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

Library, the National Museum, New Delhi, the British Museum and the Victoria
and Albert—a total of about 40,000 relics from his explorations. His success, as well
as that of Hedin, led many countries to send their own explorers to unearth riches
from the area. The most important were the Russians Dimitri Klementz and Sergei
Oldenburg, the Finn Baron Carl G. Mannerheim, the French Charles-E ́tienne
Bonin and Victor Segalen (1878–1919), the Japanese Kozui Otani (1876–1948)
and his men (see next section), and the Germans Albert Gru ̈nwedel (1856–1935)
and Albert von Le Coq (1860–1930) (Wood 2004: ch. 14).
At the start of the twentieth century another scholar who contributed to the
study of the epigraphy and languages of China was Berthold Laufer, who led
an ethnological expedition to China from 1901 to 1904 on behalf of the
American Museum of Natural History in New York. In this expedition, in
addition to acquiring ethnographic collections, he took inspiration from
Chinese scholarship and made many rubbings of inscriptions (Walravens
1980). Thus, the ‘Great Game’ for the ancient Buddhist treasures that had
initially been led by Britain and Russia (and by a Swedish independent) was
later joined by France, Germany, Japan and the United States. The results were
received by more than thirty museums across Europe, America, Russia, and
East and Central Asia.
To the collections stored in oYcial institutions, private collections would
also be added. Private collections had started early in the nineteenth century,
theWrst having been based on Chinese goods—tea, silk, china, rugs, and other
commodities—sometimes housed in Chinese-like structures, and then later
centred upon antiquities. One example of these was that formed by the
American merchant Nathan Dann (1782–1844) that wasWrst shown in
Philadelphia in 1838 and then exhibited in London for many years from

1842. Chinese people were also featured to complement the exhibits (Pagani
      1997). The collection formed by E ́mile Guimet (1836–1918) had a diVerent
      character. He was a French industrialist from Lyons (France) who journeyed
      around the world in 1876, stopping in Japan, China, and India. In his travels
      he was able to amass a collection of objects large enough to display in a single
      museum which opened in Lyons in 1879 and then moved to Paris in 1899.
      This museum was initially focused on the religions of ancient Egypt, but
      became increasingly devoted to the past and present of Asian civilizations.

Hybrid archaeology?: the institutionalization of archaeology

in China and Japan

In post-colonial studies the concept of hybridity involves the creation of
transcultural forms, in this case forms that fall between those of the West and

196 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism