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SUMMARY:Excavation: Living with the Ancient Romans: Past and Present in Ei
 ghteenth-Century Encounters with Herculaneum and Pompeii - Charlotte Rober
 ts (University of Cambridge)\; Discussant - Melissa Calaresu (University o
 f Cambridge)
DTSTART:20130523T123000Z
DTEND:20130523T143000Z
UID:TALK44943@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:William Carruthers
DESCRIPTION:The eighteenth-century ‘discovery’ of the buried cities of
  Herculaneum and Pompeii revolutionised the way in which individuals thoug
 ht about their relationship with the ancient world.  The accounts of Briti
 sh visitors written between the start of the official excavations in 1738 
 and the end of the century reflect a new historical sensibility\, one pred
 icated upon the extraordinary proximity between present and past that thes
 e sites seemed to ensure.  This new way of looking at the ancient world ch
 allenged many of the established models of classical engagement that domin
 ated European and especially British culture in the late seventeenth and e
 arly eighteenth centuries.  Herculaneum and Pompeii offered the possibilit
 y of an encounter with the ancient world that might not only rival Rome bu
 t compensate for some of the shortcomings and disappointments experienced 
 by visitors to that ancient city.\n\nThis communal\, cultural response to 
 the ruins of these cities does not mean\, however\, that the eighteenth-ce
 ntury influence of Herculaneum and Pompeii was purely decorative\, nostalg
 ic or sentimental.  Particular voices emerge strongly from the mass of wri
 tings inspired by these sites\, and the particular closeness between prese
 nt and past associated with the excavations allows several individuals to 
 shape and develop unique political and intellectual arguments.  In this pa
 per I will outline some of the main ideas and images that are characterist
 ic of the eighteenth-century response to the excavation of Herculaneum and
  Pompeii\, but I will also examine the way in which these broad ideas were
  echoed\, altered or appropriated by individual thinkers\, such as J.J. Wi
 nckelmann and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe\, who used them to articulate inn
 ovative and expansive points of view.  I hope that this discussion will pr
 ovide an opportunity to reflect on the diversity of the eighteenth-century
  reception of the ancient world\; the scope and influence of early archaeo
 logy on disciplines other than antiquarianism\, and the relationship betwe
 en cultural and intellectual history in our own understandings of the past
 .
LOCATION:Seminar Room SG1 Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road\, Cambridg
 e CB3 9DT
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