Recherche par auteur > Verburg Eline

In the 19th century, important Etruscan archaeological sites were discovered, and their objects ended up in public- and private collections inside and outside of Italy. Consequently, many Etruscan objects were displayed to a larger public for the first time. Against the traditional museum display in which objects were ordered by typology, a new phenomenon of archaeological reconstructions appeared and objects were more and more displayed in reconstructions. This paper discusses one of these reconstructions: the exhibition of Etruscan tombs in Pall Mall in London in 1837. This blockbuster exhibition attempted to display objects in their original archaeological context; an innovative way to bring archaeology to the city and to the people. 

It was Carlo Campanari, an antiquarian from Rome, who organised the exhibition in London, with the main goal to sell his objects to the British Museum once the show ended. Visitors to the exhibition were invited to descend into the tombs with a torch in their hands, ready to discover the beautifully painted facsimiles with depictions of Tarquinia's frescoes, and the amazing bronze and golden objects that the tombs revealed. The tomb-reconstructions caused a stir in London's public life, and many newspapers and magazines wrote about the special method of display. These sources, together with archival data from the archives of the British Museum, can now be used to study the exact contents of this exhibition, and how it was experienced by its visitors. 

When studying the history of the Pall Mall exhibition and its reconstructions, many questions arise. For example, what purpose did Campanari have in mind when he reconstructed these archaeological spaces in London? How were these spaces experienced by their visitors? We know that in the 19th century, archaeology was a science that still had to be developed and that excavations did not always meet the scientific standards that we have today. How accurate did Campanari recreate these archaeological spaces, and was accuracy deemed essential to experience archaeology? 

Another angle that will be discussed, is what happened with these archaeological spaces after the exhibition ended, and the reconstructions were sold to the British Museum. Did the museum try to preserve a similar experience, or not? Through data from the archives of the British Museum, this paper will discuss how the archaeological reconstructed spaces in the Pall Mall exhibition were used and experienced by its visitors.