A science can hardly be said to exist until it has a developed system of work, and its possibilities of value for teaching purposes depend entirely on the organization of its methods. Geology was a chaos before the generalisation of the successive order of the strata, and the method of the determination of a stratum by its fossils, gave the subject a working system. Astronomy was a maze until the Newtonian laws produced methods of analysis. Chemistry could not be said to have any methods until the use of the balance and the theory of atomic combination made possible the last century of development. So far, archaeology cannot be said to have systematised any working methods except those of artistic comparison and of epigraphy, and these can only cover a small part of the space and time which need to be studied.

Two general modes of work, however, have been begun, beside that of artistic comparison; and it only needs that they should be fully carried out in order to produce a thoroughly systematic archaeology. These methods are (1) the complete definition of facts by means of a corpus of all known varieties of objects, in terms of which every object can be defined; and (2) the arrangement of material in its order of development by statistical methods and comparison, which bring out the original sequence of construction. These two methods of work may prove to be, for archaeology, what the balance and atomic theory have been for chemistry,—the necessary foundation for systematic knowledge and exact theory.

The collection of known objects in a corpus was well done by the early systematisers, especially Montfaucon; and though his work is nearly two centuries old, it has not yet been superseded by better productions in every department. Since that appeared, the mass of new material which has been collected, especially in the last fifty years, cannot be mastered by one man, if he is ever to find time for original work; and the whole subject is near coming to a standstill owing to the dead weight of preparations which are required before going further. Until a generation of systematisers shall arise, archaeology can scarcely progress without continual waste of material and loss by duplication of work. Moreover, there is no general reference work, and no notation efficient for recording new discoveries.

What is now urgently needed is for some scholars to each take one branch of work, to collect all that is known, especially of dated material; and then to publish all type examples, showing how the subject varied from century to century, and to attach a system of letters and numbers to every variety, so that any specimen can be denoted merely by its corpus number. This should be done at least for all implements of stone and of metal, all pottery, all stone and metal vases, all beads and personal ornaments, jewellery, clothing, domestic utensils, and all motives of design and ornamentation.

With such a definite notation once laid down, it would be possible to record discoveries, and especially groups of objects, rapidly and in a small compass. It would also be possible to compile results of excavations and the contents of museums in simple indices. In order to work systematically in archaeology we ought to be able to look in an index and find at once where, and of what epoch, is every instance of a particular object: say, of a key, type M 27, or of a vase, type D 64. Such indices should be continued by supplements issued every ten or twenty years. At present, if one would ascertain the parallels to a particular form, it is necessary to search through hundreds of volumes and to visit all the museums—a matter of months of work. Progress in archaeology, as an exact science, is practically impossible; it should be easy and rapid, were all the known material always to be found at once in a corpus and indices.

Only one corpus has yet been formed, and that is restricted to only one country, one period, and one material—the prehistoric pottery of Egypt (see Nagada and Diospolis Parva). An outline of the system there followed will serve to show the actual working of a corpus, though for each different subject the details will need separate consideration. The whole of this pottery comprises about a thousand varieties. Each class of pottery is denoted by its initial letter; P for polished, B for black-topped, etc. Each form in a class is numbered, from 1 to 99, and each sub-variety is lettered. Thus R 63 c means rough pottery, type 63, variety c; and this completely defines the example. The numbers are not always continuous, but gaps in the series are left where there is much difference between the forms. In this manner it is possible to add new forms without upsetting the system, and new sub-varieties can be brought in by using small letters. The forms are best classified by beginning with the most open and flat dishes, and proceeding to the most closed forms, with narrow necks ending. The point of reaching verticality in the sides is a well-defined middle point.

The practical utility of such a corpus is found at once when excavating. Formerly it was needful to keep dozens of broken specimens, which were of no value except for the fact of being found along with other vases. Now the excavator merely needs to look over the corpus of plates, and writes down on the plan of the tomb, say, B 23, P 35 b, C 15, F 72, thus the whole record is made, and not a single piece need be kept unless it is a good specimen. How essential such a record is for future progress we shall see below.

The most obvious step now would be to corporate all the pottery of Italy. A corpus from Pompeii would be the best starting-point, as being all of one period and well dated; then a corpus of Constantinian forms, a corpus of Republican forms, and a corpus of each of the prehistoric periods. The early history of the Forum at Rome hangs now upon the safety of little groups of potsherds lying in a shed, yet unclassed and unstudied, and certain to be swept away some day by some one who does not value them. Instead of this we ought to have a corpus for reference, and then the contents of each of the archaic wells could be at once denoted and published by the numbers of the types; the historic material would be safe, and could be studied at any future time irrespective of the conservation of the heaps of sherds. Carry this out in Greece, and, instead of piles of pottery lying in the fields or on the terraces of a classical site from the prehistoric town levels, each piece could be noted by its number, and all could be published to make the history of the site accessible. Without a corpus such discoveries are but a pathetic destruction of material; with corpus notation they would form the basis of a thorough history of the site and of all its changes.

