakes. For example, every year the City of David has a conference and a published bilingual summary of findings available for about £10. Okay, the English version can be a tad choppy, but the data is out there to see. Also, findings get pride of place in our museums, and items that do go to storage are held in secure conditions. Plus, we pioneered wet sifting, so we get small items which otherwise would be overlooked.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the change digital technology is making to this. Presumably this makes recording easier (ease of photograhy, publication, ever increasing resolution on photographs, democratising the tools of publication at least digitally). And it makes reburying of information, at least more difficult (cost of replication tends to zero, searchability of online materials, lessening of likelihood a digital format could ever become unreadable). I sense these are optimistic trends given what you say- but im just some guy on the internet who has never published anything archaeological
Archaeologists can't afford the publication prices, unless they are the authors, in which case we might receive free or discounted copies. I was once contacted by a former project leader, who had hired me as a lab director, to inform me that I had made archaeological history in Middle Eastern archaeology. I had been responsible for curating all the material from the project. That required the material being catalogued both in computer format and in print (well aware of the problem with computerized data), stored in boxes with printed manifests - one to each box and also a bound volume of the manifests for each box, as well as box numbers listed in the computer catalog for each artifact. The "historical" aspect is that several years later, they had revisited the collection, and found every item they looked for.
"deluged by data" isn't a new phenomenon that came with computerization - if all the archeological sites were faithfully detailed in print - there would be more (expensive) books than readers - more supply than demand
This was very interesting aspect of something I believe is very telling about the time we live in. A time I believe many sees as “perfect” in handling “everything.” There is a reason social media like YT invest in “shorts videos,” Instagram on reels and FB/Twitter(X) on feeds (+more and more "viral videos.”) Is it decadent times, maybe? Anyway. I’m really glad I came over this video not being an archeologist or historian. (But I’m pretty interested in lectures or videos on the subject.) Actually been wondering about this. Maybe if things wasn’t going so fast we could take more care? Didn’t Platon write about what happens when society expands rapidly? Believe he pointed out outcome often ends in war. (Or was it some other Greek philosopher?) Balance is the hardest thing in life and a constantly growing economy cast shadows.
I recall Guy making much the same arguments included in a Time Team episode years ago. It troubled me then and now but as Guy says its a reality and no good solution.
Somehow idealism still wins out over wisdom when it comes to history. Kings used to hold the story of history, and now it is some universities and corporations. Someday I hope that there can be a proper public library for archeology that can be expanded digitally in a timely manner and then backed up in a robust way.
A truly excellent piece. My interest has been piqued recently by what I see as some sort of mania for the 'restoration' of ancient sites though I rather think that the works are are carried out more for the restoration of the local tourist economy. Interested ?
Also, I want to say that for all the snobbish contempt academics seem to have for books aimed at a 'popular ' audience, those archaeology books get sold, read, republished. Maybe we need greater emphasis on putting sites out as popular books and less academic journals and site reports no one can access. I have a bachelor's but didn't pursue a career in archaeology, many times I want to know more about a site I've read or heard about but the site report and publications are locked up in Jstor. Thank God for UA-cam.
Agreed, I thought I'd try to go beyond 'popular accounts' a number of years ago and try to buy more specialist publications - cost and lack of availability soon made me stop that. Websites such as the one on the recently discovered tomb of the 'Griffin Warrior' are welcome but necessarily limited in their content.
Hello, Guy. Thank you for the video and highlighting the problems with recording, cataloguing and the subsequent access to the knowledge. I'm not based in the UK so I'm asking this out of naivety but is there no nation wide registry of finds and/or archaeological digs? Again asking out of naivety but when archaeological digs are funded, is there no requirement built into the funding to report in a timely manner of what was found? All that knowledge lost is heartbreaking.
I've often thought about these issues and naively hoped that all was well. It seems that we are not that far removed from the day's of the amateur antiquarians who were often lambasted for poor record keeping losing finds.
Digging for Britain had a section that looked at the shipyard of HenryV , ooh bragged the archeoligist first time ever.look up the records mate, time team dug this site in the 1990s
Central government needs to create a Archaeology data base, both of published material and raw data. It needs to become the custodian of last resort for physical finds. The profession needs to have funded posts for specialists in interpreting and publishing the results. Where will the money come from? These are activities well suited as recipients of 'printed' money.
Guy: Thank you for your expertise on Romano-British numismatics and archeology. I participate on two websites: One is dedicated to Roman history and the other has a large section focused on ancient numismatics. Could you comment on the fate of the many large numismatic hoards discovered in Britain and elsewhere and that are quickly forgotten or never released for public purchase? (BTW: Despite already having two of your books, it looks like I will need to purchase another. LoL😉 ) Good luck
You are completely correct. I write books because I enjoy the research and composition; but I am under no illusions about what happens to most books after a surprisingly short time.
