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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE STONE

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Payot book

Ricardo González Villaescusa

The October 17, 2010 were unaware of the book La Guerre Ruines des which we now publish a review.

Jean-Pierre Payot, La guerre des ruines. Géopolitique et Archéologie, Paris, Choiseul, 2010, 518 pages.

The author plunges us through a variety of well documented examples in the intricacies of the relationship between archeology and its corollary (the ruins, the remains, objects ...) and the territory in support of national identity.

construction is the story of a territory, a nation, from the ground a stratigraphic reconstruction of identities registered in the territories. Archaeology is the link between history, past and patrimonial, or whatever it is, that same past erected a symbol of the collective memory of a people, a nation that, through a political act, considered the remains worthy of preservation for future generations. It is the factory of the "historical right." The book is an account of the instrumentalization of a science which, as noted by P. Bourdieu for social sciences in general, is too important, are too pressing for social life and the symbolic order, to grant the same degree of autonomy to other sciences or to grant a monopoly on the production of truth [1] .

Memory and archeology

If space [2] , like the nation, are social constructs, no less so is the past. Forgetfulness and memory, front and back of the same coin, are the epicenter of these buildings. They are taking advantage of the prestige of the past. But while the written sources of history, support these buildings, ruins, materiality, which offer the ruins and archeology as a method of choice for their interpretation, proposed evidence "unassailable" well rooted in the earth. P. Ricoeur reminds us that "the relationship between phenomenological significance of the image-memory and materiality of the trace (...) [the mark] has value as a sign: to think the track have to think at a time as this effect as sign of its absent cause [3] . That is the gain of material evidence in relation to written sources.

Nation-building and territorial integrity

Vercingetorix That

rooting archaeological remains attached to a major advantage in the social construction of space that we talked about: the challenge is to prove the primacy of the occupation of space, says the author. The excavation and debris provide a corpus of evidence to a "historical right" about space.

Hermannsdenkmal

From the first chapters the author shows that from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, archeology at the birth of the nation and the territory the genesis of a space Sovereign validated by archeology. An ideological framework, nationalism, backed by a "science" at a time when the reigning positivism. Since the battle of Alesia and Vercingetorix with the statue of Gallic chief (1866 to Napoleon III) to France, passing by the giant statue of Arminius - Hermannsdenkmal - (completed in 1875 with funding from the Germany of Bismarck) and variana clades, to the statue of Boduognat in Antwerp (1861 with the first king of the Belgians, Leopold I), and the recent discovery of the treasure of Ambiorix, king of the Eburones " [4] in Beringen, Don Pelayo and Spain ... The list is endless.

Boduognat in Antwerp

In this cultural environment, archeology, "the most national of all sciences" and one of the professions has contributed to moonlight in intelligence, crystallized into a stream in the converging ethnicity, territory and culture archaeological theses Kossin Gustaf (1858-1931). The concept of a mosaic of cultures (Kultur-Gruppe ) and Siedlungsarchäologie , the embryo what we now call space archeology , combining space, territory and artifacts. Although today these theories are far from explicit practices of archaeologists, at least in politically correct term, the instrumentation of the archaeological work that is the book finds its inspiration in this theoretical background.

Ambiorix Statue in Tongeren

Well, as evidenced by JP Payot do not get all the actors rewarded archaeological interest territorial disputes those who base their arguments on the archeology? "Native Americans and the American extreme right in the discovery of Kennewick Man in Washington? "Archaeologists and the Russian Federation of Russian ultra-nationalism hand around the city of Arkaim south of the Urals and north of the border of Kazakhstan? "The Turkish government erasing the past and Christian orthodox land of Cyprus? "The Greeks claiming the Elgin Marbles? Is the Indo-Muslim around Ayodhya Hindu temple and the mosque? The return to Ethiopia Akxum obelisk brought to Rome by Mussolini ...?

Statue of Pelayo in Covadonga

Chapter L'archéologie du divin deploys a range of examples of the connection between religion and geopolitics. Archaeology of Israel in the service of the primacy of the Jewish presence in Palestine, which is nothing else than the question of control of the territory and its legitimacy. On the other hand, the Palestinian authority, the same recourse to archeology as an argument when we read that Y. Arafat replied that the excavations made are not allowed to defend the evidence of the great city of Jerusalem from biblical and in time of King David would only be a village. He continues to conflicts around the excavations at the al-Aqsa mosque in 2007 and attempts of Judaizing Jerusalem, and other examples, which should add that of found Herod's tomb by archaeologist Ehud Netzer at the heart of the occupied territories [5] .

