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I was very fortunate to have traveled a lot as a child and teenager. I was fascinated with the majestic remains of past civilizations and thrilled to touch objects and walk through buildings that had been around for thousands of years.
I studied Latin and Greek and modern languages through high school and college. My undergraduate major was in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology. I went on to do archaeology in graduate school, specializing in Italic and Etruscan studies, always sure that I would work hard enough and find a tenure track job teaching archaeology at a university and spend my summers excavating a site in Tuscany. The jobs were few and far between, and working hard was not always enough. I finished my final Ph.D. exams and took off for a year in Italy planning to dig and do dissertation research. I did lots of digging and a fair amount of research. But I found the writing of the actual dissertation to be tedious.
I returned home to Philadelphia in need of a job while I persevered with the thesis. My advisor offered me an editorial position working on site reports from an excavation in Anatolian. I found the work fascinating. Trying to publish the results of more than 25 years of excavation in way that would be useful to scholars and present a complete record of all the research and work. Once a site is excavated, the historical record has been destroyed, it is only through careful publication that the data can be preserved and studied by other scholars.
Almost 20 years later I am still publishing archaeological books and loving every minute of it. It has allowed me to make a contribution to the field I love by helping to preserve and communicate the results of many different excavations and research projects. I have been able to stay active in archaeology and abreast of new developments, as well as be in contact with fascinating scholars and see wondrous objects. I have realized I have a flair for marketing and for producing more popular books that bring archaeology to lay people and students. I have watched our Museum Publications grow from publishing 2 titles a year to doing at least 10 titles a year and producing CD ROMS and distributing more than 350 titles for a range of other small archaeological publishers.
I had always loved to read and loved to handle fine books. By lucky accident I was able to combine my archaeology with publishing to come up with a rewarding career that allows me to do many different jobs-editing, layout, acquisition, writing, marketing, production, excavation, museum research, etc. For the past two years I have been able to return to the field, working as the ceramics specialist on a training excavation in the hills of Tuscany east of Florence.
You won't get rich being an archaeologist or going into archaeological publishing. Just think about how many hours we work in a lifetime. Find something that you love and the rest will take care of itself.
Here's the web site for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: http://www.upenn.edu/museum_pubs/Museum_Pubs.html
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Copyright September 1996,
updated February 2004.
Kristine H. Burns,
Florida International University
Questions? Contact me.