Wednesday, May 15, 2024
An Archaeologist's Definition of a Philologist
Richard Stoneman, Land of Lost Gods: The Search for Classical Greece (London: Hutchinson, 1987), pp. 290-291:
Newer› ‹Older
It was in the last season that the archaeologist Carl Schuchardt came to work with him [Carl Humann] at Pergamum, and his account brings the forty-seven-year-old archaeologist vividly to life. If he knew he was no scholar or connoisseur, he knew too what his own value was.
'Are you a philologist?' was his greeting to Schuchardt. The latter, sensing a trap, hastily assured the older man he was an archaeologist. This was as well, when he heard Humann's definition of a philologist — 'a man with two left hands who when he comes here falls off the fortifications'. It was indeed not long before Schuchardt fell over and hurt his knee; you may imagine he kept quiet about it.