There’s always the hope that the copyright libraries will at least keep their few mandatory copies for posterity… But with the current bunch of “progressive” nutcases in charge, who knows?
Great to see you Guy. What do you think can be done? about all these books. and your organization not letting people get in to look at stuff.I guess money is more important as always It's truly a shame. how these things are handled.
I can believe every word to this, but I will add that now that people have iPhones and digital photography and it’s so easy to snap photos you know maybe there’s at least a little hope that at least there’s someway to have some sort of view of some of these things in the future. Someday you’ll probably be able to take a photo with the device that will create a 3-D model of the item and store that in the cloud.
I just found this video and I must say it is a sad tale, but one that must be told. By the end I couldn't help but get a visual of the end of the Indiana Jones movie showing the Ark of the Covenant boxed up and being stored in a massive warehouse, lost to time. Perhaps it would better to leave the majority of this stuff where it lies and simply catalogue what we can? If we don't, the job of future archaeologists will simply be to find out where the old ones stored their finds.
What you describe ( no access to stored material etc) could be mere incompetence on the part of the museum staff, or perhaps they want exclusive rights to publish the site themselves (future work for their own people).
It's the same with all those status chasing academic journal articles. Twenty odd years ago doing a course I knew (through bad guillotining of ancient bound copies at the bindary meaning the leaves were still joined) I was the first hand to touch some, most, bought, bound and shelved years earlier. Truth is there probably no real audience for any of it. I decided then to leave that sort of endeavour alone.
For my clarification, as an American, when you are describing the Great Fire and its destruction to the City of London, are you specifically talking about that approximate 1 square mile of urban area surrounding St. Paul's Cathedral, or had London already begin to "sprawl" out well beyond it "original" confines?
If you can turn it into a tourist attraction the site will survive. Otherwise, probably not. I think enjoy the fanciful description of future archeology in Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.
As far as know from a UA-cam video, in this country we have a national repository of field reports. Any report should be submitted to the body maintaining it, and the admission process involves a peer review. The reports get sent back for reworking very often. Probably a similar system could solve the problem of publishing the results of UK digs as well as the problem of expensive books.
I'm not sure to which country you are referring. The main issue in the UK is the colossal number of archaeological digs over many decades with variable resources available for publication, vast quantities of finds that are supposedly in store (causing huge problems for museums), and different ways of publishing sites in various formats over the last few decades. The increasing transition to electronic publishing has reduced costs but also rendered the archives vulnerable to obsolete software and computer hardware. This of course does not apply to 19th and some 20th century archaeological books: you just open them and read them, assuming they haven't turned to dust.
@@ClassCiv Russia. I undertstand that putting the vast legacy of the British archaeological publications in central storage, likely in a digital form, would be a huge and expensive job, but the academic benefit would be similarly immense. There is the technology needed, and Google has been doing well with their scanning books. In any case, setting up new rules for new reports would be much easier and you can always require submitting a hard copy as well. Speaking of the 19th and 20th centuries books, the trick is to know if they went out and where to find them. The computer related difficulties is a matter of proper database maintenance. I think the IT profession is mature enough now to ensure that data losses won't happen and conversions to new data formats are done in due course.
I've seen a similar case, maybe opposite? I'll be told X or Y wasn't around. I go to a museum annnnd there is X and Y items from the time period. On full display. Or, the other is. Item on display, no information or context.
Intriguing and not at all surprising, unfortunately. That statement may seem pessimistic, however, as a 'sleeping in the stacks' veteran I know how easy information is lost. Is it any wonder our historic record is increasing fragmentary. Or, maybe not increasingly, maybe just consistently...over the millennia.
I find this surprising. I guess I assumed that there was an official repository somewhere that stored official reports on archaeological digs. I never realized that 'publication' meant actual published books. I thought there was some sort of standard report format that would be created immediately after the dig and filed with some government agency. The reality that you discuss here is really very sad.
There is absolutely no formal consistency or regularity in the nature of archaeological reports though they tend to conform to similar structures: introduction, summary of findings, descriptions of the various features by chapter, and then the bulk consists of catalogues of finds: pottery, stonework, metal finds, coins, bones etc. This may appear within a few years of the excavation in book form if the site is large, or just as an article in a journal, or take decades to appear, or never at all. It depends on funding, time, and - frankly- whether indifference and indolence intervene. Increasingly, such reports are appearing in electronic format which makes them more readily accessible but by the same token a) they will probably not be read properly and b) they are vulnerable in the long-term to software changes that will render them inaccessible.
