Under the Sun by Bruce Chatwin

decided not to go up to Oxford. It had presented itself again in December 1965 on a visit to the Hermitage when he stood before the embalmed body of a Pasyryk chieftain who had been brought back to Leningrad in 1933 by the archaeologist Rudenko. On his return to London, Chatwin had borrowed Rudenko’s report from Robert Erskine, once an archaeologist at Cambridge, and began to look into archaeology degrees.
    Archaeology had interested Chatwin since his schooldays when his great-uncle Philip Chatwin, a force behind the Birmingham Archaeological Society, had taken Chatwin on his excavations at Weoley Castle. From Sotheby’s, Chatwin would visit Hugh at Marlborough, especially to revisit West Kennet Long Barrow, Silbury Hill and the Avebury stone circle. ‘It was in his bones,’ says Hugh. ‘He was looking for absolutes, for why we are as we are, and shifting from Anglo-Catholic certainties to pagan rites.’
    Cary Welch tried to discourage him – ‘I know, from experience, that you are too alive for the academic world’ – but agreed to write to Stuart Piggott, Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Edinburgh. Their meeting at the end of May decided Chatwin. Thereafter, Welch backed him. ‘Your decision to study archaeology is very exciting . . . it may be that you MUST prove yourself to yourself in the THING area. Inasmuch as its rewards can be predicted, it is a wise, safe choice. Stuart P[iggott] could not be a better sort, to my mind, and I think you are to be warmly congratulated.’

    On 24 June 1966 Elizabeth wrote to her mother: ‘Bruce has finally decided to leave Sotheby’s. He is going to go to Edinburgh University to get a degree in archaeology and this will take about 4 years. Sotheby’s is having fits of course and are trying everything they know to make him stay another year, but it just won’t work. He’s been accepted at Edinburgh and is quite determined to go now, especially as we have geared ourselves up to it . . . He said he is going to write to you himself about it all, but I thought I’d just tell you in case you found out some other way. Anyway it’s nothing to get alarmed about so don’t worry. He’s been thinking about this for ages, but couldn’t find out how to start, and where to go and it’s taken quite a while to get it all organised, especially finding the people to talk to, as most of them were out in the desert digging or something. The mechanics of his leaving Sotheby’s have not been worked out yet as he only told them a week ago, but I expect they will make the arrangements for him to sell his shares back etc.’

To Gertrude Chanler
    119a Mount Street | London | 24 June 1966
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    Please don’t have a fit. We’ll survive, and before you know it Lib will be turned into a SCHOLAR! 102 I’ll write soon: I’m sorry it’s all so precipitate but its no use chewing it over and over once one’s decided to take the plunge.
    With love, Bruce

To Gertrude Chanler
    119a Mount Street | London | 6 July 1966
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    Dear Gertrude,
    I am sorry that we took you by surprise the other day with my decision to give up Sotheby’s and read archaeology. The fact is that I have been chewing this idea over for at least four years. When I took up the partnership in April I had got no further and was content to let the thing drift. The main difficulty was that in this country you cannot read prehistoric archaeology as such, but have to take a first degree in classics or some such subject, and then go on for another three years with a doctorate in archaeology; the other alternative is a rather ineffectual diploma which takes two years and is not much good nowadays vis-à-vis a job at the end of it. During the last week in May I met Professor Stuart Piggott 103 who has the chair in Edinburgh; he has recently reorganised the department and has a four-year honours degree; he has hardly any