ther. It is true that, before he can
refashion the dome or the damsel, he will have to grub his way through
old refuse heaps till he shall lay bare the ruins of the walls and
expose the bones of the lady. But this is the "dirty work"; and the
mistake which is made lies here: that this preliminary dirty work is
confused with the final clean result. An artist will sometimes build up
his picture of Venus from a skeleton bought from an old Jew round the
corner; and the smooth white paper which he uses will have been made
from putrid rags and bones. Amongst painters themselves these facts are
not hidden, but by the public they are most carefully obscured. In the
case of archaeology, however, the tedious details of construction are so
placed in the foreground that the final picture is hardly noticed at
all. As well might one go to Rheims to see men fly, and be shown nothing
else but screws and nuts, steel rods and cog-wheels. Originally the
fault, perhaps, lay with the archaeologist; now it lies both with him and
with the public. The public has learnt to ask to be shown the works, and
the archaeologist is often so proud of them that he forgets to mention
the purpose of the machine.

A Roman statue of bronze, let us suppose, is discovered in the Thames
valley. It is so corroded and eaten away that only an expert could
recognise that it represents a reclining goddess. In this condition it
is placed in the museum, and a photograph of it is published in 'The
Graphic.' Those who come to look at it in its glass case think it is a
bunch of grapes, or possibly a monkey: those who see its photograph say
that it is more probably an irregular catapult-stone or a fish in
convulsions.

The archaeologist alone holds its secret, and only he can see it as it
was. He alone can know the mind of the artist who made it, or interpret
the full meaning of the conception. It might have been expected, then,
that the public would demand, and the archaeologist delightedly furnish,
a model of the figure as near to the original as possible; or, failing
that, a restoration in drawing, or even a worded description of its
original beauty. But no: the public, if it wants anything, wants to see
the shapeless object in all its corrosion; and the archaeologist forgets
that it is blind to aught else but that corrosion. One of the main
duties of the archaeologist is thus lost sight of: his duty as
Interpreter and Remembrancer of the Past.

All the riches of ol