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Many of these requirements can well be undertaken by different people; in fact, not a single living person combines all of the requisite qualities for complete archaeological work. But all of these requirements must be fulfilled by different members in a party, if they are to command success as well as deserve it. In all points, imagination and insight, the sense of all the possibilities of a case, is to be the medium of thought both in theoretical and in practical affairs.

Camp life, Abydos.

Fig. 4. Tent in desert.

Camp life, Abydos.

Fig. 5. Huts at temple.

Demands of the work.

In the externals of the work an excavator should be always his own best workman. If he be the strongest on the place, so much the better; but at all events he should be the most able in all matters of skill and ability. Where anything is found it should be the hands of the master that clear it from the soil; the pick and the knife should be in his hands every day, and his readiness should be shown by the shortness of his finger-nails and the toughness of his skin. After a week of work in the soil, feeling for delicate things in a way that no tools can do, the skin almost wears through, and the nails break down. But a week or two more at it, and the excavator grows his gloves, and is in a fit state for business, with the skin well thickened, and ready to finger through tons of grit and sand. Nothing can be a substitute for finger-work in extracting objects, and clearing ground delicately; and one might as well try to play the violin in a pair of gloves as profess to excavate with clean fingers and a pretty skin. It need hardly be said that clothing must correspond to the work; and there must never be a thought about clothes when one kneels in wet mud, scrapes through narrow passages, or sits waist deep in dust. To attempt serious work in pretty suits, shiny leggings, or starched collars, would be like mountaineering in evening dress, or remind one of the old prints of cricketers batting in chimney-pot hats. The man who cannot enjoy his work without regard to appearances, who will not strip and go into the water, or slither on slimy mud through unknown passages, had better not profess to excavate. Alongside of his men he must live, in work hours and out; every workman should come to him at all times for help and advice. His courtyard must be the pay office and the court of appeal for every one; and continual attention should be freely given to the many little troubles of those who are to be kept properly in hand. To suppose that work can be controlled from a distant hotel, where the master lives in state and luxury completely out of touch with his men, is a fallacy, like playing at farming or at stockbroking: it may be amusing, but it is not business. And whatever is not businesslike in archaeology is a waste of the scanty material which should be left for those who know how to use it. An excavator must make up his mind to do his work thoroughly and truly, or else to leave it alone for others who will take the trouble which it deserves and requires.