OXFORD STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Editorial Board
BETTINA ARNOLD
MICHAEL DIETLER
STEPHEN DYSON
PETER ROWLEY-CONWY
HOWARD WILLIAMS
OXFORD STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGY consists of
scholarly works focusing on the history of archaeology throughout the
world. The series covers the development of prehistoric, classical, colonial,
and early historic archaeologies up to the present day. The studies, although
researched at the highest level, are written in an accessible style and will
interest a broad readership.
A World History of
Nineteenth-Century
Archaeology
Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Past
MARGARITA DI
´
AZ-ANDREU
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox26dp
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ISBN 978–0–19–921717–5
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To my husband, Angel, and my daughter Anna
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Preface
In 1999, while organizing a one-day conference on ‘Nationalism and Archae-
ology’ held in the London School of Economics, I was encouraged by the
well-known scholar of nationalism, the sociologist Anthony Smith, to write
an overview. By then I was not new to the subject. Over the years I had been
contributing to the lively debate over the value of understanding the political
context for the development of archaeology. This contested the previously
dominant internalist perspective on the history of archaeology, which focused
on the progress of archaeological thoug ht while taking little, if any, account
of the socio-political and economic framework in which it was formulated.
As part of the debate, I edited books on nationalism (Dı
´
az-Andreu &
Champion 1996b; Dı
´
az-Andreu & Smith 2001), and women in academia
(Dı
´
az-Andreu & Sørensen 1998b), as well as producing work more narrowly
related to the archaeology of particular countries, Spain and, to a lesser
extent, Britain.
Throughout the 1999 conference it became obvious how uneven our
understanding of developments in archaeology beyond Europe was. It was
unclear how imperialism and colonialism had aVected archaeological practice
in the colonies, as well as in parts of the world which resisted colonialism such

I have drawn on many studies on the history of archaeology in several
languages, including English, German (to the extent that my knowledge of
the language has allowed me), and several Romance tongues (French, Italian,
and Spanish), which have helped my work tremendously and of which the
bibliography at the end of the book is, I hope, good reXection. Nonetheless,
I cannot pretend to have covered the entire literature of the subject. I am
constrained by my limited mastery of most of the world’s languages, in which
a lot of interesting information is no doubt to be found.
While I alone am responsible for what has been written, I would like to
acknowledge the great debt I owe to institutions and colleagues for providing
essential support. A small—but extremely helpful—dean’s fund in the sum-
mer of 2004 made it easier for me to use the British Library to access
information diYcult to obtain otherwise. An invaluable grant from the
AHRC allowed me extra time for research during October to December
2004, in addition to the two sabbatical terms provided by the university. This
made it possible for me to have a good, Wrst draft of the volume ready by the
time I returned to my teaching commitments. The research committee in my
department also provided me with Wnancial help to pay for the editing of the
English of the original text and later helped to alleviate my administrative
commitments at the time when the volume had to be revised in light of
the readers’ comments in summer 2006. As a non-native English speaker,
for the successful completion of the project a team of English editors was
needed: I am most grateful to Anwen CaVell, Gary Campbell, Jaime
Jennings, Anne O’Connor, Megan Price, Kate Sharpe, and Angel Smith.
I am also indebted to the large number of people who, over many years,
have assisted with the writing of this project. My greatest debt is to Suzanne
Marchand and to two other anonymous readers for Oxford University Press,
who oVered insightful critiques of my manuscript. My response to their
many comments has greatly improved the quality of the book. The following
viii Preface

´
guez, Peter Manuelian, Suzanne Marchand, Jaume Masso
´
,Aron
Mazel, Chris Miele, Ignacio Montero, Gloria Mora, Oscar Moro, Tim Murray,
Aleksandr Naymark, Elisabeth Nordbladh, Anne O’Connor, Ayse Ozdemir,
David W. Phillipson, Peter Rowley-Conwy, Laurajane Smith, Pamela Jane
Smith, Ulrike Sommer, Marie Louis Stig Sørensen, Ruth Struwe, Igor L.Tikho-
nov, Mogens Trolle Larsen, Luis Va
´
zquez Leo
´
n, Guus Veenendaal, Stephen
Vernoit, Ha
˚
kan Wahlquist, Hartmut Walravens, Stine Wiell, Penny Wilson,
and Oliver Zimmer. This book owes an intellectual debt to many people in
Spain (for the whole list see Dı
´
az-Andreu 2002: 11–13), to Bruce Trigger’s
work, which has made history of archaeology an acceptable enterprise in the
eyes of my colleagues and to the members of the AREA (Archives of European
Archaeology) project. This volume should be seen as contributing to the
project’s goals. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those mentioned
above for their encouragement. Last, but not least, thanks to Durham library,
and especially to John Lumsden, Kate Page, Caro Baker, and Heather Medcalf,
for having searched and made available a wide range of publications which
have greatly enriched this work.
Portions of Chapter 1 were published in the introductory chapter of the
volume edited with Anthony D. Smith on Nationalism and Archaeology in the

