Editorial.

Editorial. Photography is archaeology's partner, not its servant. We grewup together, played together on the sunny slopes of Greece and togetherexplored the fetid fetid/fet¡¤id/ (fe¡ätid) (fet¡äid) having a rank, disagreeable smell. fet¡¤idadj.Having an offensive odor.fetidhaving a rank, disagreeable smell. jungles of Guatemala. One hundred and fifty years on,has some of the poetry departed from our relationship? Maybe it'sbecome too easy. We are far from the heroic days when finely-jointedwooden cameras, tripods and trunks full of glass plates were luggedacross country on the back of a mule. Maybe it's become too cheap.Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre used highly polished silver-coated copperplates and Henry Fox-Talbot (1800-1877) called his negativescalotypes--'beautiful forms'. Even the preparation of awet-collodion, a syrupy emulsion poured ont o the glass plate just beforeexposure, invokes the joys of a mystic craft. Perhaps photography hasstopped being cuisine and turned into tinned food. Nowadays we havecolour, we have depth of field, we have precision, we have telephotos,we have panoramic, soft focus, digital, video, we have everything. Andyet, how often do we hear expressions of pleasure and amazement at thequality of nineteenth century archaeological photographs, in comparisonto our own? Such pleasure is offered in profusion in a new book of photographscollected by Marion True and Weston Naef of the J. Paul Getty Jean Paul Getty (December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American industrialist and founder of the Getty Oil Company. BiographyBorn in Minneapolis, Minnesota, into a family already in the petroleum business, he was one of the first people in the world with a Museum andpublished by Thames and Hudson*. Archaeology provided some ofphotography's earliest models. Fox Talbot himself was a physicist with an interest in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and he pressedarchaeologists to use his apparatus in the field: "I should thinkit would be highly interesting to take a view of each remnant ofantiquity before removing it," he presciently pre¡¤scient?adj.1. Of or relating to prescience.2. Possessing prescience.[French, from Old French, from Latin praesci remarked in 1846.Between 1842 and 1845 Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey produced up toa thousand daguerreotypes of Classical and Egyptian monuments and thedaguerreotypist Jules Itier Jules Alphonse Eug¨¨ne Itier (1802-77) French customs inspector and amateur daguerreotypist. Between 1842 and 1843 he traveled to Senegal, Guadeloupe and India, where he took a number of early daguerreotypes. travelled as far as China in 1842. From1860, August Le Plongeon became the first recorder of Inca structures inPeru and went on to make the first panoramic stereographs of Maya templeglyphs at Chichen Itza Chi¡¤ch¨¦n It¡¤z¨¢?An ancient Mayan city of central Yucat¨¢n in Mexico. It was founded c. a.d.514 and abandoned in 1194. There are extensive well-preserved ruins on the site. and Uxmal in the Yucatan of Mexico in 1873. In1870, William James Stillman William James Stillman (June 1, 1828 - July 6, 1901), United States painter, journalist, and photographer, was born in Schenectady, New York.His parents were Seventh Day Baptists, and his early religious training influenced him all though his life. , the subject of a special feature in thebook by Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, produced his masterpiece The Acropolis acropolis(əkrŏp`əlĭs)[Gr.,=high point of the city], elevated, fortified section of various ancient Greek cities.TheAcropolis of Athens, a hill c.260 ft (80 m) high, with a flat oval top c. ofAthens. These beautiful and evocative photographs do give us pause. Perhapswe like them because they are themselves archaeological artefacts. Thescratches and blots on the aged prints have the fee l of discovery aboutthem. We might leaf rapidly through a glossy magazine of perfectnothings, but these old documents have the whiff of research.Personally, I always find black and white photographs much moreinteresting than colour. Why? Is it the unstated, the understated or theyet undiscovered that moves us? Perhaps it's just the nostalgia fora lost first love that lets us prefer an old print to a digital--likethose lecturers that grumble that PowerPoint does not have thedefinition (or the comforting clunk) of a projected Kodachrome 64 slide. The answer surely is much simpler: we have given up composing. Theearly photographers were emulating paintings, employing the arts of