Heringman Noah. Sciences of Antiquity: Romantic Antiquarianism, Natural History, and Knowledge Work

Oxford University Press, 2013. — 368 p.In the course of the eighteenth century, discoveries ranging from Tahiti to Pompeii initiated a scientific turn in the study of the past, the product of old affinities between natural history and antiquarianism and new approaches to the division of labour. Romantic-era plate books on the South Pacific, Vesuvius, Greek vases, medieval tombs, and English geology, seeking a formal language to display these new findings, presented a wide array of objects as antiquities. Fieldworkers, illustrators, and other researchers who contributed to these volumes also fuelled the proliferation of antiquities - of specimens as well as ancient pasts - that preceded the formation of archaeology, geology, anthropology, and other modern disciplines. This expansion of the timescale depended on an expansion of the republic of letters traditionally defined by the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries, and other European learned bodies. Fieldworkers and illustrators were indispensable witnesses in any experiment on deep time. This book traces the production of five scholarly folio publications on antiquity in this expanded sense. Rather than focusing exclusively on the more famous authors of these projects, such as Sir Joseph Banks and Sir William Hamilton, Sciences of Antiquity gives more attention to five self-taught practical scholars - Sydney Parkinson, Pietro Fabris, Pierre Hugues d’Hancarville, Jacob Schnebbelie, and Thomas Webster - whose imaginative contributions and vital technical skills demonstrate the importance of knowledge work in the transformation of intellectual life.Noah Heringman is Associate Professor of English at the University of Missouri. His previous books include Romantic Rocks, Aesthetic Geology (2004) and Romantic Science: The Literary Forms of Natural History (2003). He has published articles and chapters on Romantic poets, on the history of geology, and on Romanticism and the disciplines.