adopted by Lenormaht, (6) an<I recognized by all true scholars from Niebubr to Letronne;
especially among those intellectual giants who since Champollion’s era have solwgd the chief
enigmas of hieroglyphical and cuneatic records. Archceography, as distinct from archaeology,
according to Fahricius, (6) is a term which should be limited to the study of ancient
monuments especially, whereas archaeology embraces every process of investigation into
all historical subjects. Dionysius Halicarnassensis, in the first century before C., and
Josephus in the first century after, treated upon Archaology, but entirely neglected
Archaeography, or the study of monuments; whence their several incoherencies: the
former, however, had some clear perceptions of the truth when he named Archaeology
“ the science of primitive origins.” '
Albeit, the word has deviated somewhat from its pristine sense; for among the Greeks
an archaologi.it signified a man who brought together the most ancient recollections of a
given country; whereas; at the present day, the name is applied exclusively to him who,
possessing intimate acquaintance with the monuments of a given ancient people, strives
through the study of their characteristics to evolve facts, and thence to deduce logical conclusions
upon the ideas, tastes, propensities, habits, and history of departed nations;
many of the greatest and most essential of whom having left but fragmentary pages of
their stone-books, out of which we their successors must reconstruct for ourselves such portions
of their chronicles as are lost; no less than confirm, modify, or refute such others as
have reached us through original, transcribed, or translated annals.
Archaeology, so to say, has now become the “ backbone” of ancient history; its relation
to human traditions being similar to that of Osteology to Comparative Anatomy; or to what
fossii remains are in geological science. An Antiquary is rather a collector of ancient relics
of art, than one who understands them; but an Archasologist is of necessity an Antiquary
who brings every science to bear upon the vestiges of ancient man, and thus invests them
with true historical value. In short, an Archseologist is the monumental historian — the
more or less critical dealer in and discoverer of historical facts, according as by mental discipline,
diversified attainments, and the study of things, he acquires thorough knowledge of
each particle preserved to his research among the dSbris of antique humanity.
Were the simplest rules of this science popularly taught, we should not have to prolong
the lamentations of Millin at errors prevalent for want of a little archeological knowledge.
He narrates how Baronins took a statue of Isis for the Tirgin Mary — how the apotheosis
of the Emperor Germanicus was mistaken for St. John the Baptist’s translation to heaven—
and how a cameo called “ the agate of Tiberius,” which represents the triumphs of this
prince and the apotheosis of Augustus, came to-be long regarded as the triumphal march
of Joseph! Neptune and Minerva giving the horse and olive to man would not have been
metamorphosed into Adam and*Eve eating the forbidden apple; nor would a trumpery
pottery toy have been considered by His Eminence Cardinal Wiseman (7) as a Roman memento
of Noah’s Ark after the universal flood, although among its animals were “ thirty-
five human figures!” Without archaeology, says Millin, one is liable with the historian
Rollin to speak of the Laoeoon as a lost monument — to dress up Greek heroes in Roman
garments— to adorn Hercules with a perruque & la Louis X IV I JEsop, at the court of
Croesus, would hardly have addressed himself to a colonel in French uniform; nor Strabo;
in “ Domoerite Amoureux,” have pointed his quizzing-glass at steeples, and amused his
leisure by making almanacs; neither would Horace call Servius Tullius “ Sire; ” nor Racine
have invoked a goddess as “ Madame ” in his classic plays. (8)
More than half a century has elapsed since Millin wrote. . Hundreds of arohmologists
have made their works accessible to the literary public. Yet so slow is the diffusion of
(5 ) Archéologie, par M. Ch. L enormant, de l’Institut: Reçue Archéol.; Paris, 1844; Ire partie, pp. 1-17.
(6) BibliothecaAntiquaria; p. 181.
(7) Connection between Science and Revealed Religion ; 1849; vol. ii. pp. 139-143.
(8 ) See many recent instances of antiquarian shams exposed by L etronne — “L’amulette de J u l e s César,
cachet de Sépullius Macer, le médaillon de Zénobie, le coffret d’Antinoüs, le sabre de Vespasien, et d’autres
antiquités modernes n —Mémoires et Documents; Rev. Archéol.; Paris, 1849; pp. 192-223.
