Digging History 2.0

Digging History is Back!

Your one stop shop for all things BCE is back and better than ever.

This is a fresh start. I have been away for some time. My academic and professional pursuits have consumed my time and energies over the past few years. The core of the blog remains the same, to share with you my love for history and archaeology. But it will seek to go beyond just simply recounting historical events and archaeological sites. It will hopefully foster discussion and debate. To challenge assumptions and misconceptions that many of us have about history and archaeology. To answer questions and delve into the theoretical and scholarly debates that are raging across both history and archaeology today. I hope that it proves to be informative but also entertaining and above all makes you want to get out there and experience history for yourselves. To visit archaeological sites, to see the places where history was made, and to engage with history and archaeology as an informed individual.

I have kept my original first posts from way back in December of 2010 to give you an insight into my mind at the time and what I had hoped to accomplish. I still believe much of what I wrote then. I believe that archaeology is a viable career path, but one needs perseverance and determination to see it through. It is not for everyone, but as my mentor Dr. John Humphrey once said ‘It’s the best job in the world.’ Some of what I wrote was naive, born of youthful exuberance and a little hubris. I have changed my tact when it comes to learning from the past. I do still study the past to learn about the past but I believe it is imperative that we as a society learn from the mistakes and the successes of our forbearers. Past societies and cultures encountered problems that still plague modern society. It would be terribly myopic of me not to see parallels between them. This is not to say that we should do as the Romans did but maybe sometimes we should do as the Romans did not. If that makes any sense? have gotten off topic, a problem with ancient historians, we do so love an aside. I will not promise to avoid them outright but I will nevertheless try and keep them to a minimum wherever possible. Back to the matter at hand!

These posts will treat history and archaeology thematically instead of chronologically. Chronological history is important but in the less constricting confines of a blog I feel it is best to take some liberties and go rogue. Those of you looking for a simple rehashing of the history of western civilization and archaeology will still find posts about specific conflicts or periods maybe even a post here or there about a specific individual or archaeological site that I find particularly interesting, but they will be told in a thematic manner. This allows me to delve into the nuances of history or look at a particular problem from an angle that chronologically we might not be able to explore. I encourage you to ask me questions and I will endeavour to answer them to the best of my knowledge and will point you in the direction of useful scholarly resources where you might delve deeper yourself. I will on occasion review books and anything that has to do with the ancient world, be it films, TV documentaries or video games. As the title of this blog implies I truly dig history.

I hope you enjoy this blog and please leave me your feedback and questions. I cannot wait to hear from you!