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Sir Mortimer Wheeler
(10 Sep 1890 - 22 Jul 1976)
Scottish archaeologist.
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Science Quotes by Sir Mortimer Wheeler (3 quotes)
Archaeology is not a science, it’s a vendetta.
— Sir Mortimer Wheeler
As quoted, without citation, by Peter Hopkirk in Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia (1980, 1984), 170.
Dead archaeology is the driest dust that blows.
— Sir Mortimer Wheeler
In Archaeology from the Earth (1954), Preface, v.
The archaeologist is digging up, not things, but people. Unless the bits and pieces with which he deals be alive to him, unless he have himself the common touch, he had better seek out other disciplines for his exercise.
— Sir Mortimer Wheeler
In Archaeology from the Earth (1954), Preface, v.
Quotes by others about Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1)
Sir Mortimer Wheeler is perhaps the most distinguished archaeologist in Europe. But he owes the greatest of his achievements to the rare combination of two qualities: namely a scientific expertise in the technique of excavation which has always been marked by a meticulous attention to minute detail, and a gift of imaginative vision.
Book review of two books by Mortimer Wheeler, 'Achaeology From the Earth' and 'Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers', in Blackfriars (Jan 1955), 36, No. 418, 597-598.
See also:
- 10 Sep - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Wheeler's birth.
- Still Digging: Adventures in Archaeology, by Sir Mortimer Wheeler. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Sir Mortimer Wheeler.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
