Archeology as Spectacle: Heinrich Schliemann's Media of Excavation

Abstract

The German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann staged his life as a spectacle producing himself into an archaeological hero, pioneer, and adventurer. But he also used the spectacle as a scholarly mode of historical representation and employed rhetorical strategies associated with the visual techniques of mass media (Baedeker, panorama, photography). These spectacular strategies communicate a spatial and commodified view of history informed by modern tourism. Schliemann's approach to history, thus, broke with the historicist tradition of grand narrative in representing the ancient Greek past and opened up new non-narrative conceptions of history in the field of archaeology.

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