History of Archaeology - Origins (antiquities Collection Era)

Origins (antiquities Collection Era)

See also: Antiquarian and History of Chinese archaeology

The exact origins of archaeology as a discipline are uncertain. Excavations of ancient monuments and the collection of antiquities have been taking place for thousands of years. Tentative steps towards archaeology as a science took place during the Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Archaeology in the Middle East began with the study of the ancient Near East by Muslim historians in the medieval Islamic world who developed an interest in learning about pre-Islamic cultures. In particular, they most often concentrated on the archaeology and history of pre-Islamic Arabia, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. In Egyptology, the first known attempts at deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs were made in Islamic Egypt by Dhul-Nun al-Misri and Ibn Wahshiyya in the 9th century. It has recently been argued by Okasha El Daly that these Arab scholars at least partly understand what was written in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, by relating them to the contemporary Coptic language used by Coptic priests in their time. However, El Daly's claims are considered over-reaching by other scholars.

Abdul Latif al-Baghdadi, a teacher at Cairo's Al-Azhar University in the 13th century, wrote detailed descriptions on ancient Egyptian monuments. Al-Baghdadi and other Muslim historians such as Abu al-Hassan al-Hamadani of Yemen (d. 945) and Al-Idrisi of Egypt (d. 1251) developed elaborate archaeological methods which they employed in their excavations and research of ancient archaeological sites. The 15th-century Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi also wrote detailed accounts of Egyptian antiquities.

During the Song Dynasty (960–1279) of China, educated gentry were interested in antiquarian pursuits of art collecting while Neo-Confucian scholar-officials were concerned with archaeological pursuits in order to revive the use of ancient relics in state rituals. This was criticized by the polymath official Shen Kuo (1031–1095), who endorsed the idea that materials, technologies, and objects of antiquity should be studied for their functionality and for the discovery of ancient manufacturing techniques. In his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, Shen Kuo took an interdisciplinary approach to archaeology, fusing that subject with his work in optics, metallurgy, music, and geometry. Yet there were others who took the discipline as seriously as Shen did; the official, historian, poet, and essayist Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) compiled an analytical catalogue of ancient rubbings on stone and bronze which pioneered ideas in early epigraphy and archaeology.