Future Archaeology
Future Archaeology
Science fiction often invokes archaeology. Even before science fiction an early invocation of a future New Zealand archaeologist was that of Lord Macaulay (1840)[1].
"And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's."
Clearly the sketcher must be an archaeologist and in 1840 must have been conceived of as being a Maori New Zealander.
The quote is from an essay about the Catholic Church ("she" in this case)and Macaulay was using the idea to emphasise - despairingly - the persistence of that church. His point was to exaggerate that persistence rather than to explore the idea of a Maori archaeologist in the future - but still the idea is there.
The idea was not entirely original(see Colenso 1882)[2] and the quotation has been the subject of other essayists [3]- ↑ Thomas Babington Macaulay 1840 Essay, On Ranck's "History of the Popes". Edinburgh Review
- ↑ A FEW REMARKS ON THE HACKNEYED QUOTATION OF "MACAULAY'S NEW ZEALANDER." By W. Colenso, F.L.S. [Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 12th June, 1882.]- on line at http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Stout65-t2-body-d2.html accessed July 2014
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