Quotes & Sayings About Archaeology And History

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

They went to Italy. Neither of them cared in the smallest degree for sculpture, architecture, painting, archaeology, poetry, history, politics, scenery, languages, or foreigners. — F.M. Mayor

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

I love a mysterious underground and have exploited this in many of my books: the ice tunnels of Greenland, the volcanic tubes of Iceland, the mysterious passageways beneath an ancient African hillside or a Buddhist monastery in central China. And of course, London's famous tube system, setting for my book LONDON UNDERGROUND. It's a funny sort of fixation, especially given my mother's claustrophobia, which I saw her deal with on many occasions. We once lined up to take a tour into the Lascaux Caverns in France to see the ancient cave paintings. My mother didn't make it past the first quirky turn into the depths, and she sent me on by myself. Given her interest in history and archaeology, which she used as the basis for a series of mysteries she published and which inspired my own writing, it always surprised me she still loved to write about places she could never visit. — Chris Angus

It's interesting to see that people had so much clutter even thousands of years ago. The only way to get rid of it all was to bury it, and then some archaeologist went and dug it all up. — Karl Pilkington

Statements that will hold good for all time are difficult to obtain in archaeology. The most that can be done at any one time is to report on the current state of knowledge. — Jennifer K. McArthur

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

Human history has become too much a matter of dogma taught by 'professionals' in ivory towers as though it's all fact. Actually, much of human history is up for grabs. The further back you go, the more that the history that's taught in the schools and universities begins to look like some kind of faerie story. — Graham Hancock

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

History may be accurate, but archaeology is precise. — Doug Scott

History is the archaeology of the present and future. — Patrick Mendis

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 must learn, and we are gradually learning, how to write history with the help of archaeology. — Michael Rostovtzeff

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.

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

[ ... ] 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

See,' said (Liberty Hyde) Bailey, 'how the leaves of this small plant stand forth extended to bathe themselves in the light ... THese leaves will die. They will rot. They will disappear into the universal mold. The energy that is in them will be released to reappear, the ions to act again, perhaps in the corn on the plain, perhaps in the body of a bird. The atoms and the ions remain or resurrect; the forms change and flux. We see the forms and mourn the change. We think all is lost; yet nothing is lost. The harmony of life is never ending.' The economy of nature provides that nothing be lost. — Russell Lord

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

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

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

Analysis of soil, grave goods and skeletons has been key to our understanding of archaeology and the migration of peoples, as well as their daily lives. But in mainstream history, we tend to stick to documents. — Kate Williams

I am convinced that the stratigraphic method will in the future enable archaeology to throw far more light on the history of American culture than it has done in the past. — Edward Sapir

Archaeological discoveries made in Egypt and in the Near East in the past hundred years have opened our eyes to a spiritual and cultural heritage undreamed of by earlier generations. — Samuel Noah Kramer

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

Nobody brings ancient history and archaeology to life like Adrienne Mayor. From the Russian steppes to China, and from Roman Egypt and Arabia to the Etruscans, she leads the reader on a breathtaking quest for the real ancient warrior women reflected in myths
their daring, archery, tattoos, fine horses, and independence from male control. The book's rich erudition, communicated in sparkling prose and beautiful illustrations, makes it a riveting read. — Edith Hall