HARN Conference – Saturday, 14 March 2009

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Held in the Department of Archaeology, Downing St, Cambridge

Speakers & Abstracts:

Session One: Visualising Technologies and Knowledge Construction in the History of Archaeology

Jennifer Baird, Imag(in)ing the Other at Dura-Europos

At Dura-Europos on the Syrian Euphrates, a joint Yale University/Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres expedition conducted major excavations in the 1920s and 30s. This presentation will examine how the practice of photography at the site, and the creation of the photographic archive, was key in the relationship between the Western archaeologists and the local workers and also constitutive of archaeological knowledge.

Katherine Cooper, Constructing prehistory through objects: The transmission of lake dwellings artifacts to the UK. 1850-1900

My paper briefly presents research undertaken as part of a PhD on the transmission and interpretation of lake dwelling materials between Switzerland (one site in particular) and the UK between 1850-1900. I am particularly interested in knowledge transfer through images and objects and the contexts in which lake dwelling objects and images were created, displayed, moved and interpreted. I hope thereby to reconsider archaeological collections and associated imagery and biographies as sites for the construction of various conceptions of prehistory. In this paper I want to look at some of the collections as examples of the approaches I am taking to these questions.

Session Two: Institutional Spaces and the Production of Archaeology

Sara Perry, Mobilising Vision at the University of London, 1926-1945

This presentation stands as a brief look at the history of archaeological visualisation in the context of its production, circulation and consumption in one of the first archaeology departments in the UK; namely, the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London. Drawing on preliminary results from archival research at, and interviews with key archaeologists affiliated with, this British school, I aim to trace the intimate networks between people and pictures present in early classrooms, departmental exhibitions, presentations and collections. My goal is to expose visual representations as vital actors which manifoldly prompted action, defined and measured “expertise”, and added social and financial value to individuals and the Institute of Archaeology itself.

Pamela Jane Smith, Affective Space, Pedagogy and the Creation of Archaeology at Cambridge

In this paper, I re-examine my earlier investigation of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’s tea-room as a knowledge-making site for the genesis of archaeological agendas during the 1920s, 1930s and ’40s. The importance of the tea-room as Steven Shapin’s (1991) “practical solution to the problem of trust” will be discussed. I interpret the important ’synchronicities’ that occurred as the tea-room changed ‘in sync’ with changes in ideas, behaviours, emotional commitments, mode of conversations, disciplinary boundaries, walls, architectures and teaching methods. The only ‘artefact’ which remained the same over three decades was the tea.

Session Three: Heritage Policy and Archaeological Histories

Sam Hardy, The Liberation of Censorship in Cypriot Archaeology: Representations of a Suppressed UNESCO Report in Histories of Cultural Heritage Destruction

In 1975, restoration architect Jacques Dalibard studied the Cypriot cultural heritage crisis for UNESCO, but his report was first suppressed, then finally published, heavily censored, in 1976. Since then, it has become a legend, not only part of histories of the destruction of cultural heritage in Cyprus, but part of general histories of Cyprus, and even global histories of censorship of historical thought. This paper explores the influence of the unpublished report upon histories of the destruction of cultural heritage in Cyprus.

Stephen Leach, The Inter-War Conservation of Hadrian’s Wall

Faced with the imminent prospect of stone being quarried just ten feet away from one of the best-preserved stretches of Hadrian’s Wall, archaeologists in the 1930s realized to their horror that although existing legislation served to protect the Wall its immediate environment was left unprotected. The prospect of the Wall being left perched on an artificial knife-edge led to a numerous protests in the national press and to discussion at the highest level of government. This protest led to the passing of the 1931 Ancient Monuments Act, granting the First Commissioner of H.M. Works the power to make planning schemes and pay compensation. However, there were a series of delays before this act was implemented. When it was eventually implemented for the first and last time – it protected the surroundings of the central section of the Wall by means of the Wall and Vallum Preservation Scheme, now incorporated within Northumberland National Park. The 1931 Ancient Monuments Act marks an intermediate stage between the impassioned but necessarily palliative and ad hoc protection of ancient monuments afforded by groups of public spirited archaeologists and the more holistic and comprehensive approach to planning that has since been sought by local and national government. I shall discuss both the events leading up to the passing of this Act and the events that ensued. (Owing to the extensive press coverage that the threat to the Wall provoked at the time it is possible to re-create these events in some detail.)

Session Four: Biography, Interpretation and Inter-War Archaeology

Amara Thornton, George Horsfield, Conservation and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem

George Wilberforce Horsfield, director of Antiquities in Transjordan during the inter-war period, came to archaeology later in life from a professional architecture background. This presentation will explore how his background and personal connections enabled him to rise to a high place in British Mandate government protecting and preserving archaeological remains.

Marcus Brittain, Herbert Fleure and the League of Nations’ (1919) Minorities Treaties: a study in archaeology and post-conflict reconstruction after WWI

This paper traces an attempt at political intervention after the First World War by an archaeological discourse highlighting the diversity and hybridity of local and global cultural practices and cultural heritage. In particular, the focus is directed to the work of Herbert Fleure whose ‘biological socialism’ infiltrated archaeological narratives of prehistory during the interwar period. Based in Aberystwyth, Wales, Fleure’s work proved influential to the development of a mature archaeological discipline, yet embodied a somewhat peripheral underlying stance towards issues such as internal colonialism, internationalism, statehood, and race. Through archaeological evidence, and drawing upon the notion of ‘world citizenship’, Fleure openly challenged the stance held towards minorities by the League of Nations’ and the British government after 1919. This highlighted a concern that still pervades UN policy, namely the problem of the definition of the term ‘minority’ in human rights protection, and pre-empted the importance of intangible heritage to local communities that has more recently returned to the focus of discussion. The aim of this historiography is to first present an early attempt to engage archaeology in post-conflict reconstruction, and second to highlight the connectivity of current issues in archaeology to those encountered during a period that is rarely afforded exploration.