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Engineering the past: Pitt Rivers, Nemo and The Needle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Christopher Evans
Christopher Evans*
Affiliation:
*Cambridge Archaeological Unit, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK (Email: cje30@cam.ac.uk)
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Extract

Exploring parallels between the careers of Lt.-General Pitt Rivers and Verne's Captain Nemo, this essay is concerned with time and disciplinary flagships. It considers how their respective collection activities propelled their very personal projects of science and, in the case of the General, its interrelationship with the institutionalisation of archaeology in the later nineteenth century. In particular, the implications of his renowned excavation medallion will be discussed and compared to a celebrated time capsule of the period; it being argued that ‘deep time’ consciousness itself engendered notions of futuristic projection.

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Debate
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Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 310 , 1 December 2006, pp. 960 - 969
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006

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