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My kid asked why we keep digging up old stuff and it stopped me cold
We were looking at a picture of that new Roman mosaic they found in London, and he just said 'why don't they leave it alone, it was fine buried'. I had to think for a minute before I said it's about the stories, not just the things... but his question stuck with me. Do you ever feel like we focus too much on the find itself and not enough on why we're looking?
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the_tyler11d agoTop Commenter
That "why don't they leave it alone" question is a real gut punch. It makes you step back. Sometimes I see a news story about a new tomb or something and it just feels like trophy hunting, like the point is the gold, not the person. Your answer about the stories is the good one, but it's easy to lose that in the excitement of the dig.
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the_lisa11d ago
Exactly, the gold gets the headline every time. We could find the diary of a pharaoh's baker and the news would just ask if the scrolls had edible gold leaf. The real story is always in the dirt and the broken pottery, but that doesn't make for a shiny museum display. It's like we're still just magpies looking for the brightest object.
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