Relics of the Past

The Collecting and Study of Pre-Columbian Antiquities in Peru and Chile, 1837-1911

Bibliographic Data

ID7535569
AuthorsStefanie Gänger (0000-0001-5690-0022, corresponding author), Stefanie Ga
Year2014
Pages311
Publication date2014-05-29
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueRelics of the Past Oxford Studies in the History of Archaeology (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199687695.001.0001
OpenAlexW2482600944
Open LibraryOL26177651M
ISBN9780199687695
LanguageEN
Citations received32

This book tells the story of antiquities collecting, antiquarianism, and archaeology in Peru and Chile in the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. While the role of foreign travellers and scholars dedicated to the study of South America's pre-Columbian past is well documented, historians have largely overlooked the knowledge gathered and the collections formed among collectors of antiquities, antiquaries, and archaeologists born or living in South America during this period. The landed gentry, the clergy, and an urban bourgeoisie of doctors, engineers, and military officials put antiquities on display in their private mansions or bestowed them upon the public museums that were being formed by municipalities and governments in Santiago de Chile, Cuzco, or Lima. Men, and some few women, gathered antiquities on their journeys ‘inland’ and during sociable weekend excursions, but also on quotidian commercial voyages or in military campaigns. They bartered antiquities with their fellow collectors or haggled about their price on the antiquities market. In their hours of leisure, they marvelled at them, wrote about them, and disputed over their meaning, age, and interest in learned societies, informal gatherings, and at meetings in universities and public museums. This volume unveils a hitherto largely unknown world of antiquarian and archaeological collecting and learning in Peru and Chile

Ancient history · Archaeology · Bourgeoisie · Gentry · Meaning (existential · Political science · Politics · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Latin American history and culture · Law · Antiquarians · Antiquities · Chile · Collectors and collecting · Indians of South America · Peru

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