So basically everything gets lost and forgotten as the people that worked on and remembered those projects pass away and the artifacts go into storage and their history is ultimately forgotten as they are lost or misplaced. Awful!
So, bureaucracy is alive and well, even in museums. I can just see the smug mug of the desk-jockey who denied the archaeologists' request for access to the material.
The academic institutions are the wrong guardians of the past. Passionate amateurs do a far better job of videoing / publishing their activities. One hopes archaeology will be made public under guidelines of ethical collecting.
I'm a university student - may I ask what are those things you keep holding up and behind you and what are these things called 'truths' you keep referring to?
I must also say though, the way you handle your books makes me cringe for their health and safety! The bending-back of covers, the (inadvertent?) dog-eared page, the stress to the spine... oh my sainted aunt!
My biggest frustration as a student of Ancient History is sifting through some of the most unreadable, needlessly confusing textbooks on Earth looking for a straight answer on anything. Right now, I'm looking through sourcebooks for examples of Phoenician coins and inscriptions, but I spend most of my time trying to decipher the endless abbreviations and archaeological terminology that seem designed to make it difficult.
That's what bothers me more than anything else, the gatekeeping of knowledge and the systems/styles that have developed so that only a few people can possibly understand it without getting a massive headache.
Thanks so much Guy, you have a great gift for story telling that complements your amazing knowledge of, and dedication to, your passion. We live in an incredible world.
I'm surprised that archeological records aren't routinely attached with property records. It's pertinent information for owners and we know that property records are extraordinarily well-preserved over time with documented chains of ownership and improvements extending back sometimes centuries
This is amazing. I must say thank you sincerely for the honest opinions across the board. I first was introduced to you through Time Team, and even then, in practice, I saw much of what you stated here to be true. I enjoyed and still enjoy Time Team, but there are scores of times that I can recall fanciful suggestions of what was about to be found, and often times you were the sole voice of reason and realism. On the other side of that, I can also recall several moments where you got excited about finds, or a particular structure, and in my mind, I knew that meant business, something significant was here!! It was for those reasons that a few years back, I was digging around for good information about the Praetorian Guard, and I came across your book Praetorian!! As soon as a I saw your name I ordered a copy as I already knew you were an expert on so many things Roman, and more importantly I knew how honest you were, that nothing would be exaggerated. I have since purchased several of your books and found them all incredibly accessible and informative!! I had even already picked up the one you referenced in this video, The Buildings of Roman Britain!! Populus is on my nightstand currently, I haven't finished it yet, but I love what I'm reading so far!! I cannot say enough, thank you sincerely for the work that you do. Not just in the books and the videos here, but in general, preserving all that history in a meaningful way, and across multiple medians and platforms, including in the case highlighted here at the end, by LITERALLY saving a beautiful fragment of a church that would have otherwise been completely lost to bureaucracy!! One final side note, an additional thank you for extended reading recommendations you've made!! I ordered Allison Weir's The War of the Roses at a suggestion you had made in a prior video, and that was such an enjoyable book I've already read it a second time!! Cheers and Semper Fi from an Arizona Jarhead who absolutely loves history!!
Thank you for your comments. And I love Arizona. Flying into PHX in September (again).
Once more, Guy speaks his truth to the world.
And, once more, the world responds with: "Well, that's no fun!".
Jokes aside, this is a very important aspect of the world to understand (not just archaeology). I think there are many, many worse heads to talk off the top of. Thank you very much!
Thank you for covering a subject most commenter here seem to make light of. Archaeology is supposed to be a scientific study of the past, but instead, it is a mad rush to dig up finds before someone puts a road through it. Museums rarely buy anything, and if they do, a few years later it ends up on ebay. I have two Indus Valley pots from 3000BC, two Minoan broken jugs from 2500BC, and various other bits of jewellery. When I began to look at Carthage-period rings and various historical pendants and crosses, I began to realise that these were dug up, grave goods, and people are digging up the bodies for a quick buck, especially in the Ukraine and parts of Africa. It's a scavenger hunt.
I once saw a roman mosaic on Time Team, and Phil didn't even number the tiles as he took them out. In the end, they had 10,000 tiles, and no way of putting the floor back together as to how it was. It broke my heart to see something which had lasted 2,000 years being destroyed in the name of 'preservation'. Somewhere out there is a bag full of those tiles being thrown away. It would have been better for future generations to leave it where it is. Not only that, but any old bones are stored in bags in sealed rooms, and they are never assembled again,. Imagine if you were buried with all your goods to rest in pieces?
