Re-Presenting the Past

Archaeology through Text and Image

Sheila Bonde, Stephen Houston, Stephen Houston

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781782972327
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

The archaeological past exists for us through intermediaries. Some are written works, descriptions, narratives and field notes, while others are visual: the drawings, paintings, photographs, powerpoints or computer visualizations that allow us to re-present past forms of human existence. This volume brings together nine papers, six of which were presented at a symposium hosted at Brown University. Two papers explore the classical past and medieval visualizations. Three treat the Maya, and one considers the imaging by eighteenth-century antiquarians of British history; yet another ranges broadly in its historical considerations. Several consider the trajectory over time of visualization and self-imaging. Others engage with issues of recording by looking, for example, at the ways in which nineteenth–century excavation photographs can aid in the reconstruction of an inscription or by evaluating the process of mapping a site with ArcGIS and computer animation software. All essays raise key questions about the function of re-presentations of the past in current archaeological practice.

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Re-Presenting Archaeology

SHEILA BONDE AND STEPHEN HOUSTON

The archaeological past exists for us through intermediaries that vary widely in form and nature. Some are written works, the stories or descriptions about what the past was like, often to bold claims of truth or validity (Hodder and Hutson 2003). Others are visual, if frequently combined with writing. These consist of the drawings, paintings, photographs, powerpoints, or computer visualizations. As tools, these devices allow scholar and general audience alike to access past forms of human existence. At a more ambitious level, they purport to capture and revivify past realities through written or visual reconstructions of past ways of life. The essays in this book explore the means by which the archaeological past comes to us. All periods and geographic areas fall within the purview of this book, which examines various strategies through which material culture is digested and re-presented.

Representation in archaeology, either written or graphic, is a matter of choice and thus inherently subject to the times in which they exist (Molyneux 1997; Moser 1998; Jameson et al. 2003; Smiles and Moser 2005). A representation will accord with the background of the person creating that image, or the audience for which the image was intended. In this respect, archaeology is a discipline that can be studied much as Bruno Latour’s work on the conduct and practice of “hard science” (Latour 1987): much that appears to be “self-evident” or “logical” is not; his more recent engagement with Actor-Network Theory suggests alternative ways of looking at interactions between things, people, and their representations (e.g., http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/centres/css/ant/antres.htm).

The topic of visual representation is rich, although with a history that varies greatly by region or specialty. Prominent archaeologists with training in drafting were among the first to explore the subject, as in Stuart Piggott’s Antiquity Depicted (1978), who drew on the inspiration of Heywood Sumner’s Ancient Earthworks of Cranborne Chase (Cunliffe 1985). The nature of reconstruction as a means of displaying buildings goes back even further, to the interventions of Viollet-le-Duc (Viollet-le-Duc 1867–1870; Murphy 2000) and, earlier still, to engravings by Giovanni Piranesi. Textbooks of archaeological and forensic illustration are themselves charged with unwitting cultural and historical statements (Addington 1986; Adkins and Adkins 1989; Di Grazia 1991; Dillon 1985; Steiner 2005; Taylor 2000). Such images arise in part from contact with other modes of scientific illustration, which grapple with similar problems of aesthetics, clarity, and claims to veracity (Baigrie 1997; Blumenfeld-Kosinski 1990; Cazort et al. 1997; Dickenson 1998; Lynch and Woolgar 1990; Roberts and Tomlinson 1992).

The physical reproduction of the past at places like Williamsburg and, in Europe, “Heritage sites,” involves decisions of comparable complexity (Handler and Gable 1997; Lowenthal 1996). Images of hominid evolution are among the most thoroughly canvassed, often from a feminist perspective, for what they reveal of attitudes about past and modern humans (Moser 1998; Wiber 1997). Finally, each region has its own, growing literature on archaeological representation, but, as yet, with relatively little, mutual contact (Baudez 1993). The sole exceptions are two, recent edited volumes. One is on archaeology and the humanities, with essays that span a far broader reach than visual representation (Jameson et al. 2003). The other is pioneering, but heavily focused on Europe and, in particular, the United Kingdom (Smiles and Moser 2005). The VIA workshops at the University of Southampton have engaged with a cross-regional investigation of visualization in archaeology (http://www.viarch.org.uk/).

