Alain Schnapp

The desire to investigate the past is one of the oldest and most enduring feelings of human beings who, ever since they became self-aware, have questioned the soil in search of traces of those who came before them. Contrary to popular belief, excavation is not a Renaissance invention, but has its roots in the earliest Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Chinese empires.From Khaemuaset, son of Ramesses II, to Hesiod, St. Augustine, the Count of Caylus, and Darwin, the evidence left behind over time has been read and interpreted in many different ways. Ancient rulers sought the remains of kings who came before them in order to legitimize their own power; modern scholars analysed and classified the naturalia and artificialia admired in the Wunderkammer; there were also those who carried out research in open defiance of the institutions, such as Isaac La Peyrère, whose scandalous 17th-century text theorized, for the first time since classical times, the presence of a history before Adam. With the evolution of the discipline, scholars managed to free themselves from the yoke of sacred texts and antiquarian practice itself, adopting an increasingly scientific and universal perspective.In this brilliant volume, supported by a rich selection of written and illustrated sources, Alain Schnapp traces a veritable archaeology of archaeology, following the methodological progress of a multifaceted subject that draws on philosophy, geology, paleontology, and historiography to solve the fundamental enigmas of human history.La conquista del passato, first published in 1994, returns after thirty years in a new edition.