Digging into the past

An archaeologist digs deep into the earth to find the record of men who lived in other ages. In hundreds or thousands of years, whole cities become covered with mud and dust and rubbish. This becomes packed down into hard soil or clay, and can even harden into stone.

Often one house is built on another, or even a whole city on top of another that has been buried. The ones found lowest down, of course, are the oldest. It is hard work to be an archaeologist. Sometimes, when he thinks he is on the trail of something very breakable, he even digs with his fingers, for fear a shovel might break the precious object. An archaeologist goes to faraway places where it is bitter cold or where it is too hot for comfort, camps out, eats little except canned food, and works from early morning to late night.

When he is at home, usually at a college or a museum, he studies hard to keep up with the latest discoveries. But the work is so fascinating that hundreds of men choose it as a career and would not want to do anything else. Nothing is more interesting to them than looking back thousands of years into the past.