Historic Artifacts and Where To Put Them

Historical artifacts are often the product of circumstance and fate. The further we go back in history, the rarer are historical artifacts. Stuff deteriorates, rusts, rots, burns, fades, gets buried, and becomes food for bugs. Go back to the medieval period and documents are fairly abundant but incomplete and sketchy. Go back to the ancient period and artifacts are much rarer, much less complete, and very sketchy. In grad school we used to poke fun at the people working in medieval, but especially in ancient history. We would crack jokes about the discovery of a new potsherd in Ur or Timbuktu that had made it necessary to change all the history books and print new ones. Did you hear the joke about the archaeologist out in the desert in Mesopotamia who stubbed his toe, looked down, and said, “I could use a ziggurat about now?” Okay, I made that one up, but one has to be dedicated and often just plain lucky to find major artifacts from the ancient world.