protection in the colonies and not in the metropolis—is the relative ease in
implementing them in areas where opposition towards them was not taken
into account, mainly because of the lack of political power of the colonized. In
both France and Britain landowners successfully lobbied for years against
antiquities legislation regulating archaeological practice that undermined
their rights. Most notably, as discussed in the previous chapter regarding
the Archaeological Survey of India, the creation of novel structures in the
colonies demonstrates that far from reacting passively, they also contributed
to changes back in the metropolis.
Regarding education, the changes in French universities undertaken after the
defeat of the Franco–Prussianwar also reached Algeria. As an acknowledgement
of the high standards that epigraphic research had attained in the area, Albert
Dumont, the Director of Higher Education from 1879 and an old member of
the French School in Athens, founded the E ́cole Supe ́rieure des lettres d’Alger in
1880, putting it under the direction of E ́mile Masqueray. The main objective of
the school was the study of Algeria, and in 1882 it started to publish theBulletin
de correspondance africaine. One of its members would become the Director of
Antiquities of Tunisia in 1885, only four years after the conversion of the
country into a French protectorate (Gran-Aymerich 1998: 244).
There was a large increase in the number of museums as well as archaeo-
logical excavations in Algeria and Tunisia. In Algeria, which had seen the
museums of Algiers, Cherchell, and Constantine opened in the previous
period at the early dates of 1838, 1840, and 1852 respectively (Oulebsir
2004: 111), many other museums were created after 1870 (Museum Alaoui
1888, Museum Lambese). In Tunisia a museum was opened at the Palace
Bardo just after the conquest, although its Islamic section had to wait until
- Another museum, the Museum Lavigerie, was also organized by Delat-
tre. Despite their growing numbers, however, museums were generally poorly
provided and catalogues of their collections were the exception (ibid. 185–91).
Archaeological practice increased in the last decades of the nineteenth cen-
tury. In Tunisia and Algeria a large number of excavations were undertaken
in this period. One of the main campaigns organized at this time took
place in the ancient city of Timgad, considered the Algerian Pompeii (ibid.
205–12). From 1890 news about it, as well as about many of the Roman sites
excavated (Tebe ́ssa and Lambe`se) and monuments restored in this period,
were published in theChronique arche ́ologique africainepublishedWrst by the
Socie ́te ́ historique alge ́rienne and then by the French School in Rome.
Regarding Morocco, France’s interest in its antiquities led to scientiWc mis-
sions being organized from the 1890s, mainly directed from Tangier, the
Moroccan town where most Europeans resided (Erzini 2000; Gran-Aymerich
1998; Oulebsir 2004).
270 Colonial Archaeology