In the future, because deep echo scanners can penetrate the earth and send back signals from every layer, we will be able to read stratification layers and build 3d models of how it used to be, without digging anything up. This will be essential once the next ice age kicks in, because everything we see today; every warehouse, every church, every house, every gravestone, would be under 8 miles of snow, being slowly gouged out by glaciers, for the next 100 million years. We know nothing new about history, because each new generation is ignorant of the work which has gone on before, and unless it is transcribed on to the internet as an audio book, to drip feed the few people who care, the rest wont have the slightest idea or care to read it. 'Reference' books are now Wikipedia, and in an ADHD world, bored out of it's brains on super-concentrated nicotine and caffeine, booze and junk food not fit for pigs, it seems the 'quick fix' society is not too overly concerned about restoration, and would rather just consume it all. I've always said Archaeology is just volunteer Grave Robbing, and you've already forgotten more about historical civilisation than any of us will ever know, until A.I comes along, and scoops up everything into one huge pulpy mess of anecdotes.
While I agree with what ya said there’s the flip side too. Native Americans don’t actually care and knowledge. Well some do but those in political power don’t care.
I remember reading how Harvard has lots of skeletons and the tribe wanted them back but said don’t you dare do a dna test on them. It’s like wtf? If a dna test is good enough for court and lawsuits why can’t we dna test a skeleton? Surely if they’re the descendants they’d want to know. I wouldn’t care if someone dna tested my great great great great grandpa to prove I’m related.
The pauites tell how they killed another Native American tribe that was taller and had red hair. They were giants in comparison they said. But the museum housing the remains from lovelock Nevada was told by the federal government they can’t show anyone. We got old photos of em. Here’s the thing. Why cover it up?
And the laws made me wonder? Why did the federal government make a law for those institutions receiving federal funds to return skeletons etc to native Americans? The law is very racist. Don’t Egyptians deserve to have mummies returned to Egypt just as much as native Americans deserve skeletons returned?
And the Paiute tribe talking about red headed native Americans their history should be investigated by archaeologists and shouldn’t be covered up.
The statutes on Easter island have beards and today’s Native Americans can’t grow beards.
@@koltoncrane3099 - Archaeologists uncover things, and institutions cover it up. Sounds about right. Tall humanoid races with red hair are a bit different, because acording to myths, when Atlantis was ripped apart and flooded at the end of the last ice age, the remnants split into at least three groups. One in africa which died out, one went to turkey and became the Aesir - who moved to Scandinavia - and is why half of the days of the week are still named after them. The last group I presume are the ones you speak of. I doubt DNA would reveal much about any relativity with modern humans.
I recall the Treasure of Priam found by Schliemann at Troy, which disappeared at the end of WW2. It was presumed destroyed, as the Russians spent the whole Cold War denying any knowledge of them, and then turning up in the 1990's in the storage basement of a Russian museum who didn't even know (or claimed not to know) what they had.
Nothing about "priam's treasure" is connected to Priam except a lot of assumptions.
This breaks my heart and elevates my blood pressure.
Re: Must Farm bronze age settlement. There are several small videos on this site on youtube. In one of them, it was mentioned that most of the sit was destroyed by road works before it was identified. Given the enormous significance of the material found, it struck me that even the buldozed fragments would be worth finding, because the context could be reconstructed from the six intact houses.
The great thing with Must Farm is that the site has been well documented, and the entire project report (over 1000 A4 pages) has been published online and is open access. One of the problems is that many of the reports are stuck behind paywalls unless you work within an academic institution that has corporate access.
I must say that I preferred the delusion that everything was recorded in great detail and safely stored away! Seriously though, thanks for speaking about this.
I live in the US, and like so many of my countrymen, only discovered Time Team during Covid lockdown. I shall never forget, at one villa site, Guy describing the Romans' aesthetic tastes as being "like footballers' wives."
Thank you, Guy, for your deft touch of reality about what is commonly perceived as a glamorous occupation. Been interested in ancient history since my undergraduate studies at Monash University ( Melbourne). Regrettably, the then faculty ( now disbanded) was not offering the subject to higher levels and I missed out on the opportunity to experience the excitement, camaraderie and camping on a dig in Australia. Cheers from a long term admirer of your presentations.
I am sure is not all lost. I display in my humble cottage on the banks of the Danube near Noviodunum fort bits of pottery found while digging my garden. I do not know much about them but i amaze my guests with the storry of the ancient fort. I am sure that will remain in their memories for a while. For sure your storry will remain in my memory forever. Thanks.
Hey...nice to see you again. Always enjoyed your contributions to the Time Team. Thanks. Hello from Wisconsin!
Oh boy, some food for thought. Thanks Guy
(2nd comment after actually watching it) Thanks for this thoughtful video that highlights my worst fears really I've been harboring for years. Sometimes I think we should dig not as fast as we do just so we leave something to be discovered for posterity.
