Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Archaeology
/ˌɑːrkiˈɑːlədʒi/noun
The study of human history through the excavation and analysis of material remains.
The Greek roots
ἀρχαῖος
arkhaîos
ancient, from the beginning
λογία
-logía
study, discourse
Literally: “discourse about old things”
The story of the word
Plato uses ἀρχαιολογία in the Hippias Major for the kind of talk about the old days that Spartans enjoyed hearing, closer to antiquarian storytelling than to science. Seventeenth-century English used it the same way, for ancient history in general. Digging only became the defining method in the nineteenth century, and Schliemann's trench through Troy in the 1870s showed both what excavation could find and how much of it a bad excavator destroys.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
archaicarchivearchetypegeology
In a sentence
Half of modern archaeology happens in a laboratory, not in a trench.