All that is needed to produce a corpus from a collection is a month or two of work by a draughtsman, who has an accurate eye for form, working to a uniform scale, and systematising the material conveniently for future reference. Some subjects would require collecting from many sources, but generally all the pottery of one period can be found together in one museum.

We now turn to the second method for archaeological research. This is the synthetical arrangement of the material in the original order. The most obvious arrangement is that by contemporary dating, as by years named in a chronicle or on coins, or by successive reigns of kings. But outside of this method there yet lies the greater part of human history, which can only be reconstructed by some internal evidence of successive periods.

A couple of generations ago there were laid down the main divisions of successive ages of stone, bronze, and iron; and then the division of the stone age into palaeolithic and neolithic. After that followed the separation of palaeolithic into four main periods in France, more or less applicable to other lands. Further definition was yet found to be necessary, and the neolithic and bronze ages were marked off into many classes, which had to be distinguished by the names of places where they were first found; and thus we reach a multitude of names, such as Mycenaean, Hallstattian, the period of La TÈne, etc. Such a piecemeal plan is well enough for a beginning; but it is not capable of exact definition, it is cumbersome, and it does not express the relation of one period to another.

Before we can think of subdividing a period into a continuous notation, the first requisite is to be able to place the material into its original order or sequence. Let us suppose some old country mansion, where it has been the habit to close permanently any room in which an owner had died, and leave everything in it undisturbed. If we went through such a series of rooms we could not doubt their order of date if we looked at their contents. The William IV room could not be put to the middle of George III’s reign; the George II room could not be supposed to go between those of James II and Anne. Each room full of furniture would have some links of style with that of the generation before, and of the generation after it, and no real doubt could exist as to the sequence of the whole series. What is true of a room full of furniture is equally true of a grave full of pottery. If we compare together a series of groups of pottery which are not separated by any long time, there will always be found some relationship between the forms in different groups: one group will be seen to fall between two others if it contains forms to be found in each of the other groups, though these others may have nothing in common together. A fragment of the alphabet, K L M N O P, must fall between H I J K L and O P Q R, and proves their connection.

Thus if each form lasted in use for a uniform length of time the problem would be fairly simple. But it is complicated by the plainer forms lasting far longer in use than the complex or highly decorated forms; some may go on being made for a thousand years, others may not have been made for even ten years. Hence it is needful to resort to various statistical modes of sorting, which differ in each case. A complete instance of the process is given in Diospolis Parva, pp. 4–8.

On the other hand, the sorting of material is greatly helped by any clear series of forms derived one from the other; especially a series of degradation, and reduction of useful elements to mere ornament. It is well, however, to have a check on one end of a series, by connecting it to known times, so as to prove which way it proceeds.

What notation should be used to express a series of sequences must vary with conditions. Where we can deal with a larger number—many hundreds—of good graves, each containing plenty of material, then a scale of equal numbers of graves is perhaps the fairest that can be taken. Thus for a scale of sequence dates, for the pottery named above, I adopted 50 numbers, each representing 20 graves.

The final result is to express the time-range of each type of pottery and of other objects in the graves in terms of the scale of sequence of the tombs. Thus the date of certain forms may be stated as 33–42 sequence date; 37–70 sequence date; 45–48 sequence date, etc. And when this is once established it is easy to date all further graves by arranging the dates of each object found in a grave, for instance in actual cases:—

The larger the group the more closely it is dated, by reason of the various forms having a very small common ground of dating.

This system enables us to deal with material which is entirely undated otherwise; and the larger the quantity of it the more accurate are the results. There is no reason now why prehistoric ages, from which there are groups of remains, should not be dealt with as surely and clearly as the historic ages with recorded dates.

Yet another all-important matter for the systematic archaeology of the future must be here mentioned, especially as it greatly affects the future schemes of field-work. The first requirement for systematic work of study is material sufficient to work on. And to provide this there must be both discovery and conservation. During the last century there has been a gradual growth of archaeological perception; and in place of only caring for beautiful and striking objects there has arisen some interest in whatever can throw light on the past civilisations. But unhappily the ideas of conservation have not kept pace with the work of discovery. The present system of museums is the most serious bar to the progress of archaeology. The building, which is the mere modern shell, of no interest, and often of no beauty, is the master of the collection, which is restrained and crippled by such conditions that its use is impaired and its growth is stopped. The past is vanishing before our modern changes yearly and daily. There is ever less and less to preserve. And everything possible must be garnered before it has entirely vanished. The present has its most serious duty to history in saving the past for the benefit of the future.

In a museum the collection is the essential; the building is the mere accident of the surroundings of the collection, and it should completely conform to all the requirements. Yet can it be believed that, even in the last year or two, enormous national museums—as at Cairo and Brussels—have been built without the smallest regard to the collection, or the opinions of the curators? The result at Cairo is the most deplorable sacrifice of the art and history of a great country to the follies and childish vanity of an incompetent and unsympathetic architect. We will not stay to detail the entire unsuitability of that building in style, form, size, and lighting; the constructive questions of what is needed for a proper museum are our subject.