twomillennia to compose a landscape in its "Golden Section",those satisfying proportions of visual scale that remain as puzzlinglyfundamental to humans as the scales of music. We are no longer taughthow to do this at school, and so it's hardly surprising that themodern archaeologist does not know how t o point a camera. For the last few years I have been wondering how we at Antiquitymight encourage the archaeological world to enhance itspictures--pictures on which the health and fame of our subject sodepends. Thinking that nothing leads better than example, I sent lettersto our correspondents asking them to discover the best practitioners inthe field, and to beg them to send us their finest photographs. Theresults have been stupendous stu¡¤pen¡¤dous?adj.1. Of astounding force, volume, degree, or excellence; marvelous.2. Amazingly large or great; huge. See Synonyms at enormous. , and we will offer a few of them everyissue, following the editorial. I have included as much technical detailas the photographer has given me--but do please write for more. Archaeological consultant Caroline Bird sends me this statement byTom Perrigo of the National Trust for Australia, sounding new alarmbells about the fate of some very famous rock art. "Dampier RockArt Precinct, on the north- west coast of Australia, contains what isprobably the largest concentration of rock art in the world.Archaeologists estimate that there may be a million individualpetroglyphs. The art is extraordinarily diverse both in subject matterand technique, including human and animal figures as well as a widerange of geometric motifs. Some deeply weathered petroglyphs are thoughtto date back to beyond the Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) refers to the time of maximum extent of the ice sheets during the last glaciation (the W¨¹rm or Wisconsin glaciation), approximately 20,000 years ago. This extreme persisted for several thousand years. . Others have links tocontemporary Aboriginal beliefs and ceremonies. As well as art, there isalso a range of other sites including shell middens, campsites, quarriesand workshops, and stone arrangements. Human occupation of the uniqueenvironment probably goes back to the beginning of the colonisation ofAustralia's arid centre, at lea st 30 000 years ago. Stylisticdifferences in rock art echo this long history of changing adaptation. Astonishingly a¡¤ston¡¤ish?tr.v. as¡¤ton¡¤ished, as¡¤ton¡¤ish¡¤ing, as¡¤ton¡¤ish¡¤esTo fill with sudden wonder or amazement. See Synonyms at surprise. , this is one of the world's most endangeredheritage places. The largest land mass in the Archipelago--the BurrupPeninsula--is also the site of one of Australia's largestindustrial complexes. Development began in the 1960s and continues tothis day. It is difficult to estimate the scale of the destruction.Hundreds of sites are known to have been destroyed since record keepingbegan in the early 1970s and an unknown number before then. The NationalTrust of Australia (WA) conservatively estimates that at least 10000petroglyphs have already been destroyed. Many decorated boulders havealso been moved from their original locations. Those that survive areunder threat from future development and emissions from the industrialestate. The re is still no proper inventory of the archaeological sitesor comprehensive heritage management plan. Almost all archaeologicalinvestigation has been carried out in the context of salvage projectsassociated with industrial development. In 2002 the National Trust ofAustralia (WA) placed the Dampier Rock Art Precinct on its EndangeredPlaces List and in 2003 the World Monuments Fund The World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a New York-based private, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites worldwide through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training. included it in its Listof Most Endangered Places. One current focus of the campaign to protectthe Dampier Rock Art is securing listing on the National Heritage Listunder new Commonwealth heritage legislation that came into operation in2004. The Hon. Ian Campbell, Commonwealth Minister for Environment andHeritage, is expected to decide on listing in September 2 006. Meanwhile,the State Government of Western Australia has opposed listing andcontinues to permit destruction of sites under its Aboriginal HeritageAct. The National Trust of Australia (WA) is calling on all parties torespect the scientific values of the Dampier Rock Art Precinct. TheIndustry sector must show corporate responsibility and the WestAustralian Government leadership