Much of archaeology concerns itself with visual representation, the translation into images of what is viewed or understood in the field. Written representation—the preparation of monographs, marshalling of argument, jotting of field notes—forms its own category of study, susceptible to literary categorization by genre, plot, coherent narrative or trope, and to political and philosophical judgments about the varying weight of “authority” or “objectivity” (e.g., Bradley 2006; Hodder 1989, 1994, 1998, 2003; Joyce 2002; Pluciennik 1999). For both written and rendered materials, however, it is safe to say that prior views favoring “objectivity” as a detached, morally valid way of doing research (Daston and Galison 1992) have been replaced by an opposed set of dogmas: that subjectivity and ever-shifting interpretation lie at the heart of archaeology, that it is plainly wrong to impose one view or voice over others, especially as part of a past controlled by the academy, and that the subjective experience of archaeological sites is of comparable weight to clearly framed questions about them (Hodder 1989:269, 272, 2003:65–66).

The problem with such notions, which have genuine merit as goads to ethical reflection and well-honed study, is that they perceive, not so much additions to knowledge, as changes that are neither better nor worse than what came before. Through overstatement, they do not recognize improvements in representation as these have been influenced by evolving questions asked of evidence; they tend also to imply that all people interpreting or representing the past enjoy the same level of information, skill, talent, and insight (Bradley 2003:155). Any story or image is as good as another because of its value to the person proposing it. In their most extreme form, ideas of this sort are unpalatable to archaeologists who believe in excavating with control, taking and supervising advanced degrees in archaeology or discerning in current scholarship a store of greater knowledge than was available a century ago—namely, the perspective of any creditable professional. Ian Hodder (2003:60), the principal importer of post-modern theory in archaeology, himself admits that “it is not possible for large numbers of unskilled people to be involved in excavation itself.”

In all likelihood, the divide between “objectivity” and “subjectivity” is specious on a cognitive level. It reflects an over-simplified dichotomy between the conscious and unconscious complexities of brain processing, that is, how the mind apprehends external objects, only to form its own identity through consideration of such objects. For archaeologists, the real issues are how claims are made and how they are to be evaluated. A further point is that a useful emphasis on subjectivity in archaeology—the positioning of the viewer and image-maker with respect to an external world—becomes disquieting when taken too far as a posture towards evidence. Strictly speaking, no past exists outside of the present. The present-day, subjective brain forges impressions of what a lost past might have been like. No dead person continues to think about these matters, and impressions of antiquity mutate over time, as they are reshaped in different minds: in the jargon of our age, “[o]ur knowledge of the Other is always mediated by many factors, not the least the conceptual language we use and apply to other cultures…[and o]ur brush with alterity may inform or even transform us” (Nelson 2000:3). This means that there can be no one past but, rather, a plurality of them.

Yet one provocative book suggests that, since no real past exists, or rather, no past removed from constant reinvention, the preservation or maintenance of archaeological sites is a wrong-headed pursuit (Holtorf 2005:130–135). It also asserts that popular concepts of prehistory lie on equal footing with appraisals by scholars. Perhaps the inadvertent value of such statements, irresponsible and anti-intellectual as they may be, is that they take archaeologists to the edge of a cliff from which few will jump. Ultimately, most of us— other than those discouraging conservation or choosing to focus academically on the Maya pyramid at Epcot Center in Florida—affirm that what is said or depicted should derive from reasoned evidence and argument and that, if rightly presented, these two elements reveal more about the past than was known before, as conditioned by the questions to which representations respond (Fagan and Feder 2007).

Still, there are benefits to grasping traditions of, in this case, visual representation as the sum of decisions and practices over time, sometimes with considered goals in mind, more often as a conduit for unconscious or indefensible attitudes. Whatever their intent, these practices attempt to impose order and draw conclusions from observations that are seldom uniform. They also pertain directly to how archaeologists learn their craft and react to precedent through small acts of rebellion or innovation (Bradley 1997; Dillon 1985:4–5). Such a history is worth studying, implying as it does continual change and development, and reflecting in broader scope a set of varied intellectual trends and political needs (e.g., Dietler 1994:599; Moser 1998:6–7; Piggott 1978:7), some nefarious or conflicted (Halle 2005:100–101).