— o v -- - - — ----------------- u-u-vj. v, coi^ o u u Dumc nui; u u ü u u iv aT e q . m in a s
who imagine the Aborigines of this American continent to have descended from the “ Lost
Tribes of Israel ”(9)—who see the Runic scribblings of Norsemen upon the Indian-scratched
Rock of Dighton (10)—who, regardless of Squier’s exposure,(11) yet suppose the local pebble
manufactured for that ryuseum since 1838, to attest Phoenician intercourse with the mound-
builders of Grave Creek Flat (12)—and who, disdaining to refer to the long-published determination
of its pseudo-antiquity, (1.3) still believe that the gold seal-ring of RA-NEFER-
HET, a functionary attached to a building called, about the sixth century b. c., after
King S hoophu, should have once adorned the finger of Cheops , builder of the Great Pyramid
in the thirty-fourth century b. c. (14) ; thereby becoming 5300 instead of only some
2500 years old ! . s
The instances around us of the misconceptions, which the slightest acquaintance with
the rudiments of archaeology would consign forever to oblivion' are inexhaustible. Would
that some of them were less pernicious to moral rectitude ! They offend our vision under
the prostituted names of “ Portraits of Chbist ” (1 5 ) — they excite one’s derision in the
ludicrous anachronisms of modern art current as « Pictorial Bibles ” (1 6 ) ^ th e y bear witness
to theological ignorance when Chinese are asserted to be referred to in the SINIM of
Isaiah (1 7 )— and they amount to idiocy when ecilesiastics continue disputing whether M o s e s
wrote a m i , R, or a daleth, D, in a given word of the Hebrew Pentateuch, notwithstanding
that every archasologist knows that the square-letter characters of the present Hebrew
Text (18) were not invented by the Rabbis before the second century after Christ ; or 1 60 0
years posterior to the vague age when IeHOuaH buried the. Lawgiver “ in a vall’eÿ in the
land of Moab opposite.to Beth-peor; but no man has known his sepulchre unto this
day.’X 19) But—“ point de fanatisme même contre le fanatisme: la philosophie a eu le sien
dans le siècle dernier; il semble-que la gloire du nôtre devrait être de n’en connaître
aucun.” (20)
The above illustrations suffice to indicate some of the utilitarian objects of the science
termed “ Archæology;” which, furnishes the only logical methods of attaining historical
certainties. Its indispensableness to correct appreciations of biblical no less than of all
other history, nevertheless, remains to be proved by its application. We shall endeavor to
be precise in our experiments ; but, must not forget that “ precision is one thing, certainty
another. An absurd or false proposition may be made very precise ; and, on the other hand
although the sciences vary in degree of precision, they all present results equally certain.”
We propose to test the principles of archæological criteria by applying them to biblical
studies, and to test the authenticity of one chapter of the Hebrew records through the former’s
application : and inasmuch as Truth must necessarily harmonize with itself, if archæology
be a true science the Scriptures will prove it to be so incontestably; and if the Bible be
absolute truth, archæology will demonstrate the fact. We need not perplex ourselves with
apprehensions. It would imply but small faith in the Bible were we to suppose that arch-
(9) D e la p i e ld : American Antiquities.
o f (he Royal Society o f Antiquaries of Qrpmhagm, 1840->43. Antiquitates Americans, 1837 ;
B" | tte Ü B °f “ * 8
n S f CH°0LCRAKT : New York Ethnological Society’s Trans. 1845; vol. i. pp. 386-397.
( ) See “ A Card” : New York Courier and Enquirer, 12 Feb. 1853.
W? o^Ts5 3 “UMtin* ■* « “ mutate.
"P'0n n0 m°re U8t0rical baBes tbm p r io n s “ Letter of Lextulus ” - or
(16) 7 T ! AtBEET DURm’ t 610’-™ « <*>“ = 'fusion of our Lard; London, 1844 ' e l f w a r p e r s , for instance ; New York, 1842-’45.
0 f ° le Suman B m s ; 1Si0'J~ And whUe oven China (Is. 11. [sic] 12, Sinl™ a
specified” - 1AS. uni note eXtremity °f the Carth’ “ tbB °°ntert intimates) and the islands of the sea are
(18) G u d d o n : OUa Ægyptiam-, p. 112; and infra, further on.
U») Deuteronomy xxxiy. 6-Cahex’s translation.
(20) Ameiau:; Recherches, Ac. ; Eev. des Deux Mondes; Sept. 1846, p. 738.