Classical archaeology: whence and whither?

Extract

‘Archaeology is breaking up … the very identity of “Archaeology” is beginning to fragment’: thus the alarm call in early 1988 from Cambridge, made by and to non-classical archaeologists, to gather in June and consider remedies. A month after the Cambridge symposium nearly 1500 scholars gathered in Berlin for the Eleventh International Congress in Classical Archaeology, devoted to the Hellenistic period. Many of the papers treated subjects in the traditional way, trying to make sense of new discoveries, and making better sense ofthe long familiar, including some radical revisions. Several were of a style and approach unthinkable even 20 years ago, notably those dealing with the problems of acculturation on the eastern edges of Alexander’s empire. There were no signs of anxiety. Should there have been?