Author: Eds: Megan Aldrich and Robert J Wallis
Publisher: Spire Books
Price: £19.95 (paperback)
Isbn: 9781904965237

‘Antiquarian’ often refers to those who investigated the past before the emergence of scientific rigour in modern archæology. While there have been re-assessments of antiquarian contributions to the study of the past (ie, Stuart Piggott’s 1989 Ancient Britons and the Antiquarian Imagination), not until the 1990s do we see a reclam­ation of the term, most vividly by Julian Cope with The Modern Antiquarian.

With papers on the origins of the Church Monument Society, early Japanese archæology and the influence of formal garden design on William Stuckley, Antiquaries and Archaists could have been a mess of unconnected themes. Instead, it teases out shared concerns. Sarah Semple’s paper on ancient monuments in early mediæval Britain looks at the appropriation of monuments in a social context, while Anne Farrer (who proposes the term ‘archaist’) explores the way the past is reified within the art of Chinese printmaking.

The main theme running through the volume is enchantment, disenchantment and re-enchantment with the past, highlighted in two papers.

Jeremy Harte’s intelligent and multidisciplinary paper uses toponymy, poetry and document­ary evidence to examine how early mediæval communities understood barrows and Roman remains in terms of a mythic landscape occupied by giants, elves and dragons. He explores playful language (for example, at Drakehull, near Guildford, where the yellow sand could be taken for a dragon’s treasure), before looking at the disenchantment of the 16th century onwards.

Robert J Wallis charts the relationship pagan groups have with prehistory, particularly the reburial issue. Taking a lead from indigenous groups in the US and Australia, such as Honouring the Ancient Dead, British pagans have called for dialogue on excav­ated remains. While there are still tensions, Wallis’s study showing pagan groups being acknow­ledged as stakeholders with a genuine interest in managing the past. This was demonstrated at the Lindow Man exhibition in Manchester, where an area was provided for people to make offerings.

Antiquaries and Archaists deals well with the complex way in which people engage with the past as a physical presence and as a concept.