In this book explanations have operated at various levels, of which two will be highlighted here: top-down and bottom-up approaches. Regarding the first approach, it has been argued that archaeology’s emergence as a professional discipline needs to be understood within the framework of the appearance of nationalism as the political ideology that changed the way in which states were characterized, leading to their definition as self-governed nations. An overview of how nationalism, and, connected to it, imperialism and colonialism, affected the development and institutionalization of archaeology throughout the world in the nineteenth century has been provided in the introduction. In this final chapter I do not intend to repeat arguments put forward there. Instead, the following pages will further elaborate on the bottom-up approach, utilized throughout the work but not explicitly formulated. This concerns archaeologists’ role in the changes that led to the growing acceptance of nationalism and imperialism, and the increasing success of archaeology as a scholarly discipline. Nation, colony, empire, and state are abstract concepts that, in fact, represent communities of individuals whose agency is fundamental in the events that mark the history of these institutions. People successfully instil—or otherwise—the belief in the existence of a nation, an empire or a colony. Explorers, amateurs, and professionals played a vital part in the organization of the search for antiquities, claiming their undertakings were useful from a political point of view, and popularizing this vision through exhibitions, speeches, teaching, and publications. To understand correctly the mechanisms by which nineteenth-century archaeology related to nationalism it is important to stress that the political role played by most individuals involved in the study of antiquities was not the result of an imposition. On the contrary, free choice motivated them. The many analyses undertaken on the social provenance of archaeologists (for example Kristiansen 1981; Levine 1986; Mitchell 1998) show that a number hailed from the social elite and, importantly, that the great majority were from the middle classes. They, therefore, belonged to the strata in society leading the nineteenth-century revolutions. These were not enforced from above, but, quite the reverse, were voluntarily directed by the intelligentsia—the educated strata in the society mainly drawn from the middle classes—in their search for space in the political sphere.
Despot Stefan and Byzantium
