Antiquarianism without Antiques. Topographical Evidence and the Formation of the Past (original) (raw)

2019, Boreas Rising: Antiquarianism and National Narratives in 17th- and 18th-Century Scandinavia

Antiquarianism has become am ajor field of study in the last half-century.T od escribe ab ig and complex field far too simply,i ti sb asically concerned with the earlym odernp ractice of incorporating material objectsi nto the studyo fh istory. In aclassic article that did much to define the developing field,Arnaldo Momigliano defined the antiquarian as someone who usesashistoricalevidence coins,ruins, inscriptions, and other material remains, while the historian was primarilyc oncerned with texts.¹ Forancienthistory,texts by Greek and Romanwriters such as Livy,Pliny, Suetonius,a nd others were the fundamental, canonicals ources, and could not be rewritten. Anyh istorian concerned with ancient history had to deal first of all with these sources, and then with secondary sources of various kinds. Antiquarians werewell-versed in these texts as well, but wereinclined to see them as complementary to material evidence. This distinction between the historian and the antiquarian was magnified by other methodological differences. Forinstance, historians wrote in chronological order,while antiquarians wrote in systematic order determined largely by the natureo ft he objectsa th and. This led to different systems of classification, but had the overall effect that antiquarians were less concerned with chronology, or with presentingalinear historical development.H istorians tendedt or ead their ancient authors with reverencer ather than skepticism, and so weren ot very receptive to challenges from material evidence. This attitude was magnified by atendency to regard ruins as too fragmentary and imperfect to be reliable records of the past. Thus, although both groups wereb asicallyc oncerned with understanding the ancient world, their approaches were different,a nd so weret heir concerns.