Archiving a Maya scene in Python?

I’m looking to archive a scene (https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-C2E5B5A5-7AF1-49B8-B0C1-24CF0AB5C0FD-htm.html) through a python script, the documentation for the API ‘getExternalContent()’ is ridiculous. So trying in python, anyone done it in python? Or successfully done it with the API?