Those who know me personally sometimes shake their heads and smile when I tell them how bright our future looks. I agree with them that I’m a hopeless optimist. But I also maintain that pessimism and accomplishment are dire enemies. Did you know that Thomas Edison tried thousands of filament materials before perfecting his electric light bulb? He believed in himself.

So you’ll forgive me for sharing with you a piece of a vision. Last time I referred to our journey as having an uncertain destination, but let me qualify that. We may not know our destination exactly, but I can tell you something about what it CAN be. Based on nearly six years of experience with this enterprise, it’s clear that the strategy we adopted back in 1999 is paying off. It has taken a long time to build momentum, but we have bootstrapped our way up to the threshold of some amazing developments.

Now that we have created the world’s most popular archaeology Web site, the wider world is beginning to notice. In July, we broke our all-time monthly record for page views with 601,237, but in September we shattered that record as well as our all-time monthly record for sessions, 243,000, set in April— September’s numbers reached 327,211 sessions and 657,793 page views. (Compare that with last year, when our average monthly traffic in the August- October period averaged just short of 65,000 sessions.) Our respectable traffic and our growing content—64 videos on October 3—have boosted our standing in the eyes of some important potential partners. I shouldn’t name names, but I can tell you that we have begun discussions with three multi-billion dollar companies, including one of the world’s top Internet Service Providers, one of the leading cable Internet companies in North America and a leading Internet media group. These talks may lead to partnerships in which we would funnel media content (primarily video) in our genre through these companies to the millions of people they serve. We also have been holding discussions with several film producers about making films for television and other venues. These germinating projects all offer us significant income or strongly enhanced traffic or both.

Maybe none of these initiatives will pan out—I’m a realist (no kidding!) as well as an optimist—but the very fact that leading companies are looking at what we have to offer bodes well for our future. We might have to go through many dead-end discussions before finally making a breakthrough deal. But that didn’t stop Edison.

Let me close with this appeal: financial constraints comprise our biggest obstacle to making the kind of breakthrough I’ve described, so please respond generously and without delay to our occasional fund- raising requests. Remember that you’re the wind in our sails.

Rick Pettigrew
President and Executive Director
Archaeological Legacy Institute

We began podcasting our Audio News from Archaeologica in July (see our August TAC Newsletter) with the hope that we would expand our audience somewhat. We wanted to ride the wave of current iPod popularity and had no idea how successful this initiative would be.

For those just learning about podcasting, here’s what it is: People everywhere carry around their little iPod boxes with earphones and listen to music or other audio while they go about their business. The audio is packaged in MP3 files that are downloaded from the Internet or copied from friends onto a computer and then transferred onto the iPod. And it’s not just music anymore. Apple’s iTunes Web site calls podcasting “The next generation of radio,” because lots of people use iPods not just for music but for news, talk shows and other non-music audio. Because people share these files across the Internet, Podcasting is a great way to take advantage of word-of-mouth marketing.

Now you can log on to our Audio News and find a Podcast link. When you go to the Podcast link, you have the option of listening to the MP3 file directly or downloading the file onto your computer and iPod for later listening.

The response has been incredible! Take a look at the graph at the top of this article. You’ll see that our podcast traffic, measured in page views, has grown from nothing in mid-July to nearly 14,000 page views per week in the last week of September! And our daily numbers continue to grow as this TAC Newsletter issue goes to press. Mostly because of the podcast, Audio News from Archaeologica now is the number two TAC program in terms of popularity. If this traffic growth continues much longer, the Audio News will soon become our most popular program! Clearly, podcasting is an effective way to reach lots of new TAC listeners, so we will put more effort in expanding our podcast initiative. We’ll register with more podcast Web sites and add more of our audio programs to our podcast feed. We don’t know how big this will get, but we’ll have fun finding out!

Photo: Podcast traffic to TAC in recent weeks

Our Video Shop has been on TAC for several years now, but it hasn’t generated many sales. It’s a but “clunky” and doesn’t allow visitors to make purchases directly–instead, they have to e-mail to get purchase information. Even so, video producers have been very interested in our potential to help them market their works. Further, TAC and TAC Festival visitors often ask us how they can obtain copies of videos that we show. Clearly, we can meet an important need and help ourselves financially if we can set up an effective sales outlet. We’re now taking concrete steps in that direction.

Recently, we upgraded our Web site hosting service to a level that includes MIVA Merchant, a “shopping cart” online sales system. Through MIVA, we now are building TAC Marketplace, an area on TAC where we will sell videos, books and possibly other merchandise made available by a variety of partners, beginning with those already in our Video Shop. As this TAC Newsletter goes to press, we are still working out the page design and building the database for the new area. But soon you will be able to visit TAC Marketplace and directly purchase some of the videos now showing on TAC. A major university wants to sell books through TAC as well, so those will be added in the weeks to come. Other vendors will follow. We hope that, in time, TAC Marketplace will be an important additional source of badly needed operational revenue

When TAC Marketplace is open for business and ready for you to visit, we’ll send out a special announcement. Be on the lookout for that news!

Our touring program, begun last year, now continues with a fascinating tour of Egypt! Offered in collaboration with experience touring professionals, this tour is a great way to experience the richness of the human cultural heritage and become better acquainted with archaeology. It also is an important fund-raising program for ALI, so your participation helps us pursue our nonprofit public mission. A $250 share of each purchased tour package is a tax-deductible contribution to ALI.

