Archaeology, Sexism and Scandal

Natalia has posted a nice review of Alan Kaiser’s new book, Archaeology, Sexism, and Scandal: The Long-Suppressed Story of One Woman’s Discoveries and the Man who Stole Credit for Them. The title is apt. Kaiser came to the School when I was member a few years ago and told us of his difficulties finding a publisher–so it’s good to see that he finally did so. In fact, dozens of outlets turned him down–and not because of the quality of his work. As one of these reviewers noted, “What you are dealing with here is part of the unwritten history of classical archaeology. Best to leave it unwritten.” Natalia also provides a nice overview of David Robinson as an excavator (he was quite bad), his relationship with the School (also bad), his extraordinary ability to alienate members of his field team, and (of course) Mary Ross Ellingson, the female protagonist here.