Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2001 - 7

authors, Sir Walter Scott [Pict] and Robert
Burns, who wrote the famous poem about
the Battle of Bannockburn: Scots [Picts],
wha hae wi Wallace bled/Scots [Picts],
"
wham Bruce has often led. . .

more reason to keep looking forward to
following issues of your wonderful magazine. Thanks for the walk in time.
Najla Mady
St. Catharines, Ontario

Indian Slavery
newsbrief titled "Yankee Slavery"
The(September/October) refers to black
slavery in eighteenth-century New England. The practice started much earlier
and involved Indians as well as black victims. A biography of the Rev. Hugh
Peter, The Strenuous Puritan; Hugh
Peter, 1598-1660 , by Raymond Phineas
Stearns, includes the information that
Hugh had invested in the first ship to be
built in Salem, Massachusetts, the
Desire. On its first voyage it transported
some Pequot captives to Bermuda to be
sold as slaves and returned in February
1639 with a cargo of cotton, tobacco,
salt, and Negroes.
In 1637, colonists from Massachusetts and Connecticut "destroyed the
Pequots as a tribe." Most of the captured warriors were executed and the
survivors sold in the West Indies as
slaves. Some of the women and children were kept as "servants." Some of
these captives may have been in the
cargo of the Desire.
Robert H. McDougle
Los Osos, CA

...Or Maybe Not
read with a fair degree of interest Mr.
I Young s piece "Learning from Mummies" (In This Issue, September/October). He posits that ancient Egyptians
"would have been horrified at the subsequent treatment of their remains by dealers, collectors, and museums the world
over." Conspicuously absent from Mr.
Youngs indictment are archaeologists.
There is no disputing that black market trading in antiquities and the unfortunate activities of pre-twentieth-century
Europeans have done irreparable damage
to our understanding of the ancient
Egyptians. However, I suspect that an
equal if not greater level of destruction
has been wrought by archaeologists who
assume that because they purport to act
in the name of science, they should not
be subject to scrutiny. Shoddy archaeological excavations have an even greater
destructive potential because they carry
an air of legitimacy and, as a result, are
frequently left unchecked by governmental authorities.

in Good Hands...
Mummies
past is our present and our future.
The
This was brought to mind when I happily read the article on the Egyptian
exhibit formerly of Niagara Falls,
Ontario, and now of Atlanta, Georgia.
Fifty years ago I spent countless
Sunday afternoons gazing in rapt wonder and awe at the mummies and
assorted artifacts in the Niagara Falls
museum. It also housed an assortment
of embryos in different stages of development. To a child of 12, you can
imagine how my imagination transformed these "strange and unusual"
pieces of wonder.
Just as fascinating were the countless cobwebs gracing the treasures. The
dust was choking. To learn that the
timeless and priceless antiquities will
now have a proper setting and exposure
is extremely satisfying to me.
I hope I don't have to wait another
50 years to learn if the mummy in
question is that of Ramesses I. All the
www.archaeology.org

Mr. Young apparently presumes
that an ancient Egyptian would be
pleased by the "measure of care that
scientists now lavish on these artifacts." In the context of his criticism of
dealers, collectors and museums,
mummies are quite human. On the
other hand, in the case of scholarly
research, they become "artifacts" and
"little encyclopedias." I seriously question this double standard. I suspect
that most ancient Egyptians would be
particularly horrified to learn that their
remains are being poked and prodded
in an effort to ascertain their diets or
what kind of parasites were prevalent
in ancient times.
Archaeologists will always vilify
those who "aid and abet the [antiquities] trade." However, were I an ancient
Egyptian, I would rather take my
chances with a modern collector who
invested many thousands of dollars in
my remains and casket, only to encase
them for display. Assuming for the sake
of argument that a well-preserved body
ensures an afterlife, the quiet solitude
of a collector s home would have been
far preferable to being dissected in the
name of science.
Derek J. Pfaff
Houston, Texas

"
"Ethel says she's seen it all before and will wait in the taxi
7

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Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2001

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2001