“The Beginning of Archaeology”

Image by Argenberg via Flickr

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Did you know that the first archaeologists were grave robbers?  By the end of the 1700’s, the curiosity about earlier times rapidly grew.  Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, taking some scientists along with him.  They found the Rosetta Stone in 1799 which contained 3 inscriptions.  The Rosetta Stone was a black igneous rock slab bearing the 3 inscriptions dating from the year 196 BC.  This was the most important item used to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs and the foundation of modern Egyptology.  The first inscription was Egyptian hieroglyphic, the second was Egyptian demotic, and third was classical Greek.  By the end of the 1800’s most of the Egyptian inscriptions had been read.   

Before the archaeologists began to work in Egypt, the only record of ancient civilization was the Bible.  The Bible told of many fantastic civilizations of the near East.  Early archaeologists were enticed by Biblical detail and excavated the mounds that are now known as Iraw.  They uncovered ancient civilizations of Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumeria.  These excavations, along with Syria, helped to confirm the historical events described in the Bible.

It has almost been 200 hundred years since the first archaeological research and there has been a change in the ways that the research was previously handled.  Instead of going through the sites to just look for treasure, there are more delicate measures taken today.

Archaeologists first map out the area and only excavate a portion of the site.  Every bit of dirt that comes out of the site is sifted for tiny pieces of artifact that may reveal details of an earlier life. 

Today, the techniques are done with more technology and care than the first archaeologists.  The first so called archaeologists were nothing more than grave robbers, but little did they know that their thievery would catch on to the world as a beneficial tool to help discover and identify civilizations from eons ago.