Abstract
WITH its December issue, Antiquity completes its eighth year. The editor of the only free-lance journal entirely devoted to archaeological matters is to be congratulated on his success in having carried through this enterprise successfully, and without the assistance of any official organisation, in a period of exceptional difficulty. While there is undoubtedly a considerable public which is interested in archaeological discovery up to a point, to hold that interest requires both tact and judgment. The editor, whose aim is to present to his readers scientifically sound and accurate information of the latest movements in archaeological discovery in a popular form, has a difficult course to steer, if he is to avoid the appeal to the sensationalism which flavours the news of ‘finds’ as it appears in most of the daily Press. On the other hand, the editor of Antiquity, both by his own ‘tilting’ in his unconventional notes and otherwise, encourages his contributors to an engaging freedom of treatment which in itself adds no little attraction to the pages of his periodical. The contents of Antiquity of December illustrate these qualities admirably. If, for example, Mr. Noel Myres' criticism of Dr. Mortimer Wheeler's article in a previous issue on the topography of Saxon London ventilates further a subject which is of perennial interest to a wide circle, Dr. Wheeler's reply will appeal equally to those who appreciate learning worn lightly. Among the remaining contents of this issue, which, are as a whole no less attractive, it is, perhaps, permissible to refer to the contribution by Sir George Macdonald on the Romans in the Middle East, which is an illuminating commentary on M. A. Poidebard's recently published air survey of the Roman frontier in Syria. Like its predecessors, this issue fully supports the editor's appeal for an extended circulation to ensure the continued existence of a publication which is doing excellent work for archaeological science by keeping its achievement before a wider public than is reached through channels of a more formal nature.
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Antiquity . Nature 135, 61 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135061c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135061c0