El estudio en la última década de las relaciones entre viajes, literatura de viajes y la arqueología del Próximo Oriente antiguo ha pasado de ser un tema eludible de la arqueología a tener su propio campo de investigación. Aun así, mucho de lo que se ha publicado hasta el momento se ha centrado en el siglo XIX, en cuestiones de yacimientos concretos o en personajes destacados. La investigación sobre los primeros exploradores, el desarrollo general de intereses académicos en la región y el potencial uso práctico de los escritos de viajes todavía tienen que integrarse plenamente en la disciplina arqueológica del Próximo Oriente antiguo. Con la moda actual de los estudios sobre viajes y las recientes publicaciones de algunas visiones generales que ofrecen nuevos elementos significativos parece que ha llegado el momento de ver cómo se ha desarrollado la relación existente entre la literatura de viajes y la arqueología del Próximo Oriente -en concreto de (la baja) Mesopotamia-. Este artículo defiende que el desarrollo de la arqueología mesopotámica como una disciplina aparte y una percepción concreta de su historia han introducido durante los siglos XIX y XX una cuña entre el arqueólogo y el viajero, así como entre la investigación arqueológica y la literatura de viajes. Como visión general del cambio en las relaciones entre ambos, este artículo aboga por una mayor integración de los estudios sobre viajes en el campo de la arqueología.Palabras clave: Arqueología, viaje, Mesopotamia, literatura, historia disciplinaria. AbstractStudying the links between travel, travel literature and the archaeology of the Near East has, over the course of the past decade, slowly developed from a side-step of archaeology into a more ‘proper’ field of enquiry. However, much of what has been published so far has remained focused on the nineteenth century, on site-specific issues or on highlighted individuals. Research into the early explorers, the broad developments of academic interests in the region and the potential practical use of travel writing have yet to become fully integrated into the Near Eastern archaeological discipline. With the present vogue of travel studies and the recent publication of several overviews offering significant new insights, the time seems at hand for an examination of how the relationships between travel literature and Near Eastern –specifically (lower) Mesopotamian– archaeology have developed over time. This paper argues that the development of Mesopotamian archaeology as a distinct discipline and a specific perception of its history have during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries drawn a wedge between the archaeologist and the traveler, as well as between archaeological research and travel literature. As a general overview of changing relationships between the two, the paper pleads for a more thorough integration of travel studies into the field of archaeology.Keywords: Archaeology, travel, Mesopotamia, literature, disciplinary history.
Since the creation of its first disciplinary histories in the late nineteenth century, Near Eastern archaeology has perceived its origins largely in terms of individual breakthroughs, following the common precepts of a pre-Annales historiography. The founding figures mentioned in the works of Rogers, Hilprecht, Budge or Parrot were either great explorers, great scholars or, most importantly, great excavators. From Della Valle's first tentative explorations at Babylon in 1616 to the major excavations at Nineveh and Babylon three centuries later, Near Eastern archaeology saw itself as the fruit of individual discovery. ‘Real’ archaeology was furthermore perceived as a natural rather than a human science and subsequently taken to have originated in nineteenth-century positivism; earlier accounts were hinted at in only the briefest fashion.
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