Relics of the past : the collecting and study of pre-Columbian antiquities in Peru and Chile, 1837-1911 / by Stefanie Gänger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gänger, Stefanie, author.

Series:

Oxford studies in the history of archaeology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Archaeology--Chile--History.

Archaeology.

Archaeology--Peru--History.

Collectors and collecting--Chile--History.

Collectors and collecting.

Collectors and collecting--Peru--History.

Antiquarians--History.

Antiquarians.

Antiquities--History.

Antiquities.

History.

Peru--Antiquities.

Peru.

Chile--Antiquities.

Chile.

Physical Description:

xiii, 311 pages : black and white illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summary:

Relics of the Past tells the Story of antiquities collecting, antiquarianism, and archaeology in Cuzco and Lima, over the Araucanian territories and the War of the Pacific in the Second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. While the role of foreign travellers and scholars dedicated to the study of South America's Pre-Columbian past is well documented, historians have largely overlooked the knowledge gathered and the collections formed among collectors of antiquities, antiquaries, and archaeologists born or living in South America during this period. The landed gentry, the clergy, and an urban bourgeoisie of doctors, engineers, and military officials put antiquities on display in their private mansions or bestowed them upon the public museums that were being formed by municipalities and governments in Santiago de Chile, Cuzco, or Lima. Men, and some few women, gathered antiquities on their journeys 'inland' and during sociable weekend excursions, but also on quotidian commercial voyages or in military campaigns. They bartered antiquities with their fellow collectors or haggled about their price on the antiquities market. In their hours of leisure, they marvelled at them, wrote about them, and disputed over their meaning, age, and interest in learned societies, informal gatherings, and at meetings in universities and public museums. This volume unveils a hitherto largely unknown world of antiquarian and archaeological collecting and learning in Peru and Chile. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: antiquities in Peru and Chile

Collecting and studying antiquities

The spaces of collecting

Writing histories of archaeology

Through the lives of objects

The Mascapayacha: collections of Incan antiquities in Cuzco

Incan material culture under Spanish rule

Collections, salons, and learned societies

Commodities on sale

The Khipu: antiquarianism and archaeology in Lima

Khipus and communication in the Andes

Antiquarianism, antiquities collecting, and archaeology

A Khipu on the market

Pascual Coña: collecting and colonization in Araucanía

The free territories of Araucanía

Collecting Araucanian antiquities

The last of their kind

The Valdivia jug: archaeology over the War of the Pacific

An Incan civilization for South Americans

Antiquities collecting, archaeology, and national ancestry

Conclusion: relics of the past.

Notes:

Includes biliographic references and index.

ISBN:

9780199687695

0199687692

OCLC:

879398377