0:00:00 > 0:00:00British Archaeology Collection: Sir Mortimer & Magnus 6 LMA Y606S
0:00:43 > 0:00:46Now, these aerial photographs
0:00:46 > 0:00:49that led to your last great discovery in Pakistan,
0:00:49 > 0:00:52this is part of the new technology that arose in archaeology
0:00:52 > 0:00:54this century, which didn't exist
0:00:54 > 0:00:56when you started off as an archaeologist.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59None of these existed at the turn of the century.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01Does this mean that archaeology today is a vastly different
0:01:01 > 0:01:04kind of thing than it was when you were starting out?
0:01:04 > 0:01:08No, it doesn't mean, of course, that archaeology has altered at heart.
0:01:08 > 0:01:09It's the same purpose.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12You said, I think, when you were talking to me once,
0:01:12 > 0:01:16that I wrote about men, it being about men, not about things.
0:01:16 > 0:01:18Well, that was always the case.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21But it is interesting that you could almost
0:01:21 > 0:01:24put your finger on an absolute date,
0:01:24 > 0:01:26at which everything changed in archaeology.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29- Everything technologically changed. - When was that?
0:01:29 > 0:01:31I'll tell you, I'll tell you.
0:01:31 > 0:01:32It happened in 1949.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37I'd just come back from the East and for some reason or other
0:01:37 > 0:01:42I found myself having dinner in hall at Christchurch in Oxford
0:01:42 > 0:01:46and with me was a man called OGS Crawford, very well known in his day.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50A man of high intelligence and knowledge.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53And we sat there and afterwards went into the common room.
0:01:55 > 0:01:59And there looking around, at a corner was a man whose face I knew.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03Finally I discovered who he was.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06He was a man who had been called Lindemann,
0:02:06 > 0:02:10a Professor of Physics at Oxford,
0:02:10 > 0:02:14and had been made a peer by Churchill and was now Lord Cherwell.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16There he was sitting quietly at the corner.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20Well, I'd met him before. I knew him in the old days a bit.
0:02:20 > 0:02:22I went up and sat down beside him, and we talked.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26He'd just come back from America, from Chicago, in particular.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30And he'd just heard of some of the details, or many of the details,
0:02:30 > 0:02:34of a new method called radiocarbon analysis,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37which would enable archaeologists
0:02:37 > 0:02:41with scientific aid, in future, to date...
0:02:41 > 0:02:44more or less date events in human history
0:02:44 > 0:02:47back all 50,000 years or more.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53And he told me about it, he gave me a very good idea.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56He might have been taking a little domestic tutorial.
0:02:56 > 0:03:02And as we walked back across Oxford, Crawford and I,
0:03:02 > 0:03:05to the college we were staying that night,
0:03:05 > 0:03:08he turned to me and said, "What a scoop! What a scoop!"
0:03:08 > 0:03:10And it was a scoop.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13It came out in the next number of a quarterly publication
0:03:13 > 0:03:15called Antiquity, which was edited by Crawford.
0:03:15 > 0:03:21And for the first time, in this country, in the West,
0:03:21 > 0:03:24Western Europe, something was known
0:03:24 > 0:03:27about this revolutionary new method
0:03:27 > 0:03:30that's being called the radiocarbon revolution.
0:03:30 > 0:03:311949.
0:03:31 > 0:03:36One great advantage of this, from the point of view of the layman,
0:03:36 > 0:03:38quite apart from the archaeologist,
0:03:38 > 0:03:42was that the layman could begin to see pre-history in terms of,
0:03:42 > 0:03:44more or less, absolute calendar years.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48Not "This was late Stone Age or Bronze Age or Iron Age".
0:03:48 > 0:03:50You were able to say, "This was 2500 BC,"
0:03:50 > 0:03:57and people find it far more easy to put things into a perspective
0:03:57 > 0:03:59if they have calendar dates.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01Oh, yes, it enables you,
0:04:01 > 0:04:06not only to put a local series of events into perspective,
0:04:06 > 0:04:08the history of England and so on,
0:04:08 > 0:04:12but it enables you to compare the history of one country with another.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16- Because the Bronze Age changed as it went around the world.- Yes, exactly.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19Well, does all this mean that archaeology today has become
0:04:19 > 0:04:21much more scientific?
0:04:21 > 0:04:24It's put on a white coat and it's in the laboratory
0:04:24 > 0:04:26and it's all sterile now, there isn't room for the same kind
0:04:26 > 0:04:29of creative flights of imagination of the past.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32I wouldn't say that a white coat is necessarily sterile.
0:04:32 > 0:04:34Sterilised.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36I don't quite see the connection.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39Anyway, it has to a certain extent, I suppose.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42In the sense in which you're using the term.
