Museology and heritage studies
More general subjects:
Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future
This volume brings together an international and interdisciplinary host of scholars to reflect on the complicated legacies of exploration at the archaeological site of Dura-Europos situated on the western bank of the Euphrates River near modern Salihiyeh (Syria). A chance discovery after World War I kicked off a series of excavations that would span the next century and whose finds are today housed in collections worldwide including the Yale University Art Gallery the Louvre and the National Museum in Damascus. Dura-Europos exemplifies a multiethnic frontier town at the crossroads of major trade routes. Its textual remains and remarkably-preserved Christian Jewish and polytheist religious sanctuaries provide key resources for the study of antiquity and attest to the cross-cultural interconnectivity that was demonstrably central to the ancient world but which has been too often obscured by Eurocentric historiographic traditions and siloed disciplinary divisions.
Foreign-run large-scale archaeological campaigns of the early twentieth century like those at Dura-Europos have created narratives of power and privilege that often exclude local communities. The significance of these imbalances is entangled with the destruction the site has experienced since the 2011 outbreak of conflict in Syria. As a step toward making knowledge descendant of early excavations more accessible this volume includes Arabic summaries of each paper following up on the simultaneous Arabic interpretation provided at the 2022 hybrid conference whose proceedings form the core of this publication. The papers address topics connected to essential themes in relation to Dura-Europos: long-distance trade relations and cross-border interactions in antiquity including the exchange of technologies people and materials; Christianity Judaism and other religious practices and their relations to one another; contemporary trafficking of looted artifacts; cultural heritage and the Islamic State; and the evolving role of museum collections technologies and archival materials for research.
Trends in Archive Archaeology
Current Research on Archival Material from Fieldwork and its Implications for Archaeological Practice
Archive archaeology has in recent years become increasingly acknowledged as an important component of archaeological research. However the vast amounts of empirical data contained in such archives — among them fieldwork diaries working notebooks finds sheets and photographs — together with a sense that the field is often skewed towards ‘one’s own data’ have made it difficult to develop a clear methodological approach that fits all eventualities. The result is that archive archaeology is still not always recognized for what it can bring to the discipline of archaeology as a field of study that focuses on the contexts within which humanity developed.
This volume draws together contributions from scholars who work with archives in a variety of capacities: as fieldwork directors of decades-long excavations; as archivists interested in the history of collections; as specialists focusing on certain object groups or regions; and as researchers broadly interested in what archival material brings to the table in terms of new knowledge about archaeological situations. In showcasing contributions of work in progress the chapters published here bring to the fore knowledge about archives that has long been overlooked and examine how archival archaeology should be shaped in the future so that it can become more firmly integrated within archaeological practice.
Touring Belgium
A Nation’s Patrimony in Print (1830–1920)
Touring Belgium presents a wide range of printed media – from travel guides and collected letters to albums from picture postcards to bibliographies and war-time propaganda – to explore how the print culture developing in the wake of travel and tourism helped to establish a national architectural heritage. Covering material from the period of Belgian independence through the aftermath of World War I eight historians of art and architecture each situate one main publication against a dazzling background of nineteenth and early twentieth-century cultural discourses revolutions in image reproduction and emerging heritage management.
Reproductions in the middle part of the book present the core publications as material objects. These printed artifacts bring into view a nascent heritage that ranges from gothic town halls and dead cities to modern factories and railroad infrastructure; often there is little distinction between what threatens or enshrines the national patrimony. Writers like Schnaase and Hugo museum conservators like Schayes and Kervyn de Lettenhove symbolist painters like Hannotiau innovative lithographers like Simonau and publishers like Géruzet or the Touring-club de Belgique all bring their concerns to bear on what they see as Belgian heritage. Their preoccupations with patrimony help to craft Belgium as a nation with a history at the crossroads of Europe – historic architecture becomes a reality embedded in the territory as much as an imagery fabricated in print.
Contextualizing Conques. Imaginaries, Narratives & Geographies
Reapproaching Conques from new contexts is the basis of the present volume a product of the international project “Conques in the Global World. Transferring Knowledge: from Material to Immaterial Heritage” (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange H2020). Although it is an important location of cultural heritage and has been consequential historiographically and in the formation of art history there has never been a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to this momentous site. Thus this volume publishes the first results of the interdisciplinary and international project which were initially presented at a conference and enriched by workshops held in New York City in the summer of 2022. The collected essays open with reflective and historiographic work on Conques in the nineteenth century. These segue into essays reconsidering specific integral elements of extant medieval materials at the site. Finally the volume concludes with a series of essays devoted to placing Conques in a broader context. The entire volume aims to open to as yet unaddressed questions in scholarship on Conques with the hope that this work will provide a foundation for future studies.
