A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology: Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Past (Oxford Studies in the History of Archaeology)

6

Biblical Archaeology

The increase of interest that the study of ancient monuments had raised,
mainly from the eighteenth century, attracted many individuals to the clas-
sical lands. There, as explained in the last chapter, a search for the roots of
Western civilization and of theXourishing nineteenth-century empires took
place. In addition, however, in some of those countries—mainly in Egypt and
Mesopotamia—this concern would not be the only one which boosted
scholars’ interests. These lands had witnessed some of the accounts related
in the Christian Holy Book, the Bible, 1 and therefore the search for classical
antiquity came together with—and was sometimes overshadowed by—re-
search on the biblical past. Work focusedWrst on Egypt, then on Mesopota-
mia (modern Iraq and parts of Iran), and then moved to other areas:
Palestine, and to a certain degree Lebanon and Turkey. After theWrst travellers
who managed to overcome the diYculties of access imposed by the Ottoman
Empire, there followed diplomats in the area working for the various imperial
countries as well as more specialized explorers, including geographers and
antiquarians. Later on, especially in Palestine, many of those who looked for
ancient remains were in one way or another connected with religious insti-
tutions. Therefore, imperialism will not be the only factor to consider in the
development of archaeology in the area described in this chapter, for religion
also had an essential role. As explained in the following pages, these were
overlapping, complementary forces.

CHRISTIANITY AND BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

The inXuence of religion on the archaeology of the biblical lands can be seen
both in the religious beliefs of those who undertook it, as well as, more

1 The Bible is comprised of the Old Testament, or Hebrew Tanakh, and the New Testament
literature. The Jewish scriptures are known in Hebrew as the Tanakh, and they are equivalent to
the Protestant Old Testament. Protestants and Catholics accept the New Testament as part of the
Bible, and in addition Catholics accept as part of the Old Testament the books known to
Protestants as the Apocrypha, which are a set of lateWrst millenniumbcJewish writings. Some