4. Archaeology and the 1820 Liberal Revolution: The Past in
the Independence of Greece and Latin American Nations 79
PART II. THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF INFORMAL
IMPERIALISM
5. Informal Imperialism in Europe and the Ottoman Empire:
The Consolidation of the Mythical Roots of the West 99
6. Biblical Archaeology 131
7. Informal Imperialism beyond Europe: The Archaeology
of the Great Civilizations in Latin America, China, and Japan 167
PART III. COLONIAL ARCHAEOLOGY
8. Colonialism and Monumental Archaeolog y in South and
Southeast Asia 209
9. Classical versus Islamic Antiquities in Colonial Archaeology:
The Russian Empire and French North Africa 245
10. Colonialism and the Archaeology of the Primitive 278
PART IV. NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN EUROPE
11. The Early Search for a National Past in Europe (1789–1820) 317
12. Archaeology and the Liberal Revolutions (c. 1820–1860):
Nation, Race, and Language in the Study of Europe’s Past 338
13. Evolutionism and Positivism (c. 1860–1900) 368
14. Conclusions 398
Maps 409
References 414
Index 461
xii Contents
List of Abbreviations
ASI Archaeological Survey of India
bce Before contemporary era
ce Contemporary era
CIAPP International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology

4. The Russian Empire (based on Moore 1981: 70) 412
5. Map of Europe in 1861 (based on The Times Atlas 1994:
156–7). The grey line encloses the German confederation 413
1
An Alternative Account of the History
of Archaeolog y in the Nineteenth Century
THE MULTIVOCALITY OF ARCHAEOLOGY AS A CHALLENGE
TO WRITING THE HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLINE
Historians of science (whether philosophers, epistemologists, historians of
science, or sociologists of science) have been stubbornly reluctant to deal with
archaeology in favour of other disciplines such as geology and medicine.1
Most histories of archaeology have, therefore, been written by archaeologists
and this book is no exception. Being trained in the subtleties of stratigraphy
and typology does not, however, provide archaeologists w ith the necessary
tools to confront the history of their own discipline. Many of the histories of
archaeology so far written revolve around a narrow, almost positivistic,
understanding of what the writing of one’s own disciplinary history repre-
sents. This volume attempts to overcome these limitations. Questions ad-
dressed have been inspired by a wide range of authors working in the areas of
history, sociology, literary studies, anthropology, and the history of science. It
uses the case of nineteenth-century world archaeology to explore the potential
of new directions in the study of nationalism for our understanding of the
history of archaeology. Key concepts and questions from which this study has
drawn include the changing nature of national history as seen by historians
(Berger et al. 1999b; Hobsbawm 1990) and by scholars working in the
areas of literature and political studies (Anderson 1991); transformations
within nationalism (Smith 1995); new theoretical perspectives developed
within colonial and post-colonial studies (Asad 1973; Said 1978); the rela-
tionship between knowledge and power (Foucault 1972 (2002); 1980b); and
1 Among historians of science there are a few exceptions: Michael Hammond, Henrika

The study of the material remains of the past has also attracted historians,
philologists, historians of art, architects, doctors, botanists, geologists, palae-
ontologists, anthropologists, clerics, and members of many other professions.
A certain homogeneity has only appeared in the last few years under the
umbrella of public archaeology, which seems to have similar objectives every-
where in the world.
This diversity is certainly not new. In the eighteenth century, a distinction
was drawn between historians, who focused on rhetoric and grand narratives,
and antiquarians. Although both admired and made use of classical antiquity
as one of their main sources, the antiquarians believed that antiquities could
provide new information not contained in the texts written by the classical
authors (Sweet 2004: 3). Further subdivisions appeared in the 1870s and
1880s, when archaeologists became separated from antiquarians. The term
archaeologist came ‘to signify the trained and respected professional’ as
opposed to that of antiquarian (Levine 1986: 36, 39, 89). Referring to the
nineteenth century, Alain Schnapp (1991) distinguishes between philological
archaeology and natural archaeology. The Wrst type had emerged from
Winckelmann’s work on Greek and Roman sculpture and comprised all of
those who studied the monuments of classical antiquity assisted by data from
written documents. The second was based on typology and was closer to
2 Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century
geology and anthropology, and they mainly focused their studies in the
prehistoric period. The need for training to qualify as a professional, however,
would radically change the meaning of archaeology from the late nineteenth
century.
The multivocality of the meaning of archaeology in the present as well as in
the past makes the attempt to write a history of archaeology a challenge. There
are many possible histories of archaeology, as many as understandings of what
archaeology is. In this book the widest possible meaning has been chosen. In
fact, included in this volume are many individuals who dealt with ancient

