ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the origins of biblical archaeology, the sensational discovery of the so-called 'Flood Tablets' from Nineveh, the discovery of Homeric Troy, and the beginnings of scientific archaeological excavation. This realization came in large part from Heinrich Schliemann's sensational discoveries at Troy and Mycenae. He compiled four privately printed volumes, Excavations on Cranborne Chase heavily illustrated books describing every detail of his excavations. Another Englishman, William Matthew Flinders Petrie, first went to Egypt in 1880, just as Pitt Rivers was starting work on Cranborne Chase. Many people started major excavations with virtually no experience at all, among them Arthur John Evans, who discovered the Minoan civilization of Crete in the first major excavation of the twentieth century. The Knossos excavations finally started in 1900, and they continued intermittently for the next 30 years. In 1900, he began excavations at the Palace of Minos at Knossos, and discovered the flamboyant Minoan civilization.
