Forjando Patrimonio
The Making of Archaeological Patrimony in Porfirian Mexico
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2805322 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christina Bueno (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 90 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 215-245 |
| Publication date | 2010-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Hispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00182168-2009-133 |
| OpenAlex | W2037864086 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
This article examines the state project to gather pre-Hispanic artifacts in Mexico's National Museum during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1910). It focuses on the government project as part of a larger effort aimed at constructing an official national history and image. Through antiquity and the control of its remains, Porfirian elites sought to present Mexico as a modern, scientific, and sovereign nation with a sophisticated, ancient past. They based the government's right to the artifacts on arguments that rested on appeals to nation and science. This article problematizes these claims. It demonstrates that far from an established science, archaeology was marked by a lack of technique and consensus about the meaning and display of artifacts. In addition, the official Indian past proved exclusionary in several ways. It celebrated certain ancient cultures and ignored others. It also negated the artifacts' other uses and meanings. For many Mexicans the objects were not national but local patrimony, links to localized identities and histories. Although ordinary Mexicans aided the state, the transfer of artifacts to the museum did not go uncontested, a fact illustrated here by popular struggles to retain objects in Teotihuacán, Tepoztlán, and Tetlama, communities that battled with the inspector of monuments Leopoldo Batres, the principal state official in charge of gathering antiquities
Archaeology · Art · Charge (physics) · Democracy · Dictatorship · Government (linguistics) · Meaning (existential) · National monument · Political science · Politics · Principal (computer security) · Sovereignty · State (computer science) · History · Law · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Philosophy · Photographic and Visual Arts
La construcción del conocimiento en ruta. Expediciones antropológicas y arqueológicas en México a fines del siglo XIX
The Indigenous Governor of Tlaxcala and Acceptable Indigenousness in the Porfirian Regime
In the Wake of Mexican Patrimonio
Milpa ecologies
Among planters and merchants. How the Tikal Lintels became “scientific objects”
The Ashes of our Ancestors”
Carl Lumholtz y la objetualización de la cultura indígena en la Sierra Madre Occidental
Beyond Prejudice and Pride
(In)visible Ruins
The micropolitics of public archaeology
Stone Replicas
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,69 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2024 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |