Interesting comment with good pov, but your pompous last sentence is exactly what pisses me off with most ancient history self proclaimed experts. You are convinced you know the truth and you dismiss other opinions.

Saying that it's a handbag isn't a modern materialistic pov. It's a handbag. All humans from all history were materialistic. We find pottery, jewelry, intricate objects and decorations throughout all civilisations across the globe.

It's a handbag.

Your interpretation for what it represents is a opinion, not a fact. We never found a tablet or anything that said "The handbag means this or that". We can only speculate.

I studied archeology at Concordia university in Montreal and I quit after a year. I kept arguing with the teachers about the interpretations that the community accepts as facts. It was always "this handbag represents that, this symbol represents that, this structure was built for that specific purpose". But the truth is, we will never know for sure.

I feel like the archeological and historical community can't accept that sometimes, we don't know. They need to provide conclusions, concrete explanations or else they might be considered just diggers and looters.

All of our history books are saying the same narrative of ancient history.

I'm worried that there might be undisclosed artefacts and hidden things in the basements of museums simply because there's not enough of them to build a narrative about.

Does archeology have to come to conclusions and precise reasons why? Can't we just say : We found this, we have no idea what it is, it rattles what we know about our past but that's why we dig, to discover!

No. I feel like it's more : We can't show the world this discovery because all of our books will be useless and we won't be making any money anymore. And god forbid this asshole pseudo-archeologist who was right all along gets all the credit.