Work In Progress Wednesday - Archeology

Every Wednesday, I will be posting something about writing my current WIP, a historical romance set in 1785. It might be a writing tip I've got to share, a frustrating bit I'm working on, a fascinating tidbit of research, or perhaps even an excerpt one day. As long as it has to do with my story. In my WIP, the heroine's father is an archeologist.

Did you know, the term archeology didn't come into common use until 1837. (first known use, according to http://www.merriam-webster.com)

However, archeology existed. Here are some of the early archeologists from before archeologists were archeologists. hehe.

Spanish military engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre

Mr. Alcubierre excavated places like Herculaneum and Pompeii.

"1748: Engineers led by Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre, working for the King of Naples, dig into the ruins of Pompeii looking for Roman artifacts."

(Digging deeper: Archaeologists race to show Pompeii daily life  By Dan Vergano - USA Today)

William Cunningham (1754­-1810) and Richard Colt-Hoare (1758­-1838)

Sir Richard Colt-Hoare

 Mr. Cunningham and Sir Richard conducted the detailed scientific excavation of a series of barrows near Stonehenge, England, and were known for gentle exploration techniques. They even left plaques during excavation to explain what they'd done to future explorers.

"Sir Richard Colt Hoare who describes Cunnington's methods of excavating as being much more thorough than those of his predecessors dedicated to him the first part of his Ancient History of South Wiltshire on the ground that the existence of the work was mainly due to Cunnington's collections and discoveries From 1804 till his death Cunnington had placed all his materials at Hoare's disposal and made new investigations for the purpose His collection of antiquities was bought by Hoare and is now 111 the museum at Devizes. " (sic) (Dictionary of national biography, Volume 13 edited by Sir Leslie Stephen)

 So, now you've delved a bit into historical archeology. Tell me, do you like archeology and history? (If you're here, you must like it a little. lol ) Do you have any interesting tidbits to share?