ORBIT - Online Repository of Birkbeck Institutional Theses Enabling Open Access to Birkbecks Research Degree output Ancient narratives in the modern museum : interpret- ing classical archaeology in British museums http://bbktheses.da.ulcc.ac.uk/130/ Version: Full Version Citation: Baker, Abigail (2015) Ancient narratives in the modern museum : inter- preting classical archaeology in British museums. PhD thesis, Birkbeck, University of London. c 2015 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copyright law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit guide Contact: email Ancient Narratives in the Modern Museum: Interpreting Classical Archaeology in British Museums Abigail Baker Birkbeck, University of London The work presented in this thesis is the candidate’s own. ! !1 Abstract This thesis considers how the stories preserved in Greek and Roman texts have been used in British museums from the early nineteenth century to the present. It explores the tendency to prioritise textual over visual information which is easy to overlook when dealing with object-based institutions. It demonstrates the pervasive effect that ancient texts and the narratives they convey have had on the way museums think about individual objects, wider history and their own role as public institutions. A series of case studies offer snapshots of the relationship between object and text at different times and places: how ancient texts were used to articulate a political and public role for the Elgin marbles; how public and academic interest in myth inspired innovative museum interpretation in the work of Charles Newton, Jane Harrison, Heinrich Schliemann and Arthur Evans; how collecting at the Fitzwilliam museum demonstrates the difficulties of escaping ancient narratives, even for those committed to object-based approaches; and how an exhibition of Greek Art in World War Two used ancient images and texts alongside each other in ways that idealised Greek art and freedom, while also revealing unease about the relationship between image and text in ancient sources. By looking at these through broader intellectual and social themes it develops a history with continuity as well as contrasts. Several of the case studies visit completely new ground for the history of museums, but even the most familiar moments in collecting history can be understood in new ways through an awareness of how deeply our understanding of ancient objects has been shaped by ancient narratives. I build on contemporary interest in the active role of museums in constituting our understanding of the past by treating the museum as a site of textual reception and an active participant in a tradition. !2 Contents Acknowledgements 6 1. Introduction: narratives of the museum 7 The museum as temple 17 Ancient models for modern collecting 26 Inheritance, revolution and evolution 34 Narrative today 41 2. The Elgin marbles: buying into a political ideal 50 Evaluating the Elgin collection through ancient sources 53 Ancient ideals and ancient marbles 63 “Political discussion embodied in a Greek History” 74 “It was money spent for the use of the people” 80 3. Myth in the museum 90 Myth in theory and practice 103 Myths of the Odyssey in the British Museum 119 Troy in London 131 Knossos in London 158 4. Collecting stories 172 The role and aspirations of the Fitzwilliam 175 Desirable and undesirable 185 A knotty problem 192 Cutting the knot 196 Unravelling the context 206 5. “Everything good we stood for”: exhibiting Greek art in World War II 218 Context and contents 223 National identity 231 Art and literature 241 The museum 259 6. The writing on the wall. Where next for museum narratives? 265 Bibliography 278 !3 Table of figures Figure 1. A Roman mosaic in the Enlightenment gallery of the British Museum, framed like a painting (Photograph Abigail Baker). Figure 2: Schliemann’s finds from Mycenae on display in the Athenian Bank. Published in “Our Illustrations.” The Graphic. London, June 16, 1877. Figure 3: A map of the site of the South Kensington Museum (circa 1878) the South Court is on the centre right of the image. Published in A Guide to the Art Collections of the South Kensington Museum: Illustrated with Plans and Wood Engravings. (London: Spottiswode & Co., circa 1878), 3-4. Figure 4: An exhibition in the South Court of the South Kensington Museum, c.1876 John Watkins. The area shown and case layout is similar to Schliemann’s exhibition (compare Figure 5). “Fig.103. The South Court, c. 1876, as depicted in an ink drawing (V&A 8089L) by John Watkins (English, died 1908).” http:// www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1159_grand_design/popup.php? img_id=197 Figure 5: Plan of Schliemann’s exhibition at South Kensington, based on plans sent to Berlin for reproducing it there. Plan based on Saherwala et al. Heinrich Schliemanns “Sammlung Trojanischer Altertümer”: Beitrage Zur Chronik Einer Grossen Erwerbung Der Berliner Museen, 17, Abb. 5. Object locations reconstructed by Abigail Baker from “Troy.” The Times. London, April 18, 1878, 7; V&A archive, MA/31/7: Register of loans in, 1878-1937, 5; “Dr Schliemann’s relics of Troy” North Otago Times; A Guide to the Art Collections of the South Kensington Museum: Illustrated with Plans and Wood Engravings. (London: Spottiswode & Co., circa 1878), 23-4. Photographs reproduced from Schliemann, Atlas Trojanischer Alterthümer. Figure 6 : Part of the Trojan Treasure as illustrated in Atlas Trojanischer Altertümer Figure 7: Plan of the Old Masters Exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1903, Evans’ exhibition is in room 11. Published in Old Masters, Deceased Masters of the British School, Albert Cuyp and Palace of Knossos in Crete. