Archaeology Quotes - Page 2

• You know, many people believe that we archaeologists are just a collection of old fogies digging around in the ruins after old dried up skulls and bones.

  Griffin Jay

  Believe, Skulls, People

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• Dead archaeology is the driest dust that blows.

  Mortimer Wheeler

  Blow, Dust

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• I want to become a student. I want to read Chinese history and go on a dig.

  Lou Gerstner

  Chinese, Goes On, Want

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• The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories...Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Dream, Inspiration, Artist

  "Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons". Book by Igor Stravinsky, 1947.

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• Archaeology is the anthropology of the past, and science fiction is the anthropology of the future.

  Joan D. Vinge

  Past, Fiction, Anthropology

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• American archaeology has always attracted lots of amateurs ... They were digging up Indian pottery all over the place.

  Anthony F. C. Wallace

  Science, America, Digging

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• I teach myself archaeology, I teach myself Spanish, and that's because it can be fun, it can be useful. So I keep studying. I read books because I still want to study. I don't want to stop.

  Philippe Falardeau

  Fun, Book, Want

  "Tribute chats with director of Monsieur Lazhar". Interview with Tribute.ca, www.tribute.ca. March 9, 201.

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• I'm not a believer in the future. The most interesting things are always behind us. I look at everything as archaeology.

  Robert Polidori

  Interesting, Looks, Believer

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• Many years ago, when I was once saying sadly to Max it was a pity I couldn't have taken up archaeology when I was a girl, so as to be more knowledgeable on the subject, he said, 'Don't you realize that at this moment you know more about prehistoric pottery than any woman in England?'

  Agatha Christie

  Girl, Taken, Years

  Agatha Christie (1991). “Agatha Christie: An Autobiography”, Berkley Publishing Group

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• We are opening up an enormous new era in archaeology. Time capsules in the deep oceans.

  John Lehman

  Ocean, Opening Up, Eras

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• Tedious as it may appear to some to dwell on the discovery of odds and ends that have, no doubt, been thrown away by the owner as rubbish ... yet it is by the study of such trivial details that Archaeology is mainly dependent for determining the date of earthworks. ... Next to coins fragments of pottery afford the most reliable of all evidence.

  Augustus Pitt Rivers

  Odds, Discovery, Doubt

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• Archaeology, I found, comprehended all manner of excitement and achievement. Adventure is coupled with bookish toil. Romantic excursions go hand in hand with scholarly self-discipline and moderation. Explorations among the ruins of the remote past have carried curious men all over the face of the earth… Yet in truth, no science is more adventurous than archaeology, if adventure is thought of as a mixture of spirit and deed.

  C. W. Ceram

  Adventure, Past, Men

  "Gods, Graves & Scholars: The Story of Archaeology".

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• We are thrown back on the text, for the most part. Archaeology can give us background. It doesn't either confirm or disprove the Bible, but it may illuminate it.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Giving, May, Backgrounds

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

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• I was a bad student. I liked archaeology actually, I was interested in maybe becoming an archaeologist but I was such a bad student and had such bad grades that I wasn't going to get into any really good college so I fell back on acting.

  Ben Stiller

  College, Acting, Becoming

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• The subject-matter of Archaeology is threefold-the Oral, the Written and the Monumental.

  Charles Thomas Newton

  Science, Past, Matter

  Charles Thomas Newton (2010). “Essays on Art and Archaeology”, p.3, Cambridge University Press

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• We, including many Christians, read the Bible through "eyes" conditioned by, and even accommodated to, modern Western culture plus the influences of messages and ideas from other cultures that are alien to the worldview of the biblical writers. Therefore, in order fully to understand the Bible and allow the Bible to absorb the world (rather than the world - culture - absorb the Bible) we must practice an "archaeology" of the biblical writers' implicit, assumed view of reality.

  Roger E. Olson

  Christian, Eye, Biblical

  Source: www.biblegateway.com

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• What's interesting in archaeology is that we always understand other cultures by digging up their cities; architecture is almost always a way for us to formulate a diagram of how people used to live.

  Jimenez Lai

  Other Cultures, Cities, Interesting

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• If all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the sepulcher of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried, was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered in literary sources, epigraphy, or archaeology that would disprove this statement.

  Paul L. Maier

  Jesus, Easter, Morning

  Paul L. Maier (1991). “In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church”, p.203, Kregel Publications

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• I always was going to be a writer. The other jobs were just to keep me in food. Though I enjoyed the archaeology.

  Catherine Fisher

  Jobs, Enjoyed

  "Incarceron Author Catherine Fisher on Writing Her Prison Novel". Interview with Maryann Yin, www.adweek.com. December 23, 2010.

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• I could write a treatise on the sudden transformation of life into archaeology

  Zbigniew Herbert

  Writing, Transformation

  Zbigniew Herbert, John Carpenter, Bogdana Carpenter (1985). “Raport z oblezonego miasta i inne wiersze”, Ecco Pr

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• On the whole … archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the Scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine. Archaeology has in many cases refuted the views of modern critics.

  Millar Burrows

  Views, Reliability, Records

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• For me archaeology is not a source of illustrations for written texts, but an independent source of historical information, with no less value and importance, sometimes more importance, that the written sources.

  Michael Rostovtzeff

  Independent, Illustration, Historical

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• 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

  Years, People, Interesting

  Karl Pilkington (2010). “An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington”, p.15, Canongate Books

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• Oral myths are closer to the genetic conclusions than the often ambiguous scientific evidence of archaeology.

  Bryan Sykes

  Evidence, Ambiguous, Myth

  Bryan Sykes (2007). “Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Many of those who scoff at the trustworthiness of the Bible do so completely overlooking the fact that thousands of archaeological discoveries have affirmed the historical reliability of the Bible.

  Charlie Campbell

  Discovery, Historical, Facts

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