ABSTRACT
Historians should be concerned with every aspect of the past and archaeologists primarily with non-written aspects of the past; archaeology, while having its own objectives and methodologies, should be considered as a branch of history and, in so far as it involves non-written material, the study of architecture or of art may be defined as archaeological. For many purposes a historian needs to appreciate the archaeologists’ special expertise in order to be able to incorporate their findings into his own historical work, while archaeologists normally need, at least for post-classical periods, to study and employ the written evidence in the planning of their activities and in the interpretation of their findings. Ideally the excavation archaeologist should study the written evidence before defining his objectives and commencing his excavation. That is not always possible, especially in the case of emergency or rescue operations, but on some occasions excavators seem to have dug a site and only thereafter to have consulted the written sources in order to explain their findings.