0:04:42 > 0:04:46It's become more and more technological, more scientific,
0:04:46 > 0:04:50with advantages and disadvantages.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53These newer technologies, not merely the one I've been referring to,
0:04:53 > 0:05:00radiocarbon, but other parallel disciplines, scientific disciplines.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04They've all combined to give a new sort of precision
0:05:04 > 0:05:07to events and cultures and ages,
0:05:07 > 0:05:10which previously were a matter of guesswork.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13What are the disadvantages, then?
0:05:13 > 0:05:15The disadvantages are these.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18I've seen a good many young generations grow up
0:05:18 > 0:05:22in the course of my time. But...
0:05:22 > 0:05:27In particular, what I call this post-scientific generation,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30the generation since 1949,
0:05:30 > 0:05:34the last quarter of a century, roughly.
0:05:37 > 0:05:42The study of man has become more and more tied to technologies.
0:05:43 > 0:05:49Technologies are easier by and large to acquire a knowledge of,
0:05:49 > 0:05:54an experience of, than the old-fashioned disciplines,
0:05:54 > 0:05:56the old-fashioned humanities.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59And the result is that the old-fashioned humanities
0:05:59 > 0:06:01are getting thinner and thinner,
0:06:01 > 0:06:04the technology's getting thicker and thicker
0:06:04 > 0:06:11and is overlying the old humanities to a very remarkable degree.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15And we're getting now a new generation of students of man
0:06:15 > 0:06:17and mankind in perspective...
0:06:18 > 0:06:23..which sometimes, to my thinking forgets the man, again.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26When one looks back to the origins of archaeology,
0:06:26 > 0:06:29you realise just what a very young subject it is.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32It's only just about 100 years ago since the great Heinrich Schliemann
0:06:32 > 0:06:34was finishing his excavations of Troy.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39Which, you might say, was the start of major archaeology.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43And that, presumably, was the first really big excavation
0:06:43 > 0:06:46to seize public attention.
0:06:46 > 0:06:48Now, it's not possible to have digs like this any more
0:06:48 > 0:06:51and I for one regret this.
0:06:51 > 0:06:55I'm not quite sure that I agree with you that it's not possible.
0:06:55 > 0:07:03In 1923, or thereabouts, that man who wrote romantic stories
0:07:03 > 0:07:06- and became Governor General of Canada...- Oh, John Buchan.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09John Buchan, wrote a book, The End of Discovery,
0:07:09 > 0:07:11or some title of that kind.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15He thought that in 1923 - if that is the exact date, about then -
0:07:15 > 0:07:18that the Age of Discovery was past.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23Well, now, we're in 1973 or more
0:07:23 > 0:07:26and we're still discovering
0:07:26 > 0:07:28and we're going on discovering.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31We're just opening up new ways of discovery,
0:07:31 > 0:07:33new methods of discovery.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36Yes, but compared with the archaeologists of today,
0:07:36 > 0:07:39Schliemann does seem to have been much larger than life, somehow.
0:07:39 > 0:07:41He was, he was larger than life.
0:07:41 > 0:07:48And people today think that publicity in science,
0:07:48 > 0:07:53or particularly in archaeology, perhaps, is a modern invention.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56It is a by-product, to a large extent,
0:07:56 > 0:08:00of things like television and broadcasting and so on.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03Of course, it owes an enormous amount to television and broadcasting,
0:08:03 > 0:08:07an enormous amount. There are new means, new methods, new channels.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10But if you look back to the literature
0:08:10 > 0:08:12the day in which Schliemann worked,
0:08:12 > 0:08:19way back, as I think I said, in 1873,
0:08:19 > 0:08:23when he finished Troy, he was welcomed abroad,
0:08:23 > 0:08:27including this country, like royalty.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30He and his wife, his beautiful Greek wife,
0:08:30 > 0:08:33arrayed very often in Trojan jewellery,
0:08:33 > 0:08:35which she borrowed for the purpose.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37They were received over here
0:08:37 > 0:08:40and I have some of the contemporary accounts here
0:08:40 > 0:08:43in which a crowd in...
0:08:43 > 0:08:50I remember the date, in 8th June 1877,
0:08:50 > 0:08:52a crowd assembled. And everybody -
0:08:52 > 0:08:55it gives a list of those who were present,
0:08:55 > 0:09:00including, of course, Mr Gladstone, that well-known Homeric student.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02Who sat in the front row.
0:09:03 > 0:09:08And they all welcomed, in particular, Mrs Schliemann, who was to give them
0:09:08 > 0:09:12an address upon the importance of Greece and of Greek things.
