Archaeology Extravaganza Cancelled

Briton Caroline Sturdy Colls, weeping over artifacts at Treblinka before the BBC's cameras, has drastically altered the popular image of archaeologists. Where previously one thought of Indiana Jones wielding a bullwhip in some pestilential snake pit, we now have Dr. Colls wiping tears from her pretty face while brandishing shards of floor tiles for viewers all over the world to espy six-pointed stars thereupon. While the bullwhip is long gone, the aroma of bull remains as strong as ever Dr. Jones managed to convey to his audiences, who at least realized that he was a wholly fictional character. For the young real-world archaeologist from Staffordshire University, a bright future beckons somewhere between the footnotes and the footlights, but it took a step backwards today at the Kinloss Synagogue of London. There, she was scheduled to deliver a talk to the public (£10 admission) on her well publicized rootings-about in the environs of Poland's wartime "death camp," as advertised on Page 18 of this brochure (.pdf download). At least one of the British organizations that object to the campaign of sensationalism and deception centered on the Holocaust to which Dr. Colls has hitched the wagon of her career threatened to pack the hall with people intent on asking penetrating questions of the speaker. Either she wouldn't face these questions, or her sponsors didn't wish to let her try. The event was cancelled without explanation on very short notice. It seems that any possibility of interacting with the public is rather more-daunting than the incurious cameras of the British Broadcasting Corporation. One wonders if Dr. Colls allows questions of her students at her lectures.