connection with the Great Civilizations. Thus for the scholar Charles Vallancey
(c. 1725–1812), many of the antiquities in Ireland were of Phoenician
origin (Waddell 2000: 79). Interestingly, a few prestige objects found in
other countries provided the clue to understanding the past of one’s own
nation: thus, the Polish explorer Zorian Dolega Chodakowsky (1784–1825)
argued that the kurgans of Ukraine had been created by the Slavs.
Perhaps the greatest contrast between the interest in the national past in the
early nineteenth century with respect to previous endeavours lay in the role
the state acquired in the administration of antiquities. This did not happen in
Britain, where, as explained in the case of the Great Civilizations, the utili-
tarian model would prevail until the last decades of the nineteenth century
(Chapter 1 and others in this book). Private sponsorship was the preferred
option in Britain and, during the period examined in this chapter, the
situation described there was unparalleled in continental Europe. In contin-
ental Europe theWnancial backing of the state was established during this
time. The development of state funding for the study of national antiquities
started in Scandinavia, but many other nations followed suit. This pattern
matches the opening of museums dedicated to the display of the national
antiquities. Of special importance was the Museum of French Monuments,
cited by many as the inspiration for later museums including that of Nordic
Antiquities in Denmark, the National Museum on the Pest side of Budapest,
and others in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as, beyond Europe, the
National Museum of Mexico. The creation of these institutions was of key
importance because, in contrast to earlier ones, those set up under the aegis of
the state were intended to be permanent, as their existence did not depend on
the impulse of a single benefactor. Another type of institutions that estab-
lished links—albeit still weak—with the study of national antiquities were
those related to teaching. The revolution in the methods of historical analysis
in the late eighteenth century led to the encouragement of original material
and although to start with documents were given priority over the study of
antiquities, in the long term the latter would be integrated into the curricula
of higher education.
The liberal revolutions of the early 1820s, 1830s, and 1848, and the conser-
vative reaction against them, encouraged greater interest towards national
archaeology, at a time, as will be seen in Chapter 12, that was closely related
to Romanticism and to the new appeal of the concepts of race and language.
Even if archaeology was barely institutionalized, the appeal of antiquities
found in each European country inspired artists and writers. In every Euro-
pean nation the historical imagination became linked to representations that
were placed in the medieval past. Europe’s economic expansion, partly paid for
by the colonies, provided theWnances for expanding the institutionalization of
336 National Archaeology in Europe