Any categorization has its limits in where it draws boundaries between different types and regarding those types that do not fit in any of the categories. As to the former, my own four themes are certainly interlinked in many ways (and I have pointed to some of these links at the appropriate places in the text). As to the latter, my own attempt at categorizing the portrayals of archaeology in popular culture has not been able to place convincingly a number of re-occurring depictions which I would like to mention at least briefly now. These are interesting portrayals for the reason that they do not fit into a scheme of fairly well known stereotypes, and they deserve a much closer study and explanation (though not in this book).

Monty Python's Flying Circus

There is for example the archaeologist as a ”vulnerable romantic” (Solomon 1998). Although this character is arguably linked to the A theme and often, for example, wears similar clothes, the archaeologist Tom Baxter in the movie The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) is no Indiana Jones who would probably never describe himself as Baxter does: ”I am honest, dependable, courageous, romantic and a great kisser”. When this ”poetic little archaeologist” falls in love with a woman he gives up his archaeological explorations, telling her ”I want to learn about the real world with you.” Adventurous in a different way is the young French archaeologist Lina in the B-movie Summer Lovers (1982). While working on the excavation site of Akrotiri on Santorini, exciting Lina enters into a romantic relationship with a visiting American tourist and his girlfriend, both of whom experience mutual attraction to her. In this portrayal, the archaeologist represents the intriguing Other through whom the two Americans ultimately find to each other again.

Then there is the archaeologist as a fairly ordinary person in an ordinary social context, with all the ordinary problems that may entail but that have nothing to do with archaeology. The German author Barbara Frischmuth, for example, showed in her novel Bindungen (1980) how the archaeologist Fanny looks back at her family past and contemplates her present life while visiting her sister who has built up a seemingly happy family idyll. The German film Liebe auf den ersten Blick (Love at First Sight, 1991) tells the story of the archaeologist Zenon Bloch, who is a widower, unemployed, living off state benefit, and a single father of two small children. He falls in love with the single mother and futurologist Elsa. Other stories about the archaeologist as a lover and normal person are The Archaeologist (1998) by the academic Richard Jenkins and The Realms of Gold (1975) by the English writer Margaret Drabble. In the latter novel, the famous archaeologist Frances Wingate, divorced and mother of four, has escaped a past of marital violence. While she finds herself madly in love with the weird and married academic Karel Schmidt, she is in the process of re-discovering her family history. There are other examples for the archaeologist as an ordinary person too (see e.g. Tode and Stern 2002: 77-8).

The most striking variation of this theme can be found in Japanese Anime and Manga which frequently feature archaeologists that are depicted as ”nice, forgetful and well-meaning males, usually young” (Douglas Watt, e-mail comm. 2004). In Cardcaptor Sakura there is, for example, the archaeologist Fujitaka Kinomoto (aka Aiden Avalon) who is a busy professor at the local University. Although he is often absent, Fujitaka is a loving father of two children including Sakura herself. Since his wife died at the age of 27 he raises them on his own. In all these cases, the main focus is on the non-professional family life of the archaeologist.

Japanese Anime treat the archaeologist like we treat a businessman or scientist in our movies and books. A father, who gets wrapped up in his work, is a bit scatterbrained and disorganized but loves his kids. There typically is not a mother figure, either she is dead or she is very ill. The father still loves her regardless though. Possibly he buries himself in his work to help forget the loneliness. (Renee Kennedy-Martin e-mail comm. 2004)

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