Publisher's Synopsis
From the introductory chapter.
Archaeologists agree that Asia Minor is the country from which, in the near future, startling, and even dazzling additions to our knowledge of the past will be made. So far as the Hittites are concerned these additions will be history itself, for they will actually create the history of humanity just before the beginnings of written history, a past so dim and so distant that even the constitutionally inquisitive Greek knew almost nothing of or about it, though strangely enough, he was its immediate inheritor and passed it on to us.
But the nearer past also, the historic past, the Phrygian, Hellenic, Hellenistic past, the Graeco-Roman and the Early Christian past in Asia Minor, claims, aye, demands, earnest, immediate, and long-continued investigation, not to speak of the Seljukian, the Crusading, and even the Turkish past.
For the last thirty years a small band of scholars has been eager to collect ancient inscriptions, to study ancient monuments, to locate ancient cities and to create the ancient map. But the ancient documents that could be found easily, as the result of leisurely journeys through Asia Minor, have in great measure been garnered already, largely through the efforts of Sir William M. Ramsay and other travellers trained by him in surface research, one of whom is the present writer and petitioner. But what still remains to be done is of infinitely greater importance than that which has already been accomplished. Witness the discovery of the documentary proof that Boghazkieni was really the capital of the Hittite empire, a thing long suspected it is true, but never proved till now, for none could get the proof till now. And yet there was that precious document, extant, actually extant, but lying beneath the ground, where it had lain for maybe three millennia, waiting for the man to come and discover it, and with its help write a new and a splendid page of history.
Results to Be Expected from Surface Research.
The additions to the sum of human knowledge that may be expected from a systematic search for everything that is above ground in Asia Minor will be manifold in nature. Such a systematic search will throw light on ancient geography, on ancient history and legislation, whether local, regal, imperial, or municipal, on the history of Christianity in the earlier centuries of our era, on customs and manners, on pagan religious rites, ceremonies, and usages, on the location and importance of ancient cities, on ancient roads and road systems, trade-routes and international commerce, in short, on every conceivable subject affected by the discovery and proper assimilation of Greek and Latin inscriptions, combined with a patient study of the topography, geography, and local history. The material collected in this way is much more difficult to assimilate, much more difficult to fit into its proper place, its own special niche or corner in history or geography than is the material gained by excavations. It therefore demands an expert with broader knowledge, more balanced judgment, and keener instincts than does the material gained by excavations. Therefore surface research is best managed in connexion with excavations....