The present volume began as a seminar “Re-Presenting the Past: Archaeology through Image and Text,” co-taught by the editors, Sheila Bonde and Stephen Houston. With twelve undergraduate and graduate students, we explored a range of issues, including the notions of objectivity and subjectivity, the particular challenges of “writing archaeology” as well as the ethical responsibilities involved in recording and in representing human groups. We examined the imaging of nations and ethnic groups, as well as the strategies for recording sites and landscapes. We compared fixed and streamed images of photography and video, approaches to representing buildings and objects, the problems and potential of Virtual Reality, avatars and simulations, and, in our last class, the opportunities for historical re-presentation at historic sites in a session entitled, “Archaeology as Tourism and Theme Park.” Our students produced research papers and graphic representations. We encouraged professional writing by telling them that the two best papers, if acceptable, would be published as part of the conference volume. Casey Mesick’s essay on Piedras Negras and Tom Devaney’s study of festival routes in Jaén are the result of this incentive.

Most of the other essays in this volume are the result of a symposium organized in conjunction with the seminar. That symposium (which took place during an epic ice storm in mid-March) hosted scholars from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds, united in their expertise in various aspects of archaeological representation. Three papers from the symposium have not been included in the present volume. Larry Coben demonstrated how recent developments in architectural software provide new ways to analyze the construction, site layout, access, and movement through prehistoric sites and buildings. He used digital and virtual reality reconstructions to investigate the monumental Inka site of Incallajta, Bolivia. Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu examined a set of wall paintings found in a Buddhist grotto in northwestern Xinjiang, modern Chinese Central Asia. By treating the images as ethnographic documents, Agnes re-presented a lost culture that once flourished along the Silk Road. Brad Johnson of Second Story presented the visually engaging Theban Mapping Project. Since 1978, the project has been working to prepare a comprehensive archaeological database of the Valley of the Kings and the entire Theban Necropolis. With its robust content management tools for the nearly 5,000 photographs and illustrations, maps, and bibliographic resources, glossaries and timelines, the site aims to serve researchers as a repository for active fieldwork, and as a dynamic publication system for academic and general audiences. Our keynote speaker, David Macaulay, also gave an entertaining look at the representational strategies behind his popular books where the castle, cathedral and other buildings and objects have been creatively represented.

The present volume, then, brings together nine papers, six of which were presented at the symposium (Bonde and Maines, Fash, Favro, Houston, Smiles and Witmore), two of which were student papers from the seminar (Devaney and Mesick), and one of which was invited afterward (Shanks and Webmoor). Two papers explore the classical past: Witmore on Greek maps and Favro on representations of ancient Rome. Two engage with medieval visualizations: Bonde and Maines on medieval monasteries and Devaney on the festivals of medieval Jaén. Three treat the Maya: Houston’s paper on Mayan iconographies, Mesick on Piedras Negras, and Fash on the Copan hieroglyphic stairway. Smiles’ paper treats the imaging by eighteenth-century antiquarians of British history, from ancient to early modern, and Shanks and Webmoor use a variety of examples, including the antiquarian and the Mayan.

The first three papers take on issues of visualization and self-imaging. Sam Smiles looks at the infancy of attempts to represent the past, especially those images produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rather than see these early illustrations as awkward first steps in the development of archaeological illustration, he restores to them something of the complex milieu that brought them into being. Debates about the value of illustration within the antiquarian community show that scholars were keenly aware of the utility of images. This desire, in turn, needs to be seen within broader understandings of the relationship between images and the dissemination of scientific knowledge and the quest for objectivity in notation. In complete contrast, contemporary art theory emphasized the place of the imagination when painting history. As a result, competent artists could find themselves torn between these two competing understandings of how the past should be approached. Smile’s paper explores a variety of case studies in which artists illustrated Britain’s past, from the time of Stonehenge to the high middle ages. Sheila Bonde and Clark Maines explore the ways in which medieval monasteries have been represented in modern scholarship and the ways in which those communities represented themselves through written texts and material presentations such as seals and plans. Rather than trace an historical survey in this article, they propose two genres of monastic representation: the panoptic—that is, an image or a text that aims at a comprehensive view of the monastery or of monastic life, and the synecdochal—one in which a portion of the monastery (like the church) stands for the whole. To date there has been little consideration of how scholars, artists, architects, and the public see and reproduce the ancient Maya of Mexico and Central America through fixed and fluid imagery. Stephen Houston’s paper examines several dimensions of such evolving practices, including the reductive depiction of objects, buildings, and archaeological deposits, the population of images with human narrative, and reconstructions and consolidations that create telegenic images for tourists. These images conform to overt models of “acceptable” professional practice yet often derive from unconscious decisions by previous generations: what is seen replicates that which others have seen, in a regress of vision that needs correction and reworking.