pendency’ (Marchand 1996a: 155). In this book, the term amateur has been used instead of
avocational, to avoid the modern connotations of the latter concept, of recent creation.
An Alternative Account 3
NATIONALISM, IMPERIALISM, AND COLONIALISM
IN ARCHAEOLOGY
In this book it is argued that archaeology is not a value-free and neutral social
science as previously presumed. I will argue, therefore, that for a correct
understanding of the history of archaeology it becomes essential to evaluate
the impact of the framework in which it developed. It is only when this is
done that a more critical and deconstructive history of archaeology becomes
possible. The perspective adopted in this volume, therefore, contrasts with
that taken in other major overviews of the history of archaeology, from
Michaelis’ early study, Die archa
¨
ologischen Entdeckungen des 19. Jahrhunderts
(A Century of Archaeological Discoveries, 1908), to Glyn Daniel’s A Hundred
Years of Archaeology (Wrst published in 1950, later published as A Hundred
and Fifty Years of Archaeology), and Gran Aymerich’s more recent Naissance
de l’Arche
´
ologie Moderne (The Birth of Modern Archaeology, 1998). These
syntheses focus on the internal development of the discipline, centring their
attention on the role of particular individuals in the evolution of ideas and the
progress of the discipline. They generally pay little attention to external
circumstances—the political, social and cultural context which shaped the
practice of archaeology. The exception to this is when moments of crisis are
discussed, particularly during the totalitarian regimes of National Socialist
Germany and Fascist Italy. Implicitly, the assumption is that archaeology
is normally isolated from political or social realities except sporadically,
in extreme cases, and that the consideration of external factors is not indis-

government is national self-government.
(Kedourie 1993: 1).
Nationalism is distinguished from patriotism3 in that the latter only encom-
passes feelings of support for, loyalty to or belief in a nation, whereas the Wrst
also refers to an organized political doctrine and movement which aimed at
the political self-determination of the nation. Patriotism, also deWned by
some as proto-nationalism, was operative earlier in histor y, certainly during
the medieval period. Although some see nations as having existed for millen-
nia before our era in places such as Egypt (Smith 2005), this view is not widely
held (for an update on the debate see Scales & Zimmer 2005). The argument
proposed in this book aligns itself with those who think that the nation only
became constitutive of state power and legitimacy from the late eighteenth
century onwards.
Nationalism is a complex and diverse ideology that can be subjected to a
variety of typologies. One of them is the distinction made by many experts
between civic or political nationalism and cultural or ethnic nationalism. In
the Wrst case, the concept of the nation is coupled with a universal recognition
of both individual rights and the sovereignty of the people within the nation,
and with the notion of popular freedom, which individuals are ready to defend
even at the cost of their lives (Hobsbawm 1990: 18–19; Smith 1991a: 10).
3 Several authors such as Linda Colley (Colley 1992) confusingly discuss eighteenth-century
nationalism as a term interchangeable with patriotism. I will follow Hobsbawm (1990) and
others in their contention that nationalism only appears as a political ideology at the end of the
eighteenth century.
An Alternative Account 5
The historian Hans K ohn argued that this type of nationalism emerged in the
West and was ‘rational’ as against cultural or ethnic nationalism which was
‘m ystical’ (Kohn 1946: 3–4). In ethnic or cultural nationalism nations are d eWned
as units formed by individuals who share a common history, and therefore form
part of the same ethnic group—or race as expressed in the nineteenth c entury—,

