In a shock announcement by its new financial director, The British Academy has today asked all British archaeological missions in Egypt to cease using Munsell Soil Colour Charts with immediate effect. The charts, which assign alphanumeric values to colours representing their hue, value and chroma, have been used by archaeologists and soil scientists for decades, but were described in the Academy's press release as 'an unnecessary extravagance'.

Explaining his decision, Tim Yardley said "We were shocked to realise that these expensive soil colour charts were still in use when superior alternatives are freely available in the public domain. Furthermore, our own observations of recent work at Memphis, Amarna and Sais suggest that the charts are primarily employed by postgraduate drill-core supervisors to idly check the progress of their sun tan. One such student said to our observer - and I'm quoting directly here - "Look, I just take the sample, pretend to get excited about 'organic inclusions' check there's no gold leaf, write down 'silty sand' or sometimes even 'sandy silt', bash 10YR 4/3 down for the colour and then look busy for another ten minutes while Abdul and the guys here get the next lot out. I was told if I do this for six weeks, they'll let me hold the magnetometer next season. I just hope we hit the bloody water table soon.""

Yardley went on to announce that, from next year, all British Academy-funded missions will use the 'Kitchen and Bathroom Hardwearing Matt Emulsion' chart from Dulux, which is available in hardware stores across the country. He was keen to point out that the new chart actually contains twenty per cent more colours than the Munsell version.

The announcement was immediately welcomed by the Post-processual Archaeology Partnership (PAP) and other groups for academics with an interest in fashionable intellectual mumbo jumbo. PAP's spokesman Edward Holt said "We've said for years now that the Munsell system is too objective and inflexible for today's dynamic, forward-thinking field directors, some of whom have read Baudrillard. This bold move by the Academy heralds a paradigm shift in the archaeological lexicon; one that will free pedology from the intellectual shackles of the Munsell hegemony and liberate soil science from the arbitrary classifications of our processual forefathers. Landscape archaeology will now come alive with the voices of the ancients; we will be able to breathe life into our meta-narratives using this new experiential terminology. It stands to reason that an ancient Egyptian's description of an occupation layer would be far closer to the evocation of say, 'Desert Whisper' or 'Malibu Sunrise' than '5YR 3/2'. Well, perhaps not the Malibu bit."

Clearly warming to his theme, Holt continued: "At PAP, we also see this as an important step towards the democratisation of archaeological vocabulary. The accurate description of soil colours has for too long been the preserve of stuffy academics in their ivory towers." Pausing to refer to a colour chart, Holt added: "Or Orkney Snowfall towers, as we now call them."

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