The pursuit of knowledge. How wonderful. Science alone can only go so far, and religious dogma has historically performed such an infamously thorough job of discouraging the academic from pursuing the task that it has taken a few true mavericks - Thom , Burl, Cope etc - to prise open the lid of the 'pandora's box' where so much of our ancient heritage has languished unseen and let us see what's inside. What an amazing, precious, priceless gift. The gift of curiosity... a need to know more, to think. The very essence of humanity.