Shaping Archaeological Archives
Dialogues between Fieldwork, Museum Collections, and Private Archives
Archaeology as a discipline has undergone significant changes over the past decades in particular concerning best practices for how to handle the vast quantities of data that the discipline generates. Much of this data has often ended up in physical - or more recently digital - archives and been left untouched for years despite containing critical information. But as many recent research projects explore how best to unleash the potential of these archives through publication digitization and improved accessibility attention is now turning to the best practices that should underpin this trend.
In this volume scholars turn their attention to how best to work with and shape archaeological archives and what this means for the field as a whole. The majority of case studies here explore archaeological sites in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East some of which are conflict zones today. However the contributions also showcase more broadly the depth of research on archaeological archives as a whole and offer reflections upon the relationship between archaeological practices and archival forms. In so doing the volume is able to offer a unique dialogue on best practices for the dissemination and synthetization of knowledge from archives more generally whether physical or digital.
What is Medieval?
Decoding Approaches to the Medieval and Medievalism in the 21st Century
The Middle Ages and Medievalism have been used and abused throughout history–and this continues. This narrative deserves a reassessment. But what is Medieval? This is the central question that unifies the contributions in this volume.
‘Medievalism’ or the study of the Middle Ages in its broadest sense refers to the perception conceptualisation and movement towards the era post the fifteenth century. Its study is therefore not about the period otherwise referred to as the ‘Middle Ages’ but rather the myriad ways it has since been conceived. And the field of medievalism is still in its relative infancy which has led to the emergence of various existential questions about its scope remit theoretico-methodological and pedagogical underpinnings interpretation periodization and its relationship to established disciplines and more emerging subdisciplines and specialised fields—both within and without the academy.
In turn neomedievalism has allowed insight into and a response to the medieval often dominated by the modern. This has provoked debate over the nature of neomedievalism as a discipline subdiscipline genre field or offshoot in direct or contrasting relation to the more traditional medievalism.
Featuring interdisciplinary contributions from academics educational practitioners as well as museum digital and heritage professionals this volume provides a fresh reflection on past methods to emerging pedagogies as well as new avenues of enquiry into the ways we think about the medieval. It is by reconciling these seemingly disparate forms that we can better understand the continual interconnected and often politicised reinvention of the Middle Ages throughout cultures and study.
De l’oratoire privé à la bibliothèque publique
L'autre histoire des livres d'heures
Les livres d’heures best-seller durant six siècles sont le meilleur témoin des mutations qui affectent l’objet-livre entre le xiv e et le xx e siècle. L’économie dans laquelle il s’insère les mutations iconographiques et textuelles enfin les usages symboliques qu’en font leurs propriétaires sont révélateurs des inflexions majeures que connaît le livre au cours du temps. Au-delà d’une classique histoire du livre cet essai entend aussi et surtout prolonger la réflexion en direction des usages patrimoniaux des livres de prière : comment un livre conçu pour les oratoires domestiques renaît-il aujourd’hui dans les réserves climatisées des bibliothèques publiques d’Occident ? Ce parcours est retracé dans le détail des cabinets des collectionneurs depuis le xvii e siècle jusqu’aux équipements culturels actuels en passant par les salles des ventes les bureaux des érudits depuis le xix e siècle les manuels scolaires les tables à dessin des enlumineurs amateurs. Une attention particulière est réservée aux politiques culturelles et aux mesures conservatoires édictées par l’État depuis le début du xix e siècle et aux effets des « classements » sur les biens patrimoniaux.
Cette histoire des livres d’heures entend donc articuler le temps de la production et de la consommation d’une part et celui des requalifications patrimoniales sur le temps long.
Collective Wisdom
Collecting in the Early Modern Academy
This volume analyses how and why members of scholarly societies such as the Royal Society the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Leopoldina collected specimens of the natural world art and archaeology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These scholarly societies founded before knowledge became subspecialised had many common members. We focus upon how their exploration of natural philosophy antiquarianism and medicine were reflected in collecting practice the organisation of specimens and how knowledge was classified and disseminated. The overall shift from curiosity cabinets with objects playfully crossing the domains of art and nature to their well-ordered Enlightenment museums is well known. Collective Wisdom analyses the process through which this transformation occurred and the role of members of these academies in developing new techniques of classifying and organising objects and new uses of these objects for experimental and pedagogical purposes.