The next two papers engage with issues of recording. Barbara Fash’s paper uses the Copan Hieroglyphic Stairway project as a starting point for a discussion of the ways in which photographs from nineteenth-century excavations can aid in the reconstruction of a Mayan inscription. The process has also engaged the contemporary local community to reflect on their past. Cassandra Mesick’s paper describes the process of mapping the Classic period Maya site of Piedras Negras through ArcGIS and computer animation software. She then describes efforts to use geospatial data to reconstruct elite and non-elite social spaces.

The four final essays raise questions about the function of representations in current archaeological practice. Michael Shanks and Timothy Webmoor shift emphasis away from the representational function of visual media to consider its “political economy.” For them, the process of archaeology is that of crafting the material remains of the past into mediations intelligible to present-day work. Thomas Devaney takes the textual account of Christmas, 1492 festivals in the Spanish town of Jaén. By mapping the festival routes, Devaney directs our attention to the active role played by the architecture of the town. He argues for a spatially-sensitive reading of the ways in which medieval pageants and processions were viewed and experienced. Christopher Witmore explores the inherent tension between maps as flat projections of the material world and necessary modes of archaeological documentation and visualization. He compares and contrasts the creation and use of mapping, from those created by antiquarians to those compiled by nineteenth-century military geographers to maps in the hands of contemporary survey archaeologists. Diane Favro’s essay, “To Be or Not To Be in Past Spaces” focuses attention on the potential for environmental experiences such as Second Life. As modern designers seek to create ever more realistic artificial, alternative worlds, archaeologists are appropriating their tools and expressing greater interest in experiential research. Explorations of “being in past spaces” rely not only on physical models, drawn reconstructions, and dioramas, but increasingly on immersive virtual-reality simulations replete with sounds and movement. Her essay engages with both the established field of experimental archaeology, as well as newer archaeologies of corporality, anthropology of the senses, and other exploratory categories.

The field of archaeological representation is a rich one, and this volume, of course, is not—and does not pretend to be—comprehensive. Some of the topics explored in the seminar and symposium are not touched, or are only examined in a summary way. The ethics of representation is treated briefly by several authors in this volume, but merits further study. As archaeologists, inevitably, we destroy the context of our study as we excavate. Recording is thus an ethical imperative. Another seminar, another symposium may be necessary.

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Imaging British History: Patriotism, Professional Arts Practice, and the Quest for Precision

SAM SMILES

This paper engages with the reflexivity of archaeological image-making, its sensitivity to modes of representing the past and its critical self-awareness. It does so, however, not by examining contemporary practice in archaeological representation but by considering the self-consciousness within the antiquarian project of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This may appear paradoxical, for so deep-seated is the knock-down image of the antiquary— the credulous snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, lacking both the wit and the learning to write elegant prose or contribute to serious historical study— that any attribution to such a figure of a self-conscious concern about the imaging of the past seems misplaced. Yet sensitivity to the problematics of the image contributed to the work that some notable antiquaries undertook and, on this basis, we should be cautious about simple progressivist accounts that would only include antiquarian illustration as the hesitant and faltering first steps leading to the deployment of archaeological imagery today. Instead, it is more productive to review antiquarian use of the image in terms of the debates that animated it. The antiquaries’ engagement with modes of depiction was marked by many of the concerns that still preoccupy archaeological illustration: How shall the past be known? What are the limits of illustrative accuracy? What would constitute an unmediated visual presentation of data? How should text relate to image? Can knowledge be crystallized in graphic representation?

Antiquarian illustration in Britain from about 1750 to 1850 developed a rich array of imaging procedures: scale models, engravings, watercolors, and oil paintings. However, rather than provide a chronological survey, with an implicit evolutionary narrative, the account that follows is ordered around four key concepts whose concerns may be regarded as constants in archaeological illustration: making and disseminating the image; modes of illustration; cultural expectations and the reception of the image; aesthetics versus scholarship. Together, these considerations underline the extent to which every attempt at the disinterested production of the image is in fact compromised by its position within a complex web of technical and academic possibilities.

As a starting point it is worth recalling that the eighteenth century should take the credit for a major epistemic shift in historiographical method: the use of images to investigate antiquity. In one sense we may regard this as contributing to a Baconian enterprise, substituting for textual authority a careful working though of material data. For the enterprise to succeed the extant remains of antiquity had to be accu...