The missing pieces of sovereignty

unclaimed objects are converted to JP Payot in the missing pieces of the sovereignty exercised over a territory. The best known example is that of the Parthenon frieze, but the author tells us also that of the obelisk Akxum , the treasure of Troy (in Turkey, Germany and Russia at stake), among others. These are usually objects stolen during the colonial period and, after decolonization, new countries are trying to "fill in the missing pieces of the panoply symbolic sovereignty sovereignty (...) a material that affects its strength and identity its mark territorial, symbolic control of an area "(p. 71). As the author asserts, concerned states may not waive that claim remains but the rejection of the old neocolonial powers reveals a position on its former colonies. Is it not proof that different relations China's new attitude regarding the stolen objects in the imperial summer palace and his new position on the board of global geopolitics?

And in France?

In the last chapter the author discusses a topic that does not get round as above. It's probably early to address a subject delicate and recently as the geopolitical challenges of preventive archeology, which deserves investigation and publication themselves. However, the author announces suggestive explanations. On the origin of archeology in France and liberal option will prevail the right to private property, the late introduction of an on archaeological activities, only from the existence of a strong regime like that of Vichy and the consequent Carcopino law ...

But even incomplete and tenuous, what seems most interesting are the five pages devoted to preventive archeology today. The author locates the archeology that represents most of the archaeological digs in France, the trial, the challenges of geopolitics since the territory is immersed in a power struggle on land use, including developers, private or public , and archaeologists who attempt to return to form "local memory intelligible" to society. There is therefore a legitimate claim to the various actors to act on the territory, making our science, "science sensitive." As mentioned, the author just goes into the problems of archeology and national soil today but someday will be stopped in detail on this hot topic.

In short, this is a book that has the merit of placing value on an issue which, although known in specialist circles, is formalized and enriched with plenty of detail (at times excessive and that sometimes contribute little to the central thesis.) It should be noted that under the same label enjeu Géopolitique "geopolitical goal" the author includes all the examples and it would be advisable to have nested geopolitical objectives such as not all represent the same political consequences and the same approach by of the different actors involved. Moreover, there is sometimes confusion between the concepts, because although archeology, ruins, excavations, artefacts, monuments and heritage are sometimes equivalent, not always.

If, as A. Micaud [6] , wealth does not exist if, and only a political decision from collegial bodies with decision-making, select which deserves to be protected and what deserves to be preserved for future generations. Beside the ruins highlighted by the decision, the same power can not forget other interested "Patrimonializar" because of the significance of these in the territory. Moreover, the "dumping" of history, the mass graves of the carnage of the recent wars in need of methods and techniques of archeology is not always a problem issues of territorial sovereignty or even heritage, but with a "memory" as the French or the "recovery of memory" as we say in our country. In contrast, the excavation of the graves of arbitrary executions have little to do with territorial issues but seek to end the confusion of the sovereignty of a nation state and sovereignty a democratic people. As stated by M. Cuillerai [7] , the relationship between historicism and nationalism "and not allow re-establishing an identity from the national history."

In short, a book that opens a new research topic.

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[1] P. Bourdieu, The office of science. Science of science and reflexivity , Barcelona, \u200b\u200bAnagram, 2003.

[2] Mr. Lussault, Man Space. The social construction of human space , Paris, 2007 .

[3] P. Ricoeur, memory, history, forgetting , Paris, 2000 .

[4] E. Warmenbol, Belgium Gallic. Myths and archeology , Brussels, 2010 .

[5] R. González Villaescusa, The tomb of Herod, the holy grail and the ark of the covenant, Notes Science and Technology No. 23, June 2007, p. 21-23.

[6] A. Micaud, La patrimonialisation ou ce qui nous comment redire religion (a point de vue sociologique) , in Reinventing patrimoine him. De la culture à l'économie, une nouvelle pensée du patrimoine? L'Harmattan, Paris, 2004, p. 81-96.

[7] M. Cuillerai, L'irreconcilable: histoire critique aux marges de l'amnesty, in S. Wahnich (dir.). Une histoire politique de l'amnesty , Paris, 2007, 103.