in ensuring that no further material isdestroyed or damaged in this wondrous place". Readers will want tosupport the NTA NTA National Tour AssociationNTA Nitrilotriacetic AcidNTA National Treatment Agency (for Substance Misuse; UK)NTA Net Tangible AssetNTA National Tutoring AssociationNTA National Transportation Agency in their urgent efforts to defend such a globallysignificant archive of evidence for the history of humanity. Editors of European archaeology journals met in Stockholm in Aprilto consider the challenges of the next five years--challenges bothtechnical and academic. In the light of t he universal distributionallowed by the internet, university and institutional libraries arecalling for articles to be placed on open access--available fordownload, free to all. These articles would continue to be refereed andedited in the normal way, but the service would be paid for byauthor-fee, ie by research sponsors, through the author, not bysubscribers who buy the journal. This is likely to suit the scientists,with their narrow constituency and even narrower funding. But what aboutarchaeology, which has a polymorphic polymorphic - polymorphism funding base and likes to address apolymathic pol¡¤y¡¤math?n.A person of great or varied learning.[Greek polumath public? Unlike many other disciplines, our articles stayusable for decades (like fine wines), but the previous authors canhardly be expected to meet the bill for access to them. The open accessand author-fee system means that the national Research Councils (whowill largely fund it) and their colleges of referees wil l have a virtualmonopoly in choosing what gets researched and published. Not a healthyprospect. Some of us feel more comfortable relying on readers (that is,subscribers) to decide, over the years, which research worked and whichdidn't. Antiquity in particular is thinking hard about these challenges. Weexist to bring the best research of the day to the widest archaeologicalaudience. Open access may well be an answer--our (open access) ProjectGallery (http://antiquity.ac.uk) already gets an enormous number ofhits. But how can we best continue to serve an ever-narrowing academicprofession and an ever-broadening archaeological readership? As always,the views of our readers are the key, and your help is solicited: --should Antiquity carry open access articles (paid for byauthors' fees)? --how can we best serve academic archaeology? --how can we best serve the broader archaeological family ofprofessionals and nonprofessionals? Answers on an e-mail please! (to editor@antiquity .ac.uk) The poet Anthony Thwaite likes to study pottery and knows a greatdeal about it. As a finds assistant on the Euesperides (Libya)expedition directed by Andrew Wilson, he recently observed the diligentAlys Vaughan-Williams at the sieve, and this poem Flotation is thefelicitous fe¡¤lic¡¤i¡¤tous?adj.1. Admirably suited; apt: a felicitous comparison.2. Exhibiting an agreeably appropriate manner or style: a felicitous writer.3. result. Sifting exactly all the voided seeds After two and half millennia, She separates and gives a certain name To each sieved particle. And so she reads The menu when the customers have gone Into the dark, and paid their final bill. This process--mechanical, meticulous--Do Do not despise it: it counts out the stuff That made them what they were, and gave to us (Greedy for every scrap) a catalogue Of how they harvested, and fed, and left Immortal messages of feasts and fasts. Anthony Thwaite Emily Smyth our excellent e ditorial assistant left us in May totake up a new post in London. Emily took over as manager of theAntiquity Office in 2004, enlivened our website, relaunched the ProjectGallery and acted as midwife in the birth of the new online Antiquity.It is sad to see her go, but we count it a great a success that in threeyears from her graduation she should have learnt so much about modernacademic publishing as to net a job as Publications Manager for theInstitute of Historical Research. Our new staff-member is Jo Tozer, aclassicist clas¡¤si¡¤cist?n.1. One versed in the classics; a classical scholar.2. An adherent of classicism.3. An advocate of the study of ancient Greek and Latin.Noun 1. with a fondness for lands down under. Martin Carver York, 1 September 2006 * Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, Claire Lyons, Lindsay Stewart, John K.Papadopoulus Antiquity and Photography. Early views of ancientMediterranean sites (Thames and Hudson; London and New York New York, state, United StatesNew Y ork,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of 2005)