The reliability of the ruins

IRINA PODGORNY

Journal Of Spanish Cultural Studies

Taylor and Francis

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2007 vol. 8 p. 213 - 233

1463-6204

This essay focuses on the ruins from the classical and “barbarian Antiquity” found in the 18th century in the domains of the House of the Bourbons in Naples, Spain, and Spanish America. By examining the excavations in Palenque and Herculaneum/Pompeii, and the surveys in Ingapirca and Mérida (Spain), I describe what I call “the engineer side of the creation of the archaeological object”, linked to the tradition of military engineering and surveying. The archaeological object appears connected to the bureaucratic system of colonial administration, shaped by instructions on what and how to observe that were designed in the metropolis. Spanish military engineers and members of the clergy represented the reliable individuals who, thanks to their training in practical geometry and mathematics, could observe, describe and report on the objects to be studied by European antiquaries and cosmographers.