ABSTRACT
I h e word “archaeology” is commonly used in several senses. To some, it is the general study of antiquity as a whole, the study of life as it was within selected limits of time in a selected region. In this sense we speak of Greek or Roman or Mediaeval archaeology. Others limit archaeology more strictly to the study of the material remains of antiquity. I have even heard it described as “ technology in the past tense” ; for as technology is concerned with the ways in which man satisfies material needs by material means, so archaeology is the comparative study of such craftsmanship in bygone times. Others again, realizing as we all do that the strictly technological view does not accord with modern practice, would extend the definition to include the study of the ways in which man has satisfied his aesthetic needs also by some material means. Archaeology in this context becomes, or at least includes, the past tense of art-criticism. The material for such criticism necessarily includes all those examples of craftsmanship, however utilitarian, which have an artistic or aesthe tic quality as well as mere utility. Buildings, for example, or metal work, or vessels of clay or glass, may be themselves beautiful and characteristic achievements of artists brought up in a particular set of social and geographical conditions. But it includes also “works of art” in the special sense that their aesthetic aim dominates or even obliterates all considerations of usefulness.
