Archaeology Without Identity? Antiquity and French Archaeological Research Around the Mediterranean (1850-1945)

The authors present the geopolitics of French archaeological activity in the Mediterranean during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Starting with the activity and function of the French schools of Athens and Rome, the paper also looks at the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon. The undertakings were various with excavations in Greece and in Italy, while they lacked the possibility to dig, they assumed a representative function. French archaeology abroad was motivated by the need to keep pace with their European rivals, to increase France’s scientific brilliance, and also answer the positivist ideal of the progress of knowledge. It was not driven by nationalistic ulterior motives as the definition of the French national identity was built more on home soil and archaeology — even the Gallo-Roman archaeology — was never fully used.