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1903) accessed March 8, 2013, http:// www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/indexplus?record=VOL3264. Figure 8: The new archaic/prehistory gallery in 1924, preserved in Fitzwilliam Museum antiquities department records (Photograph Fitzwilliam Museum). Figure 9: The marble head of a Polycleitan athlete, donated by Lady D’Abernon in 1948 (Photograph Abigail Baker). Figure 10: The Ithaca jewel - a nineteenth century forgery of a Hellenistic gold diadem (Photograph Abigail Baker). Figure 11: Detail of the back of the Ithaca jewel, showing the inscription (Photograph Abigail Baker). !4 Figure 12. Sketch of the Ithaca jewel from the accompanying document. File on GR.1.1953, Fitzwilliam Museum. (Photograph Abigail Baker) Figure 13. The illustration of the knot diadem from Lee’s account of his excavations in Archaeologia (probably copying a sketch by Stackelberg). Published in John Lee, “Antiquarian Researches in the Ionian Islands in the year 1812.” Archaeologia XXXIII (1848): 45. Figure 14. Stackelberg’s illustration. Published in O.M. Baron von Stackelberg, Die Graeber der Hellenen (1837) (Photograph Abigail Baker). Figure 15. Lee’s map of the excavation area on Aito. Published in John Lee, “Antiquarian Researches in the Ionian Islands,” 41. Figure 16. The first room of the exhibition. Scanned from Fitzwilliam Archive envelope 2487 (Fitzwilliam Museum). Figure 17. A plan of the second, third and fourth rooms of the exhibition. Visitors entered and exited by the doorway to the bottom left. Scanned from Fitzwilliam Archive envelope 2487 (Fitzwilliam Museum). Figure 18. The second room of the exhibition, looking into the third. Scanned from Fitzwilliam Archive envelope 2487 (Fitzwilliam Museum). Figure 19. The poster used to advertise the exhibition. Scanned from Fitzwilliam Archive envelope 2487 (Fitzwilliam Museum). Figure 20. The most prominent pieces in the sculpture section. Scanned from Fitzwilliam Archive envelope 2487 (Fitzwilliam Museum). Figure 21. The smiling head of Aphrodite in the 1946 exhibition at the Royal Academy. Published in Chittenden and Seltman, Greek Art: a commemorative catalogue, 37, Plate 52. Figure 22. Charles Seltman and some of his antiquities represent Cambridge University on the cover of Life Magazine in 1943. “A don is the holder of a Fellowship at Cambridge or Oxford and the goateed gentleman appearing on the cover is Charles Theodore Seltman, a fellow in archaeology at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He lives in the same rooms occupied by the great Latinist, Erasmus in 1510.” Figure 23: Painted cast of the Prima Porta Augustus in the Ashmolean’s Human Image gallery. (Photo credit: Stuart Bryant / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA) Figure 23: Cast of the Prima Porta Augustus in the Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen. Text reads “My fleet sailed all the way east over the ocean from the mouth of the Rhine to the land of the Cimbri, where no Roman had reached before that time, either by sea or land, and the Cimbri, Charydes, Semnones and the other Germanic peoples in that area asked through envoys for the friendship of myself and the Roman People.”(Photograph Abigail Baker). Figure 24: The Roman Baths in Bath evoke the ancient atmosphere of the baths with the words of Seneca: “The picture is not complete without some quarrelsome fellow, a thief caught in the act, or the man who loves the sound of his own voice in the bath - not to mention those who jump in with a tremendous splash.” (Photograph Abigail Baker). !5 Acknowledgements This thesis has benefited from the insight, interest and support of many people. First and foremost, my supervisor, Caspar Meyer who has been a supportive and informative mentor and has been consistently positive about my work and my wider development. The advice given during my upgrade interview by Catherine Edwards and Serafina Cuomo was invaluable for refining my existing material and thinking about the next steps. Birkbeck has been a brilliant environment for studying, and I have been particularly glad of the feedback and learning opportunities offered by its thesis reading group. I received full funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This was a dauntingly diverse topic and I probably would not have had the confidence to begin without early encouragement from Ann Taylor and Carrie Vout, who assured me that this was a suitable topic for a PhD and helped me turn some nagging questions from the end of a museum studies masters degree into a coherent proposal.