Anniversary Address

The other day I received a letter from someone I did not know, but who shares my rather common surname. This gentleman had received a piece of mail intended for me—a Who's Who entry for correction, in fact. The occurrence in itself was not very remarkable, as those of you who have surnames which are as widely distributed as mine will especially appreciate. What was particularly striking to me was that my correspondent began his letter by saying that he had never written to an archaeologist before, and could not resist the temptationto do so now. I replied that I was somewhat surprised that archaeologists could still have such a curiosity value; it had been my impression that we had become so relatively common during the last two decades as not to attract much more notice than many other professions. We are still not, and are never likely to be, a large profession, but there is also, of course, a strong body of serious amateurs who can also reasonably call themselves qualified archaeologists—and we do get a more than average amount of publicity.