A museum on paper

A recent colloquium on French archaeology in the second half of the 19th century drew attention to the work of a talented illustrator, Victor Caucheiné, several of whose watercolours may be seen at the niuseuni in Compiègne. Additional research, intended to place this painterarchaeologist in historical context, showed that his situation was not unique and that, during the same period, in France well as elsewhere in Europe, there was a surge of interest in reproductions of objects and of archaeological sites. This is not to be confused with the fashion for romantic landscapes, of which Baron Taylor's Voyuges dons l'ancienne France serves as a good example (Adhémar 1997), nor with the passion for monuments, as shown by the imposing collection of Laborde (Laborde 1816-1836). Rather, this activity was the doing of an archaeological school which, for three-quarters of a century, set out to explore the meaning of archaeological excavation and their associated finds.

In recent years the history of archaeology has been enjoying something of a vogue in different research traditions, resulting in a wealth of new studies and publications. In the English-speaking world, our store of biographies and national histories has been considerably expanded by the five-volume Encyclopedia of archaeology (Murray 1999; 2001). The Bulletin of the History of Archaeology has provided a much needed forum for research, and the AREA project — Archives of European Archaeology — has begun to explore a range of resources bearing on the history of archaeology in Europe. At the same time, archaeologists have continued to justify and to advocate the significance of ‘novel’ approaches to archaeology through partial histories of the discipline (the most recent being those associated with the revival of ‘Darwinian archaeologies’ such as Lyman et al. 1997).