No one could wish for a more auspicious initiation into the world of archaeology than Frederik Sehested (PL. LX). He was 20 when the greatest gold treasure in Denmark was found on the family estate of Broholm, and it was largely through the efforts of his mother and himself that the treasure was saved. It must have been a great moment when he accompanied his mother to Copenhagen and witnessed the handing over of the treasure into the hands of the by then famous C. J. Thomsen in the rooms in Christiansborg Castle which housed the still infant Museum of Northern Antiquities. Many years later Sehested (1878) wrote a sober account of the event but the excitement still remained with him and couldn’t be drained from the account. The reader gets a lively impression of the atmosphere on the estate during those spring days of 1838.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. ELIOT

Introduction

Think of Scotland. The chances are that what springs to mind is a picture of mountains, lochs, glens and coasts — an outstanding natural heritage which uplifts the spirit and overflows the pages of the tourist brochures. Paradoxically, though, modern Scotland has an urban heart, with its people, the lifeblood of its economy and its cultural centres all concentrated in the towns and cities. Scotland is fortunate in the quantity and quality of its historic towns, with a preponderance of small and medium-sized towns, many of which escaped the insensitive 1960s and 1970s redevelopment so eloquently lamented elsewhere. Even Scotland’s cities are small by English standards; the population of Glasgow, our largest city, was about 650,000 in the 1991 census, and Dundee, the smallest (before Inverness’s elevation), only about 165,000. Today some 80% of the total population of around 5,000,000 live and work in towns and cities.

It is now ten years since the French archaeological expedition under M. Claude Schaeffer first started digging at Ras Shamra, on the north coast of Syria. The present is therefore a suitable moment in which to take stock of what has so far been discovered.

Our best point of departure is provided by the series of annual volumes in which the excavator’s reports and the epigraphists’ primary studies have been conveniently gathered together from the pages of the periodical SYRIA. It must be borne in mind, however, that these excellent publications represent a preliminary and not a final stage in the interpretation of the materials. The literature grows from day to day, and the contributions made by other scholars are equally important for a correct appreciation of the subject. Among these special mention should be made of the work of Albright, Montgomery, Harris, Goetze and Gordon in America, of Ginsberg and de Vaux in Palestine, of Friedrich and Eissfeldt in Germany, of Hrozný in Prague, Aistleitner in Budapest and Cassuto in Italy. In this country studies have been published by the late Father Burrows, Dr J. W. Jack, of Edinburgh, Professor S. H. Hooke and the present writer.

In March, we discussed the founding of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre (IARC) at the McDonald Institute in Cambridge (ANTIQUITY 72: 4–5). Here we publish a contribution towards the debate on the theft of antiquities from Turkey and their acquisition by museums in the USA. Turkey has long had an active policy in fighting cases for restitution of its heritage, and Janet Blake describes their success.

Rose granite was a favoured, but difficult, stone to work in ancient Egypt. Recent sawing, drilling and cutting tests of the granite in Aswan suggest how exacting were those tasks for craftworkers.

South Siberia – bordered by Lake Baikal, the Irtysh river, the west Siberian forest-steppe zone, and the basin of the Great Lakes of Mongolia – is broadly coextensive with the foothills of the Sayan and Altai ranges. It occupies a special place in the early medieval history of the Eurasian steppe populations. The ethno-cultural processes which operated here over thousands of years have a significance which goes far beyond South Siberia.

Exploring parallels between the careers of Lt.-General Pitt Rivers and Verne's Captain Nemo, this essay is concerned with time and disciplinary flagships. It considers how their respective collection activities propelled their very personal projects of science and, in the case of the General, its interrelationship with the institutionalisation of archaeology in the later nineteenth century. In particular, the implications of his renowned excavation medallion will be discussed and compared to a celebrated time capsule of the period; it being argued that ‘deep time’ consciousness itself engendered notions of futuristic projection.