antiquity was reconWgured to construct a national imagination, not following
a single line, but creating competing voices that changed over time in com-
position and even in tone. Second, the account provided in this chapter
reveals how intellectuals coming from the main European powers felt com-
pelled to embrace the study of the Greek and Latin American past as a way of
understanding them better. They contributed to the process of national
identity formation not only by publishing in their countries of origin, but
also in local journals. Their thoughts were taken into account and brought
into the local discourses about antiquity. The study of how the formation of
the national past in Europe—the economic heart of the nineteenth-century
Western world—will be the focus of the chapters in Part IV of this book. The
chapters that follow, however, will focus on the issues of imperialism and
colonialism. Both strands are key to the exploration of how the past was
appropriated and how this aVected the development of archaeology in the
nineteenth century.
96 Early Archaeology of Great Civilizations