Archeoloog Gerald Lankester Harding aan het werk in Tell Fara 1929

This photograph by Richard St. Barbe Baker captures archaeologist Gerald Lankester Harding at Tell Fara, sometime in the 20th century. The sepia tone makes everything feel like it's been aged, like the photo itself is an artefact. It's a bit like looking at a painting, in that it captures a moment of human engagement with the past. Look how Harding delicately brushes away the earth, revealing ancient bones. There's a tension between the ephemeral and the eternal here. The texture of the soil, the rough cut of the pit, the fragility of the bones. I'm reminded of the work of Agnes Martin, who also used a limited palette to explore themes of time and space. But, unlike Martin’s subtle geometry, here we have the raw, tactile reality of archaeological excavation. It's a reminder that art, like archaeology, is a process of uncovering, of revealing hidden layers of meaning. There is no fixed meaning here, but something much more ambiguous.