To answer your question, I have never, not once, watched a program showing the excavation of an archaeological site.
That capital from the ruins of St. Botolph's Church is indeed an impressive piece.
As a former museum technician, employed at the Smithsonian Institution of Washington DC, I assure you it was not at all unknown that a significant accession be lost.
Aloha Guy, I've been a huge fan from early time team episodes! Your efforts are informative, inspiring, and vital. Thank you and Mahalo from Puna, Hawaii 🌋 🤙✌️🤘🖖
I suppose another point is that, a field like palaeontology has a very similar problem- the results of digs going unpublished, and being buried in draws in museum storerooms.
But, time and again, I've heard palaeontologists talk (on screen, that is) of museums being extremely happy for them to "look through draws" to see what they could find, and what they could make of it.
That's a far cry from the situation with the retired archaeologist being denied access to the artifacts of a dig he had actually taken part in, and that he was actively publishing on!
Can't say I'm surprised that the initial interest and excitement during excavation soon dulls into apathy, when faced with the dull reality of writing a report.
Interesting video Guy and learning of your rescue of that fragment of a masons work and also Roman pottery from dumping ground, and the risk or even near certainty of being totally forgotten about and if found at a later date, when the shopping centre itself is demolished in years to come, leading to false believes !
An anathema to some academics, but the interest of collectors in their wish to study, and the commercial value to dealers, at least for some of the Roman coins found, allowed for them to be, by chance of your effort to be recorded and published.
Makes the work of Squier and Davis here in Ohio all the more remarkable. They both had other jobs and still managed excellent excavations and published.
Ohio earthworks are fascinating!
Thank you for the interesting information, Guy.
It is disgraceful that this information is lost or hidden. I thought the whole point of excavating is to learn, share with the public, and also to admire the beauty, when applicable.
You're doing the right thing, Guy. It's not a waste of time. Commendable.
ETA: At least these days it is easier and safer to store the data digitally. That's a positive thing.
So sad to hear this i know English Heritage have two huge Warehouses full of Carved Stonework and Artifacts but the carelessness and negligence of those that are supposed to safeguard these valuables is disgraceful but when i browse Antiquarian Bookshops and Websites there are always Excavation reports for sale my last buy was Schliemanns First 3 yrs at Troy and it is mainly lists.Thank you Guy for your Historical Knowledge and keeping us all informed over the years
Hi Guy. Congratulations on the publication of the new book. I do have to say that I prefer the *English* edition of your Pharaohs of the Sun book though, with its much more dramatic chiaroscuro cover (and more of the title displayed). So that's three books by you I own now (the others are Roman Britain and Gladius). I suppose once I've moved back to England in a handful of months, I'll be ready to buy this one, too : )
I watch TT every night the classics, I like the early ones
Yes, there’s a certain freshness about the early ones. The archeologists are genuinely excited. And of course they (mostly) have big personalities.
Denial and obfuscation of important historical artefacts is disturbing, what could possibly be the motivations , could it be just incompetence, lack of professionalism , or could other agendas be at play. The careless handling of our priceless historical record needs to be addressed , and those concerned held accountable.
I remember on one episode of time team you brought this up concerning the gps satellites and how that data would be lost by the time anyone in the future wanted to use it again. since they lose it all or lock it up in basements they could at least be troubled to write a good 10 pages on it that people might actually have time to read and is cheap enough to widely distribute. sure its not a complete record, but its better than nothing, as a minimum failsafe dataset. as much as the modern archaeologists look down on the antiquarians of old, id say they did us more service than the profession does today. 🤔
It's refreshing to hear the naked truth about academia. I think the research is vital, but it's sad that it's all for naught.
Thank you for sharing this and being frank. This is eye opening to say the least
Brilliant video Guy, some real food for thought and nice to see you speaking bout such topics.
Please keep sticking your neck out Guy and sharing your years of invaluable first-hand experience, wisdom and common sense. Your videos are far more interesting and insightful than the mostly dumbed-down mainstream documentaries on offer.
Excellent work.
One reason I always loved TT was the critical approach taken by the original members as you all approaches your analysis. This video just strengthens my admiration. Love your reflection sir.
Archaeological digs need to be done slowly and carefully. Time Team was tabloid archaeology, looking only for a headline, carried out in what I always considered a totally unprofessional way.
