This course focuses on the history of collecting antiquities in Britain, beginning with the collections amassed by Grand Tourists in the eighteenth century through to the large-scale archaeological excavations that proliferated across the Middle East and North Africa over the course of the nineteenth century. Concentrating both on case studies, such as Lord Elgin’s acquisition of the Parthenon Marbles, and on broader trends within this history, such as the rise of Egyptology, the course will critically assess why collectors and institutions acquired what they did and explore how they justified their collecting practices.
The course will contextualise the acquisition and exhibition of Assyrian, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman antiquities by British amateur and professional archaeologists within broader histories of collecting, museums, and imperialism. In addition to studying these histories from the perspective of British collectors, the course will also foreground the responses to these collecting practices by government actors and civilians in Greece, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire. Doing so will enrich our understanding of local relationships to antiquities and allow us to track the historical trajectories of antiquities acquired in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through to the present day.
While being predominantly art historical in scope, the course will also consider contemporary debates around the repatriation and restitution of antiquities. Students will be encouraged to consider all sides of the debate and engage in thoughtful discussion around these complex issues.