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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 4315018, member: 93416&quot;]Concerning the ‘Hancock edition’ of the SAA magazine</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&amp;i=634462&amp;p=2" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&amp;i=634462&amp;p=2" rel="nofollow">http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&amp;i=634462&amp;p=2</a></p><p><br /></p><p>I never looked at this journal before, but was surprised at what I found in this issue</p><p><br /></p><p>The pieces by the President (Page 3) the Executive Director (page 4) and especially an invited Professor (page 6) all give the impression of an interest in politics rather than research. As if these people were not so much archaeologists, as political activists who chose archaeology as a means to their end. Troubling since this is exactly what I seem to see at UCL since Ucho took over, leading to the dire results I mentioned earlier at the Petrie Museum.</p><p><br /></p><p>But what troubled me most was the piece by Hoopes (p. 21 ff) . The world of course has its fair share of the credulous folk, always has and always will. I judge Hancock writes amusing bunk, and I suspect most of his readers know that really, but still find it amusing. The joke is as old as Lucian – who of course wrote about visits with extraterrestrial life in the 2nd century AD - but with the joke title “True Story”. Hoopes however seems to have spent a good deal of his academic career debunking some nonsense about Mayan 2012 prophesies. Surely that too is just nonsense, and there are more sensible ways to spend time.&nbsp; Like actually doing archaeology for instance.</p><p><br /></p><p>But Hoopes, despite the editor claiming the “great care” archaeologist take, relies in his SAA piece upon an unconvincing popularist writer called Calavito to slur L Frank Baum as somehow associated with “spooky archaeology”. That interests me because some years ago I had a bit of an advisory role regarding a proposed Money Museum at the World Bank in Washington. The intended theme was the intellectual battle between stability and liquidity in the history of money. The plan was to highlight the Wizard of Oz story and its links to the Bimetallist campaign of William Jennings Bryan. All along I thought the plan excellent but feared it was too controversial for World Bankers to go along with, and so I was not surprised when it fell through, it seemed somewhat acrimoniously.</p><p><br /></p><p>Given the SAA President’s stated support for Global interests (page 3), and the very dubious attempt to slur Baum as a somehow linked to spooky archaeology (page 23)...well.... Hey! An incautious person might start to think these archaeology fellows were involved in some sort of conspiracy…….</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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