Field, sites and finds
Résumé
In 18th century Rome, the “field” of the antiquarians, if conceived as the complex of questions, datas and methods which their practice was embracing, has but very loose relations with the “field” understood as the “site”. Many people were interested by the discovery of antiques, but for very different reasons: rich collectors in search of works of art, artists looking for models, landowners hoping to find hidden treasuries, and naturally all kinds of merchants. The erudite antiquarians had to defend their own approach, their own way of dealing with discoveries, by cooperating and simultaneously competing with all these people, and their challenge in that context was to find and promote an adequate expression and diffusion of their knowledge. As long as this challenge had not been met, as long as the science of artifacts had not created its own system of references, the interpretation and presentation of finds was too big a problem to leave space to a more accurate study of sites. Archaeology as field-work, as a science of sites, with its proper representations, could not emerge before the science of artifacts had been elaborated.
La façon dont les "antiquaires" de la Rome du 18eme siècle ont eux-mêmes mis en images leur activité montre les limites auxquelles celle-ci se heurtait. L'attention portée au "site" en tant que tel passe souvent au second plan derrière d'autres préoccupations pour satisfaire les diverses attentes que l'archéologie suscitait de la part des collectionneurs, des propriétaires, des artistes, des marchands... Le défi, pour les érudits, était de trouver le moyen adéquat d'illustrer, de défendre et de diffuser leur démarche et les exigences du savoir. Mais l'archéologie en tant que science des sites ne pouvait émerger tant qu'une science des objets, fondée sur la typologie, n'avait pas été élaborée.
Domaines
Histoire
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