Really interesting, Guy, thank you. I did contract archaeology for some years, so a world away from a summer dig with tents. Mostly a lot of empty trenches in the rain! But, even so, there were some important sites. Post-excavation and publication were built into the tender so a team dealt with that quickly. But I'm not sure the results were useful. I wonder if the way ahead is through digital archiving accompanied by a brief interpretation. Academic publication is so unwieldy and unaffordable, to produce or buy. I was an archaeological archivist for some time and all site records were microfiched. I'm glad they were as, oddly, microfiche will outlast much that came after it! The big digs of the 60s to 80s are another world entirely and I think some of them will never be published, as site directors often have to work on them in their own time as there was no funding for academic archaeology publishing. Fascinating subject.
brilliant analysis. and so true. as for the joy of being at the dig- its treasure hunting. who wouldnt love that?
and thats not an insult. its reality and its kept archaeology going for centuries. its kept the past into the present
Thanks be to God!!!
I am not within even a million miles of being a historian or archaeologist, but as an outsider, the seemingly lunatic extrapolations from one-off excavations have always totally bewildered me.
I am a scientist and have never understood this. Sample size, context etc. They seem to count for nought.
Nor I. Archaeology can answer very few of the questions put to it, but there is a great reluctance either to accept or understand that and the result is often pure invention passed off as fact. Also, by ignoring the fact that 99.9999% of what was once there no longer exists, the result is often assuming the whole story is thus enshrined in the tiny proportion that has survived and which also happens to get excavated. I am not a scientist but I understand what the scientific method means; archaeology's pretension to being a science invariably overlooks the fact that the evidence from an archaeological dig rarely, if ever, reaches the standard necessary for scientific evidence and data. Sadly, this also means archaeological reports are full of a lot of rather useless and unusable information.
@@ClassCiv The past interests me immensely, but I'll go with bald facts and observations every time. I'll even entertainment conjecture,when presented as such, but conjecture is nowhere even remotely near fact.
Don't get me started on prehistoric stuff - a line or rocks, or two parallel lnes, suddenly becomes a site of ancient worship............ Where on this sweet earth is there any REAL evidence.
Wow. Having watched the whole thing, there's a lot to think about. It goes to show that however much we care about the past (and the future), what we really care most about is our own present. And that is true for humans ever.
Love the way you think, makes me reconsider the readings on history I've consumed in my earlier years, but then again I always did. But then yet again, that's why I love history, it's a never ending story. Thx. 👍 Dead archeologists still tell tales. Hahahaha ❓
Wow, Guy. Come to Israel to get cheered up. Archeology is a national pastime here, and we publish like hotcakes. For example, every year the City of David has a conference and a published bilingual summary of findings available for about £10. Okay, the English version can be a tad choppy, but the data is out there to see. Also, findings get pride of place in our museums, and items that do go to storage are held in secure conditions. Plus, we pioneered wet sifting, so we get small items which otherwise would be overlooked.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the change digital technology is making to this. Presumably this makes recording easier (ease of photograhy, publication, ever increasing resolution on photographs, democratising the tools of publication at least digitally).
And it makes reburying of information, at least more difficult (cost of replication tends to zero, searchability of online materials, lessening of likelihood a digital format could ever become unreadable).
I sense these are optimistic trends given what you say- but im just some guy on the internet who has never published anything archaeological
Archaeologists can't afford the publication prices, unless they are the authors, in which case we might receive free or discounted copies. I was once contacted by a former project leader, who had hired me as a lab director, to inform me that I had made archaeological history in Middle Eastern archaeology. I had been responsible for curating all the material from the project. That required the material being catalogued both in computer format and in print (well aware of the problem with computerized data), stored in boxes with printed manifests - one to each box and also a bound volume of the manifests for each box, as well as box numbers listed in the computer catalog for each artifact. The "historical" aspect is that several years later, they had revisited the collection, and found every item they looked for.
"deluged by data" isn't a new phenomenon that came with computerization - if all the archeological sites were faithfully detailed in print - there would be more (expensive) books than readers - more supply than demand
Another troubling dimension of publishing is that any discoveries or theories that challenge the current narratives face hostilities.
This was very interesting aspect of something I believe is very telling about the time we live in. A time I believe many sees as “perfect” in handling “everything.”
There is a reason social media like YT invest in “shorts videos,” Instagram on reels and FB/Twitter(X) on feeds (+more and more "viral videos.”)
Is it decadent times, maybe?
Anyway. I’m really glad I came over this video not being an archeologist or historian. (But I’m pretty interested in lectures or videos on the subject.)
Actually been wondering about this.
Maybe if things wasn’t going so fast we could take more care? Didn’t Platon write about what happens when society expands rapidly? Believe he pointed out outcome often ends in war. (Or was it some other Greek philosopher?)
Balance is the hardest thing in life and a constantly growing economy cast shadows.
I recall Guy making much the same arguments included in a Time Team episode years ago. It troubled me then and now but as Guy says its a reality and no good solution.