Called “Ancient Empires: Egypt,” this tour will take place February 11-25, 2006, and will be led by Ron Fellows (Heritage of the Americas Museum, El Cajon, California) and Tom Mudloff (Field Museum, Chicago). All the details, including the itinerary, are available via a link on TAC’s home page or go here for more information. The itinerary for our tour includes all the expected sites plus many that are rarely visited by other tour groups, such as sites like Abydos, Dendera, and el-Kab. But there is more, so much more - other sites, not listed in our itinerary, and missed by most tours. Our group will see the ongoing archaeological excavation at the Ramesseum. We’ll see the rarely visited village of Tod (“toad”) with its ancient and mysterious temple and the tomb of Paheri at el-Kab. We’ll have lunch on the Nile aboard the 75 foot dahabeyah, the Neferu-Ra, built for Omar Pasha Sultan about a hundred years ago (and lovingly restored). In Cairo we will visit the Egyptian Museum with the treasures of King Tutankhamon and the room of the Royal Mummies. But there is so much more: the strange, the mysterious, sacred things and secret places – underground passages, the hearing ear and the human voice of the god. Past participant Linda Carr said, “ I went to Egypt to see the pyramids, but I left loving the Egyptian people.” Garry Miller said, “A trip and experience never to be forgotten. . . . The stuff of dreams.”

The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival is only four months away! Last time we informed you that Brian Fagan would be our event speaker, how to make hotel reservations, and how to make advance ticket reservations. Let’s add a few items to that information list

Altogether, we received and accepted 56 film entries from 15 countries. We selected 17 of these to show on the big screen at the McDonald Theatre. That list is now posted on our TAC Festival 2006 page. The quality of the entrants on balance is very high–this probably is the best group of film entries we have received! Some of them are truly stunning! We will also put up on our TAC Festival page links to short clips of those films for you to preview.

Part of our TAC Festival effort is our traveling mini-Festival featuring the best films from TAC Festival 2004. Called ArchaeologyFest Film Series: Best of 2004, this series comprises the top nine films of that Festival edition and is designed as a promotional and fund-raising tool for TAC Festival 2006. We held this mini-Fest this past summer in downtown Eugene at the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts and during October at the Bijou Art Cinemas in Eugene. We now have it scheduled for one Friday and three Saturday evenings at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland. We are looking for other venues for this series and others like it to take place next year. If you would like this event to come to your community and you would like to help make that happen, please let us know.

Speaking of fund-raising, we should announce the arrival of a $2500 grant for the Festival from the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, headquartered in Roseburg, Oregon. This is the third straight time that the Cow Creek Band has supported the Festival, for which we are very grateful. We also recently have received contributions in support of the Festival from Robert A. Carmichael, D.D.S.; Toftemark and Olesen Co., and VCA Westmoreland Animal Hospital. Individuals or organizations that might consider becoming a Festival Sponsor should click here for more information why and how to do that.

We’re excited to announce a special perc for TAC Members only: a special evening at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, California (2002 N. Main St.)! You can see the mummies! To be held Friday, November 11 from 6:30 to 9:30 pm, this event will be open to all active individual supporting Members of The Archaeology Channel. We will offer hors d’oeuvres and wine in the Museum’s Galleria. Our volunteers at the Bowers will have a list of all active TAC Members, so all you need to do is identify yourself to them for admission to the Museum, the reception, and the Mummies exhibit.

The Mummies exhibit, currently the featured exhibit at the Bowers, is officially called Mummies: Death and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt . . . Treasures from the British Museum. This is the largest collection of ancient Egyptian mummies and coffins ever to leave the British Museum. The exhibit focuses on embalming, coffins, sarcophagi, shabti figures, magic and ritual, amulets, and papyri, as well as the process of mummification. These objects illustrate in depth the story of the fascinating Egyptian ritual of preparing and sending the dead to the afterlife, complete with furnishings created specifically for an individual's coffin, such as spectacular gold jewelry and a wooden boat to transport the dead into the underworld.

How did we manage to arrange such a generous benefit for our TAC Members? This was part of the compensation we received in an underwriting agreement with the Bowers Museum this past June. In exchange for this, some other in-kind contributions and some cash, we are featuring the Bowers Museum and the Mummies exhibit on our Home Page and on our video, Egypt: Gift of the Nile.

For us, this event is a chance not only to thank our supporting Members, but also to raise funds through new memberships. If you are not currently a TAC Member or your membership has lapsed, you can become a Member now or at any time before the Bowers event by following the instructions at http://www.archaeologychannel.org/member.asp. or by going to http://www.archaeologychannel.org/member new.html.You can become a Member on-line with your credit card or send us a check. If you send us a check, please make sure we can receive it before November 11! Also, if you know others who would love to see the Mummies exhibit and would be happy to become supporting Member, please tell them how they can do that! A $45 TAC Membership is not a bad deal when you consider this: tickets for the Mummies exhibit normally go for $20.50, but for that price you have to rub elbows with the crowd during the day without anything to eat or drink. Our event-goers at the Bowers will have the run of the exhibits during the evening on a private basis, plus the hors d’oeuvres, wine and fellowship, plus a tax deduction and the satisfaction of being a supporter of The Archaeology Channel!! We will also accept Membership contributions at the Bowers during the event for those who are hopeless procrastinators. But be advised that we are planning for a group of 50 people, so come early!