0:09:12 > 0:09:18And there were replies or additions by Schliemann himself
0:09:18 > 0:09:23and then there was a little passage of arms
0:09:23 > 0:09:29between Schliemann and Gladstone.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32- Do you mind if I tell you about it? - Go ahead, I don't know this story.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35I've got here the contemporary records.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38I won't burden you with the whole lot, but they are interesting.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43What happened was that after Mrs Schliemann had been welcomed,
0:09:43 > 0:09:47Dr Schliemann got up and said that the Greeks
0:09:47 > 0:09:51owed a great deal of their appreciation of the human form
0:09:51 > 0:09:55to the fact that they went about without any clothes on.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58Owing largely to the excellent climate,
0:09:58 > 0:10:00civilized climate, shall we say.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03Well, while this was going on, this conversation,
0:10:03 > 0:10:05or this dialogue was going on,
0:10:05 > 0:10:10it was observed that Mr Gladstone in the front row
0:10:10 > 0:10:12was getting more and more uneasy.
0:10:14 > 0:10:15The points of his famous collar
0:10:15 > 0:10:19began to project further and further towards the enemy.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24And finally, he leapt up to his feet
0:10:24 > 0:10:29and said that he protested against his attribution of the skill
0:10:29 > 0:10:31of the Greek artists
0:10:31 > 0:10:34to the fact that nudity was prevalent in Ancient Greece.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39He was perfectly certain that the Ancient Greeks
0:10:39 > 0:10:45were modest people, that they were properly clad, and so on.
0:10:45 > 0:10:51Well, this went on, and there were the brewings of a little storm.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53A little more or less academic storm.
0:10:53 > 0:10:57But Mr Gladstone took that kind of thing extremely seriously
0:10:57 > 0:10:59and he said what he had to say.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03Well, it boiled down to this -
0:11:03 > 0:11:09that in Greek times, the women went about naked,
0:11:09 > 0:11:13or were shown as going about naked by the sculptors and the painters.
0:11:13 > 0:11:18Men were probably clothed, of course, the men were, but the women were not.
0:11:19 > 0:11:21A regrettable circumstance.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26Well, now, of course they were both utterly wrong.
0:11:26 > 0:11:31They were both going up their own little tracks, you know.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35Gladstone along the path of Puritanism
0:11:35 > 0:11:40and Schliemann along the path of liberty,
0:11:40 > 0:11:42exposure and so on.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46It's rather nice to know that great men like Schliemann
0:11:46 > 0:11:48- and Gladstone could make great mistakes.- Oh, yes.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52They took it all very seriously. Very seriously.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56And nowadays we take serious things lightly.
0:11:56 > 0:11:58They took light things seriously.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02It's very curious, that difference in outlook and temperament.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06But my point, my starting point was this.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09That in the time of Schliemann,
0:12:09 > 0:12:12way back in the '70s of the 19th century,
0:12:12 > 0:12:18publicity had already been attracted, deliberately attracted
0:12:18 > 0:12:22to archaeological discoveries.
0:12:22 > 0:12:27And Schliemann's discoveries at Troy were heard about all over the world
0:12:27 > 0:12:32in regular press communicae, which he distributed for the purpose.
0:12:32 > 0:12:37And later on again, go 50 years later, Tutankhamen...
0:12:38 > 0:12:46Same thing. Tutankhamen was made known to the millions by the press.
0:12:46 > 0:12:51There was no television in those days, in 1922.
0:12:51 > 0:12:52Well, you yourself were a dab hand
0:12:52 > 0:12:56at harnessing the media for archaeological purposes.
0:12:56 > 0:13:00I did it deliberately, just as Schliemann did it deliberately.
0:13:00 > 0:13:02He had to create his public.
0:13:02 > 0:13:08I had to create my public, perhaps from different motives from his.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11Because it was the way of attracting interest
0:13:11 > 0:13:14or attracting funds for research.
0:13:15 > 0:13:20And the way in which in the '20s and the '30s I attracted funds,
0:13:20 > 0:13:23and very considerable funds, for research for St Albans
0:13:23 > 0:13:27or Verulamium or Maiden Castle or what have you,
0:13:27 > 0:13:31was by popularising it. By making people interested.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35By attracting people to visit these places,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38talking to them on the site in language that they would understand.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41So that the local charwoman understood what she was looking at.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45And if you can interest the local charwoman, two things follow.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50First of all, the local charwoman tells her friends, very volubly.
0:13:50 > 0:13:56Secondly, it means that you express yourself articulately,
0:13:56 > 0:14:00which is the beginning of the whole business, really.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03You express yourself articulately,
0:14:03 > 0:14:07in language which the general public can understand.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10I'm a great admirer of the general public,
0:14:10 > 0:14:12a great worshiper of the general public.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14I depend upon the general public.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16The general public today, although it doesn't know it,
0:14:16 > 0:14:18provides practically all the funds
0:14:18 > 0:14:23which are expended all over the country, day by day, on archaeology.
0:14:23 > 0:14:28Give the poor fellow who's paying his taxes a little bit for his money.