Thank you but you surely know how to spoil my day on a Rainy Sunday morning
Somehow idealism still wins out over wisdom when it comes to history. Kings used to hold the story of history, and now it is some universities and corporations. Someday I hope that there can be a proper public library for archeology that can be expanded digitally in a timely manner and then backed up in a robust way.
A truly excellent piece.
My interest has been piqued recently by what I see as some sort of mania for the 'restoration' of ancient sites though I rather think that the works are are carried out more for the restoration of the local tourist economy.
Interested ?
Also, I want to say that for all the snobbish contempt academics seem to have for books aimed at a 'popular ' audience, those archaeology books get sold, read, republished. Maybe we need greater emphasis on putting sites out as popular books and less academic journals and site reports no one can access. I have a bachelor's but didn't pursue a career in archaeology, many times I want to know more about a site I've read or heard about but the site report and publications are locked up in Jstor. Thank God for UA-cam.
Agreed, I thought I'd try to go beyond 'popular accounts' a number of years ago and try to buy more specialist publications - cost and lack of availability soon made me stop that. Websites such as the one on the recently discovered tomb of the 'Griffin Warrior' are welcome but necessarily limited in their content.
Hello, Guy. Thank you for the video and highlighting the problems with recording, cataloguing and the subsequent access to the knowledge. I'm not based in the UK so I'm asking this out of naivety but is there no nation wide registry of finds and/or archaeological digs? Again asking out of naivety but when archaeological digs are funded, is there no requirement built into the funding to report in a timely manner of what was found? All that knowledge lost is heartbreaking.
I've often thought about these issues and naively hoped that all was well. It seems that we are not that far removed from the day's of the amateur antiquarians who were often lambasted for poor record keeping losing finds.
I would say that there are similar issues across many fields of science.
As Henry Miller said about being an author.
'The most important thing is to have a built in, shock proof, twenty four carrat crap detector'.
Digging for Britain had a section that looked at the shipyard of HenryV , ooh bragged the archeoligist first time ever.look up the records mate, time team dug this site in the 1990s
Central government needs to create a Archaeology data base, both of published material and raw data. It needs to become the custodian of last resort for physical finds. The profession needs to have funded posts for specialists in interpreting and publishing the results. Where will the money come from? These are activities well suited as recipients of 'printed' money.
A running archeology-watching joke between my partner, Lori, and myself is..."Now...THAT would make a good garden feature, eh?" Smiles.
Guy: Thank you for your expertise on Romano-British numismatics and archeology. I participate on two websites: One is dedicated to Roman history and the other has a large section focused on ancient numismatics. Could you comment on the fate of the many large numismatic hoards discovered in Britain and elsewhere and that are quickly forgotten or never released for public purchase? (BTW: Despite already having two of your books, it looks like I will need to purchase another. LoL😉 )
Good luck
Former bookseller here. Most books, not just archeology books, wind up discounted, remaindered and finally pulped. 😢
You are completely correct. I write books because I enjoy the research and composition; but I am under no illusions about what happens to most books after a surprisingly short time.
There’s always the hope that the copyright libraries will at least keep their few mandatory copies for posterity…
But with the current bunch of “progressive” nutcases in charge, who knows?
Great to see you Guy. What do you think can be done? about all these books. and your organization not letting people get in to look at stuff.I guess money is more important as always It's truly a shame. how these things are handled.
The Museum sounds like a world on to its own.
I can believe every word to this, but I will add that now that people have iPhones and digital photography and it’s so easy to snap photos you know maybe there’s at least a little hope that at least there’s someway to have some sort of view of some of these things in the future. Someday you’ll probably be able to take a photo with the device that will create a 3-D model of the item and store that in the cloud.
"Populus" is sitting behind me on the bookshelf, waiting for me to finish two other books.
Remember the last scene from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark".
I just found this video and I must say it is a sad tale, but one that must be told. By the end I couldn't help but get a visual of the end of the Indiana Jones movie showing the Ark of the Covenant boxed up and being stored in a massive warehouse, lost to time. Perhaps it would better to leave the majority of this stuff where it lies and simply catalogue what we can? If we don't, the job of future archaeologists will simply be to find out where the old ones stored their finds.
What you describe ( no access to stored material etc) could be mere incompetence on the part of the museum staff, or perhaps they want exclusive rights to publish the site themselves (future work for their own people).
I have a copy of Populus.. A good read so far.
It's the same with all those status chasing academic journal articles. Twenty odd years ago doing a course I knew (through bad guillotining of ancient bound copies at the bindary meaning the leaves were still joined) I was the first hand to touch some, most, bought, bound and shelved years earlier. Truth is there probably no real audience for any of it. I decided then to leave that sort of endeavour alone.
third! didn't see that one coming! thx to the YT algo, much maligned, but yknow, broken clocks twice right I guess
For my clarification, as an American, when you are describing the Great Fire and its destruction to the City of London, are you specifically talking about that approximate 1 square mile of urban area surrounding St. Paul's Cathedral, or had London already begin to "sprawl" out well beyond it "original" confines?
