Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1985 - 66

THE

BOOKSHELF

Pleasure
of Ruins,
by Rose
466 pages, 4 black-andMacaulay.
white photographs, 71 figures. Thames
and Hudson Books, New York, NY (distributed by W.W. Norton, New York,
NY) 1984 $14.95paper
Early Greek Travellers and the
Hellenic Ideal, by David Constantine . xii, 242 pages, 8 figures, 1
map, bibliography. Cambridge University Press, New York,NY 1984 $49.50
A History of the American School
of Classical Studies at Athens,
Volume II, 1939-1980, by Lucy
Shoe Meriti . xvi, 412 pages, 16 blackand-white plates, appendices (56 tables ),
bibliography. The American School of
Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton,
NJ 1984 (publications of the School)
$15.00
Each of these three books, in its own
highly individual way, works to place
archaeology and antiquarianism in a
larger context of traditional humanism.
In an age when "Humanistic learning
has suffered enough from ill-considered
efforts to ape the scientists by concentrating on what is quantifiable, verifiable, and value free," (Derek Bok, quoted
in Science, May 10, 1985, p. 697) this is
no small service. Dame Rose Macaulay's
Pleasure of Ruins has the broadest scope
of the three, and is a real bargain at the
price.
Those who have the special pleasure
of meeting this book for the first time
will discover very quickly that it is not
really about archaeology. In a sense, it
is not even about the raw material of
archaeology. The pleasure in a ruin is
evocative and emotional rather than instructive and intellectual. Her real subject is romance.
True to her theme, she loves above all
the pleasure of wild, untended ruins and
wishes she might have ridden on horseback up the grand staircase of Persepolis
as Sir Robert Ker Porter did in 1821.
She is well aware, of course, that ruin is
progressive- that the picturesque caperplant which decorates old walls in the
Mediterranean will inevitably destroy
them utterly. The streets of old Goa,
"with their peculiar rotten-ripe flavour"
must either vanish entirely into the
encroaching jungle or be sanitized and
fenced, with an entrance gate for tourists and a chain-link barrier to keep the
wildlife out. The effects of systematic
archaeology can (let us be honest about
it) be even worse. A truly scientific excavation is the antithesis of romance,
and it is well for the archaeologist to
make sure that the published results really do justify the destruction that an
excavation leaves in its wake.
66

Archaeology

The book as a whole is curiously
unstructured. Each chapter moves by a
sort of reminiscent association from one
region to another. Greece and the Aegean are the areas most favored, with
the larger area of the Roman Empire
next, then Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia. The underlying criterion for
selection lies in the literary associations
which surround and enrich the ruins. It
is imaginative pleasure she celebrates,
whether it be the pleasure of wonder, of
melancholy, of discovery, or even of vindictive glee- the special ruin-pleasure
of the Hebrew prophets and some of
their English Protestant imitators.
and soberMany better-informed
minded, but perhaps unromantic travellers she passes by altogether. Leake,
Beaufort, Fellows, Beaujour, even the
egregious Pouqueville appear nowhere
in her pages, and Gell makes only a
passing entrance as an amused critic of
Chateaubriand, one of her particular
favorites.
At times she may affect a total lack
of interest in questions of mere historical
accuracy, but this insouciance is no more
than a witty accent against the larger
sense that without history we have only
part of the feeling for a ruin. However
grand the Mayan ruins of Yucatan or
the Khmer ruins of Cambodia may be,
they lack an essential dimension for the
ruin connoisseur; we know too little
about the builders.
David Constantine's book is a different sort of exploration through some of
the same territory as Dame Rose
Macaulay's. Unlike her book, however,
this is no bargain. It is a good and interesting study which deserves a larger
audience than its rather overwhelming
price will allow it. Constan tine traces
the eighteenth century foundations of
western European Hellenism through
two separate but strongly complementary lines, the pioneering travel writings of the French and English visitors
to Greece and the artistic and literary
wanderings of the Germans at home and
in Italy. Johann Joachim Winckelmann
is, of course, the center of this study.
One can hardly use the terms "Hellenic"
and "Ideal" without implying a reference to Winckelmann. But the special
interest of this book lies in some of the
less well-known characters, particularly
Robert Wood and the truly charming
Pierre Augustin Guys.
The European "discovery of Greece"
begins with Jacob Spon and George
Wheler, whose visit in 1675-76 resulted
in parallel accounts in both French and
English which helped to awaken the
literate public to an interest in the physical remains of Greece. Wealthy connois-

Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1985

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1985