THE GOALS OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
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I. Goals have changed over time, in keeping
with social and intellectual changes. But of course older ideas
have remained alongside newer ones.
A. The goal of the collector
1. Based in the Renaissance
2. Conduct "archaeology"
in order to acquire beautiful objects--sculpture,
painting, gold, jewelry, in large part because the possession of these
objects confers status on the possessor.
a. For oneself
b. For a museum
3. Essentially "object-oriented," with value
dependent upon the artifact's beauty, rarity, and financial value.
4. Closely connected with museum acquisitions,
looting, ann (what is now) illicit trade in antiquities.
B. The goal of scholarship
1. Concerned primarily with a desire to understand past
societies through the study of their remains (their material culture).
2. Primarily centered in universities, but also
including independent authors, publishers, and foundations.
3. Increasingly, governments have come to play a leading
role in the preservation of cultural property and its management.
4, Naturally, this goal has been heavily influenced by
political and cultural considerations.
II. The Travelers
A. The Romantic Age
B. Connected with the Classical
Tradition
1. Also ideas of romantic
nationalism-the rebirth of Greece and Italy as nations
2. Also what is usually called
"orientalism," looking at "eastern"
people as mysterious and inscrutable
III. The First Heroes of Archaeology
A. These sought to "prove"
that some written record or legend of the past was actually
true
B. Some of these wanted to prove that
the Bible is true-Biblical Archaeology
C. Schliemann (Mycenae), Evans (Minoan),
Wooley (Mesopotamia), Petrie (Egypt)--and even Howard Carter
1. All these wanted to use
archaeology to "prove" something
2. The Beginnings of
"Modern" Classical Archaeology
3. The purpose remained to
illustrate classical texts
4. Famous case was William Watson
Goodwin's study of the Battle of Salamis (480 B.C.)
III. Slowly, Classical Archaeology began to be influenced by
intellectual developments elsewhere.
A. The changes in 19th-century science:
1. Uniformitarianism and geology
2. Darwin and broad ideas of evolution (including
evolution of society)
B. Development of new techniques and ideas in archaeology
outside the Mediterranean
1. Pitt-Rivers (Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers)
applied principles developed in geology and elsewhere to the study of human
material culture.
a. The ideas of stratification and seriation.
b. In 1881 he found human-made flint tools in ancient
Egyptian walls at Luxor (ancient Thebes); he deduced that the flints must
have come from a much earlier context.
2. Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the 1920s and 1930s developed
modern methods of excavation.
IV. Further changes began to be made among a group
of archaeologists working on a scientific approach to the
prehistory of the Aegean area early in the 20th century
A. A leading exponent was Carl Blegen
1. Excavated at Korakou, Zygouries, and later at Troy (1932-38) and Pylos (1939)
2. University of Cincinnati
3. Definition of ceramic
chronologies
B. A.J.B.Wace (British), Neolithic and
Mycenaean
C. Christos Tsountas (Neolithic)
D. C.Q. Giglioli
1. Etruscan cemeteries and
settlements
2. Excavation of Veii
For further information on this topic (outside the class
website):
John Romer's History of Archaeology, from Britain's
Channel 4: http://www.channel4.com/nextstep/great_excavations/
Information about Pitt-Rivers and the museum he founded: http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/RESEARCH-AT-PRM/PRproject.detail-1.html
Architecture
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