The times., 1901-05-23
achievements of the ArchaeoIogist

Achievements of the Archaeological.
1t is reported that the Temple of kar=
max, the greatest temple ever built in
! the world, is to be restored to its origi-
nal form by the French Government
! The building is nearly four thousand
years old, counting the time of its eX
| istence from the time of it's beginning
and it was more than thousand years
| in building. The Pharaoh who op
| pressed the Israelites finished the gil
! gantic structure.
Archaeology as a science is as yet in
its infancy and possibly because of its
somewhat formidable name the general
public has been inclined to be shy of it.
But little is known of the achievements
of archaeologists, outside the scien-
/ tific and literary circles directly inter
ested and concerned in them, but the
world may wake up to discover some
morning in the near future, that the
| patient and thoughtful labor of these
seekers after knowledge has resulted in
the reconstruction of prehistoric
world and a more or less detailed and
fascinating history of the human race.
Since ii ceased to be taken for granted
| that the whole of that history was con-
tanned in the Old Testament-a claim,
by the way, which is nowhere made by
the authors Of the bOok-scientific men
have been eagerly and untiringly seek
ing for circumstantial evidence of that
history. and traces not only Of the life,
| habitat. customs. and character of pre-
historic races, but of their origin and
history as related by themselves It is
the instinct of every civilized race TO
hold and transmit traditions Of its
origin, whether the transmission be
made by word of mouth. by papyri, by
stone carvings, or as in the case of
some Central American tribes, by knot
| ted cords explained by a cipher known
only to the priests. When these tradi-
tions have taken strong hold on the i'm
agination of the people, they are likely
to be found in its art, since the artist
must always find his first and best in
spiration among the ideas and objects
associated with his deepest feeling and
instinct with the imaginative life of his
ancestors.
The archaeologist. therefore, is prac-
ticalIy certain of finding in the art of
primitive or a prehistoric civilized peo-
pie many traces of their history, origin,
and character. II he finds among two
or three apparently distinct stocks the
same tradition, his conclusion inevita-
bly, is that they must have had a com
mon origin. since superimposed civiliza-
tions. in which the ideas and beliefs Of
one people are forced upon another, are
Of comparatively modern times. More
over, travel was not easy in prehistoric
ages, and if. as recent discoveries would
indicate, travellers from Yucatan
crossed to India, upon land connections
now submerged, and took with them
the story of the food, and that Of the
temptation of Eve. the chances are
that the missionaries were in consid-
cradle numbers, and that they staid in
the land of their adoption and mingled
with the inhabitants.
The strange and fascinating history
of prehistoric civilizations is the work
of the archaeologist of the present and
the future-the science has hardly
past From evidence gathered in nearly
every part of the inhabited globe he
must patiently piece together, like a
Chinese puzzle, the record Of men who
lived, loved, fought, thought, labored.
and died ages before Europe was any
thing but wilderness, and whose
primitive struggles with the forces of
the universe and with the developing
powers of their own natures laid the
foundation not only of all science and
art, but of mans knowledge Of the
moral law. Considered in this light,
the conventional Interpretation of Gen
esis seems like a fairy tale, and the
words of the ancient historian, ex-
planned by modern knowledge, take on
a grandeur hitherto unconceived. IT is
no less true that God shaped man out
Of the dust of the earth; only. as we see
it now. the shaping was the work of
uncounted centuries and not of an in
slant.