Digital BW, The Print

put simply, in the world of Conservators and Archives, the term archival has
absolutely no meaning in terms of a fixed longevity for any particular
item - be it paintings, photographs, skin clothing or bone tools. Indeed,
the term generally used is longevity

"Archival" is used in terms of the conditions those items are kept in and
the handling they receive (or don't receive) to stabilize them and slow down
as far as possible any deterioration.

Any particular item will have it's own set of archival standards to provide
optimum conditions for that item. Within those will be generally accepted
figures as to how effective that stabilization is and what the expected
longevity of any particular thing will be under those ideal conditions.

Using the term "archival" to describe ink, paper, film, cd's (as kodak did)
is pure marketing. The items may well last a long time (how long is a piece
of string?) - but that really has nothing to do with them being called
archival or not. Certain paint pigments will last until kingdom come, it
seems, but no-one ever seems to bother much about saying  "hey, buy this
tube of archival paint for doing your landscapes with"

Most likely, Epson was just worried about being sued for using an already
inaccurate term even more inaccurately.... Heaven knows, they have a history
of changing paper names as a pure whim, or at least making them as confusing
as possible - Epson Photo, Epson Glossy Epson Photo Glossy etc etc

tim