future projects. Others would follow further requests of a similar nature made
by successive ministers of war (Fre ́maux 1984: 33; Gran-Aymerich 1998: 125).
This helped to form the intellectual basis for a take-over of the new conquered
land, resulting in many natives being dispossessed of their properties in and
around Algiers (Prochaska 1990: 65–77).
The model of Rome was used to legitimize the new military and civil
topography, and even to conceptualize it. The president of the commission,
Baron Charles A. Walckenaer (1771–1852), a scientist and naturalist, insisted
that ‘Muslim fanaticism’ had created, in the nineteenth century, a situation far
worse than in classical times. The Berber and Arab opposition to French
colonialism was also understood as a continuation of their resistance during
the ancient Roman period (Fre ́maux 1984: 41). In contrast to thePax Romana,
violence and destruction were the norm in Berber and Arab populations and
no traces of more positive behaviour could be found in the remains of cities
such as Constantine, where authors such as Auguste Cherbonneau (1813–82)
highlighted Roman/French civilization in contrast to Turkish/Arab barbarity
(Haoui 1993; Malarkey 1984: 149; Pouillon 1993). This linkage between
Roman and French facilitated the removal of many classical antiquities from
North Africa, some destined for the Muse ́e alge ́rien (Algerian Museum) in the
Louvre in 1845 (Oulebsir 2004: 76). Not everything was moved to France.
Algiers had, from 1838, its own institution, the Museum-Library of Algiers. In
fact, the competition between the French and Algerian institutions led to the
closure of the Parisian museum during the Second Empire (ibid. 109). Despite
the interest in Roman archaeology, not all monuments and sites were pro-
tected. In a similar process to what was happening in Europe itself, whereas
some sites were studied and preserved, others were not. Among the latter was
the Roman amphitheatre of Rusicade, used as a quarry for the construction of
the defences of the French colony town (ibid. 79–106).
A reorganization of the commission took place in 1837, after the conquest
of the inland city of Constantine. Its remit was to study ‘objects of art
and antiquity’, centring its attention on documenting buildings, statues and
inscriptions. Soon after, however, it expanded to include other sciences, such
as botany, ornithology, ethnography and the like, in this way making its
composition more like that of other major French expeditions of theWrst
half of the nineteenth century which were seen as the models: those to Egypt
(1798–1801) and Morea (1829–30) (Chapters 3 and 4) (Dondin-Payre 1994a:
27). One of the architects involved in the commission, as well as in an
architectural survey of Roman North Africa, was Amable Ravoisie ́(b. 1801)
in 1840–2 (ibid. 48–74). Captain Adolphe Delamare and the epigraphist Le ́on
Renier (1809–85) were also involved (Dondin-Payre 1994b; Oulebsir 2004:
163). Between 1844 and 1867 several volumes came out as a result of the
266 Colonial Archaeology