an idea today so controversial, so fraught with all sorts of questions, doubts,
polemics and ideological premises as nearly to resist use altogether’ (Said
1993: 3). Nevertheless, in his opinion, imperialism can be employed to refer to
6 Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century
‘the practice, theory and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre
ruling a distant territory’ as against colonialism meaning ‘the implanting of
settlements on a distant territor y’ (ibid. 8).
Said and other post-colonial studies writers are partly inspired by authors
within cultural studies, mainly by politically engaged thinkers such as
Gramsci and Foucault, whose radical literar y theory and criticism analysed
unjust power relationships as manifested in cultural products. In fact post-
colonial studies can be better understood as an umbrella name given to the
work of a group of scholars, who use a wide and even divergent body of
theory. Many of the ideas that Xow into post-colonial discussions are in a state
of Xux. There even seems to be a great deal of uncertainty as to just what the
term ‘post-colonial’ denotes. The key issue here is that postcolonialism has, as
Derek Gregory says, ‘a constitutive interest in colonialism’. This author argues
that it exposes the continuous demands and extortions of colonialism in
order to overcome them (Gregory 2004: 9). Post-colonial studies aspire to
‘resist the seductions of nostalgic histories of colonialism’ (ibid.). Parts II and
III of this volume can be viewed as within the corpus of post-colonial studies
in that it aims critically to examine the role of archaeology in the interactions
between European (and North American and Japanese) nations and the
societies they colonized either formally or informally in the modern period
in general and during the nineteenth centur y in particular.
Although colonial and post-colonial theory originated in literary studies,
and this is still the Weld with the largest number of scholars, the debate has
increasingly gained prominence in other research areas, such as media studies,
geography and political science. In archaeology post-colonial studies have just
started to produce critiques that are bringing a completely new perspective to

implications that need further study.
Imperial discourse is about power and how it works. It is from their
vantage point that archaeologists produce a narrative of power which is
based on the authority of the observer and consigns the non-European to a
secondary status, a narrative that takes as a basis the concept of the ‘Other’ as
inferior, subordinate and dependent. This is not a narrative divorced from
everyday practice. In this sense, the way in which colonial discourse permeates
all cultural activities and in Xuences archaeology can be described rhizomi-
cally, i.e. like a root system that spreads across the ground. Some authors
prefer the metaphor of a spider’s web. The terms rhizome and web aim to
convey the way in which colonial discourse imposes its hegemony dynamic-
ally, following the diverse and even contradictory pathways proposed by the
diVerent actors. Connections, internalizations, understandings are some of
the processes by which cultural hegemony operates. The way in which colo-
nial discourse is imposed is not through a monolithic, violent force following
a master plan. It is much more subtle and diverse. Bourdieu’s concept of
symbolic violence is also pertinent. For Bourdieu, symbolic violence is ‘a
gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the
most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and
cognition (more precisely, misrecognition), recognition, or even feeling’
(Bourdieu 2001: 1–2).
Colonial archaeology was a practice linked to one of the most powerful
strategies of imperial dominance, that of surveillance or observation (cf.
Foucault 1977). It is from the position as observer that archaeologists help
to objectify the ‘Other’ through the analysis of the past. Connected to this
some authors have used the concept of alterity to indicate the ‘Other’, an
abstraction formed as an opposite to that of the Western image of itself. Far
8 Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century
from the cultural essentialism that may be read into the previous sentence, the
binary set Westerner-Other—a dualism that is indeed seen by some in

requires an archival eVort which is beyond the scope of this volume. This is
undoubtedly one of the pending research questions to be addressed in the
historiography of the development of archaeolog y in the colonized world.
Resistance can be ambivalent. It may be found, for instance, in the form of the
4 I have decided to favour the word ‘native’ over ‘indigenous’. Both of these terms have
imperial, racist connotations which are inescapable. Yet, the decision by native Americans that
‘native’ was a more respectful way to refer to themselves in the 1960s suggests that it may be the
best word to employ in this book. Semantically, it also seems better to use the more neutral term
‘native’, born in the area, than ‘indigenous’, from a local race.
An Alternative Account 9
colonized’s opposition to the discourse of the past connected to the creation
of a scientiWc narrative of origins in contrast with a mythical one. Opposition
to hegemonic views may also be conWgured as theories formulated within the
archaeological framework that oppose the rhetoric of inferiority utilized by
colonizers. This implies the acceptance of nationalism, and, more generally,
Western political thought, as politically valid (cf. Fanon 1967: 17). In these
types of cases, as Spivak (Spivak 1994 (1985)) warns, it is impossible to
disentangle the voice of the subaltern, the voice of resistance, from the
colonial discourse.
THE PERSPECTIVE AND STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK
Structuring a book like this one was not an easy enterprise. I considered many
possibilities. From early on I became aware of the allure exerted by the
archaeology of the Great Civilizations in Europe and the Near East, which
put them on a higher plane than anything else which went on in the discip-
line. Although this distinction is vital for my argument, the volume has been
structured along other lines, integrating the discussion of this question
throughout the book. The second option I contemplated was to amalgamate
Parts I and IV, giving priority to the developments in European archaeology,
and then explaining either the emergence of or the growing interest in
archaeology throughout the world in the context of contemporar y historical