After the common purpose of all buildings—security from man and nature—the first requirements in a museum are lighting and grouping. Whatever interferes with these is a detriment which should be avoided or removed. Lighting must be (1) direct, not from reflection by walls; (2) full, but not dazzling; (3) in exactly the right direction. Of all the precious statues of antiquity there is not one that has had a tenth of its value spent on the best lighting possible. Most are in hopelessly bad positions, as the Aphrodite of Melos in a weak, diffused, sidelight; and none have the simplest blinds to change the direction of the light, so as to study the surface in varying lighting. To know what a figure requires, only take a fine statuette in the hand, and try what can be made of it by the variation of direction, obliquity, and amount of lighting. Then see how hopeless it is to know a statue in one fixed lighting, even if that be suitable. The only person competent to arrange the lighting of objects, and especially statuary, is a successful photographer who has well practised the lighting of portable figures. An almost vertical light is essential for all human figures in the round or flat; but it needs most delicate adjustment to bring out the more important modelling, and many different directions of light to shew all that there is in the work. What is true of statuary is true in a lesser degree of every other object. No other qualities can possibly atone for defects of lighting in a museum. No building with a bad light can be called properly a museum; it may be an architect’s triumph, a civic ornament, a costly patchwork, a marvel of folly, but a museum it is not, if it is unfit for the first requirements of a collection.

The second great requirement, that of grouping, includes the intelligent display of objects so as to shew their relation to each other in development, their connection as found together, the preservation of the whole of the material that should be preserved, and its comparison by means of casts.

The relation of objects in development requires free space in a museum, and the absence of any pinching consideration of how to utilise every square foot. Their connection as found together in tombs and groups also requires free space, more than is yet to be had in any English museum. The preservation of the whole of the needful material is still more utterly beyond the limits of any of the present museums. Every year a great deal of entirely irreplaceable material is thrown away, or neglected on the spot, because there is no hope whatever of preserving it. In the British Museum space costs several pounds a square foot, and only objects of great value can be reasonably preserved there. We are driven, then, to the conclusion that the progress of archaeology and the preservation of the past, as it comes into our hands year by year, is essentially a question of free space. And that is practically entirely a question of cheap space. To refuse to preserve anything that is not worth some pounds per square foot, is the death of archaeology; and yet such are the necessary conditions in our present museums, however much we may expand them in their costly conditions. If we once think of what the condition of affairs will be fifty years hence, when many periods and places will be exhausted, and yet nothing but showy objects are preserved, we see that the future knowledge of archaeology is helplessly bound up in the question of our immediate expansion of conservation.

We see then how absolutely necessary for archaeology and ethnology it is to have a National Repository, where the cost of space shall never be detrimental to the collection. I need not enter on the details of how such a repository could be carried out, as I have fully discussed them at the British Association, and the Society of Arts (see Jour. S.A. No. 2, 478, price 6d.); but an outline of the conditions and cost will shew the practicability of the proposal. All objects of value to a thief should be kept in the strong custody of city museums; but the great majority of specimens that should be preserved are too bulky or too unsaleable to be stolen, beside casts which no one would steal, and such do not, therefore, need more than general supervision. A square mile of land, within an hour’s journey from London, should be secured; and built over with uniform plain brickwork and cement galleries, at the rate of 20,000 square feet a year, so providing 8 miles of galleries 50 feet wide in a century, with room yet for several centuries of expansion at the same rate. A staff of about 30 persons would suffice to arrange the new material at this rate; and having abundant space, no time would be wasted by frequent shifting of old material. Everything should be photographically registered as it came in. Glass should be placed over all objects which can deteriorate; but the amount of dirt would be a minimum in the country, and with the air-supply filtered from dust.

The total cost of land, building, materials, and staff would be covered by a budget of £10,000 a year. And this is the normal increase of the British Museum budget every four years. Hence if the British Museum were to find room by clearing out objects which are not liable to be stolen, for a few years, and placing them in the Repository, the cost of the Repository would be paid for to all time. A mere retardation of growth of the British Museum for five or ten years would entirely make up for the cost of the Repository twenty times its size. That this provision is perfectly practicable is not denied; that it would be far cheaper than continued expansion in highly expensive conditions is certain; and that it is essential for the growth of archaeology and ethnology is sadly obvious. Let us hope that if we are too hide-bound in England to grasp the new conditions of research, that at least in America some one will provide such a storehouse for all time; where some day the history of the world may be studied, when we have hopelessly lost the chance of preserving what might at present be had for the asking. If we are to make up our minds to ignore and lose what is now being lost and destroyed every year owing to our ignorance and blindness, we must look to the New World to rescue from our misuse the material we now throw away, and so preserve the history of mankind.