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Before I went to university to study archaeology, I was given two books that a friend thought would enlighten my future experience. In this, I’m afraid, they were wrong. It seems that the ignorance widely propagated regarding the study of archaeology – that it is either a thrill-seeking hunt for treasure at best, or a practical experiment in the art of scooping and scraping mud out of a hole at worst – may indeed originate from how it is portrayed in the media, and yes, that includes fiction.
While the latter is a view that I myself held, I (with my head hung low in shame) have come to reverse this decision upon learning about the subject in more detail at university. I would like to think that, upon mentioning my choice for a degree, the looks I receive in future years would not be ones of puzzlement, disdain, confusion, or derision as they are at present, but rather ones of understanding, and perhaps even respect. I would not expect this to come from an over-embellishment of the truth of archaeology, rather merely an honest representation of it for one.
It can be seen in films and television – Indiana Jones and Time Team are but the most glaringly obvious examples – reaching an extraordinarily wide audience that see archaeology as a figure of fun, or conversely boredom, that has no bearing on life in reality. In truth, archaeology encompasses the study of the human body, animals, landscapes, buildings, archives, art, religion, relationships, and the whole of human life of any part of the world in any part of the past few thousand years.
This allows students of archaeology to become scientists, art historians, prehistorians, regular historians, philosophers, archivists, and a whole host of other services beyond archaeology itself, and what could be more important than that? I will not reproduce the same clichéd platitudes – we learn about ourselves by learning about the past, or how will we know where we’re going until we know where we’ve been? – however there is something to be said for archaeology, and I believe it is important to say it.
While I do not wish to devalue the potential of archaeological fiction as a genre in its own right, since it does draw much needed attention to the subject, it would be refreshing were it to portray some semblance of reasonable verity when attempting to depict the archaeologist at work. I do allow concessions for poetic license, since the story’s aim is to capture the reader’s attention and hold onto it for the duration of the book. Perhaps it is the cynical eye of an archaeologist that causes my scepticism, but I find my attention slipping to more appealing matters than the pages in my hand, finding their contents much too farfetched and displaced from real life to be of any value. Similarly, the belief that all archaeologists long to wallow in pits of mud as if they were long lost relatives of pygmy hippopotami is equally as unbelievable.
In short, when picking up the latest book about the adventures of an archaeologist escaping cursed ruins in the Far East, solving the crimes of a master criminal and saving the world, or discovering the ever elusive Troy or Atlantis, take each page with a grain of salt, and remember: you don’t always have to believe what you read.
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