Letters We Loved

Where would we be without our loyal readers? No sooner had the first issue been mailed out than we began receiving letters back with compliments, criticisms and questions. Two hundred issues later, our readers are as engaged and outraged as ever. We love reading every single letter that comes in—and we hope you do, too. So, from “snail mail” to e-mail and Web Talkbacks, we present some of our most unforgettable Queries and Comments.

Diggin’ Our Scene (or Not)

The Archaeologist of Dreams

Thank you, BAR! You take this midwestern American woman to places I shall never set foot in! With BAR I become the archaeologist that I have always wanted to be, sitting in the dirt/dust/heat with a small brush and pick in hand. Carefully digging up some ancient treasure, sure to set the archaeological community on their ear! I sit and read and dream of the smells and sounds of what it must be like to be on a dig.

Your articles give me the dream I have had since I was 11 years old, sitting in a creek behind my house in western Pennsylvania, digging up a neat-looking rock with a small twig, pretending it was an ancient pottery vessel.

I always promised myself that when I had children and the last child grew up and went to college, I would go on a true dig. Well, that was five years ago. Here I still sit in Illinois in my easy chair, still reading BAR and dreaming.