Mnemohistory: the Archaeological Turn in the Humanities from Winckelmann to Calvino

Essay Excerpt

"The methodological turn to archaeology by a surprisingly large number of twentieth-century intellectuals, scholars, and artists across the humanities has a long foreground in the development and professionalisation of archaeology itself. It is well known that Western civilisation began to define itself as such by digging up other civilisations and aligning them in a progressive typological sequence. As the father of scientific archaeology, Johann Joachim Winckelmann deserves pride of place; in his major work, he studied the various stages of ancient Greek sculpture—relying almost exclusively on examples found in Roman museums or recently excavated at sites such as Pompeii and Herculaneum—with the intent to establish a system which exalted the twin ideals of aesthetic beauty and political freedom."