The former.
If you can turn it into a tourist attraction the site will survive. Otherwise, probably not. I think enjoy the fanciful description of future archeology in Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
❤🎉❤ from 🇺🇸
As far as know from a UA-cam video, in this country we have a national repository of field reports. Any report should be submitted to the body maintaining it, and the admission process involves a peer review. The reports get sent back for reworking very often. Probably a similar system could solve the problem of publishing the results of UK digs as well as the problem of expensive books.
I'm not sure to which country you are referring. The main issue in the UK is the colossal number of archaeological digs over many decades with variable resources available for publication, vast quantities of finds that are supposedly in store (causing huge problems for museums), and different ways of publishing sites in various formats over the last few decades. The increasing transition to electronic publishing has reduced costs but also rendered the archives vulnerable to obsolete software and computer hardware. This of course does not apply to 19th and some 20th century archaeological books: you just open them and read them, assuming they haven't turned to dust.
@@ClassCiv Russia. I undertstand that putting the vast legacy of the British archaeological publications in central storage, likely in a digital form, would be a huge and expensive job, but the academic benefit would be similarly immense. There is the technology needed, and Google has been doing well with their scanning books. In any case, setting up new rules for new reports would be much easier and you can always require submitting a hard copy as well. Speaking of the 19th and 20th centuries books, the trick is to know if they went out and where to find them. The computer related difficulties is a matter of proper database maintenance. I think the IT profession is mature enough now to ensure that data losses won't happen and conversions to new data formats are done in due course.
So much for British history. Better to leave it in the back garden. Where it was repectfully buried.
I've seen a similar case, maybe opposite? I'll be told X or Y wasn't around. I go to a museum annnnd there is X and Y items from the time period. On full display.
Or, the other is. Item on display, no information or context.
Archaeology: the discipline of milking sites for artefacts, while milking the funding - season after season after season.
Intriguing and not at all surprising, unfortunately. That statement may seem pessimistic, however, as a 'sleeping in the stacks' veteran I know how easy information is lost. Is it any wonder our historic record is increasing fragmentary. Or, maybe not increasingly, maybe just consistently...over the millennia.
I find this surprising. I guess I assumed that there was an official repository somewhere that stored official reports on archaeological digs. I never realized that 'publication' meant actual published books. I thought there was some sort of standard report format that would be created immediately after the dig and filed with some government agency. The reality that you discuss here is really very sad.
There is absolutely no formal consistency or regularity in the nature of archaeological reports though they tend to conform to similar structures: introduction, summary of findings, descriptions of the various features by chapter, and then the bulk consists of catalogues of finds: pottery, stonework, metal finds, coins, bones etc. This may appear within a few years of the excavation in book form if the site is large, or just as an article in a journal, or take decades to appear, or never at all. It depends on funding, time, and - frankly- whether indifference and indolence intervene. Increasingly, such reports are appearing in electronic format which makes them more readily accessible but by the same token a) they will probably not be read properly and b) they are vulnerable in the long-term to software changes that will render them inaccessible.
This made me very sad.
So basically everything gets lost and forgotten as the people that worked on and remembered those projects pass away and the artifacts go into storage and their history is ultimately forgotten as they are lost or misplaced. Awful!
As depressing as some of this is I hope it at least inspires people to put more thought into how to better preserve history.
So, bureaucracy is alive and well, even in museums. I can just see the smug mug of the desk-jockey who denied the archaeologists' request for access to the material.
If you cant publish the site within a set period, say 3 years, you should not be permitted to dig it.
That's rather depressing and rather ironical from my point of view.
The academic institutions are the wrong guardians of the past. Passionate amateurs do a far better job of videoing / publishing their activities. One hopes archaeology will be made public under guidelines of ethical collecting.
A lot like dinosaurs bones great fun to dig up but years of work that may sit on a rack for more years
Roman stuff in Britain is a side show at best
Just say it has something to do with ancient aliens then amazon and netflix will give you as much money as you want
Bit depressing, this.
Please enable captions.
I'm a university student - may I ask what are those things you keep holding up and behind you and what are these things called 'truths' you keep referring to?
The global elites don't want a past they can't control ........much appreciated!!
Agree my friend, just ask Winston Smith
Academia is not well served by the market.
Comedy of errors....
I must also say though, the way you handle your books makes me cringe for their health and safety! The bending-back of covers, the (inadvertent?) dog-eared page, the stress to the spine... oh my sainted aunt!
@Robert Coleman