Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa by Bonnie Effros

Abstract

Reviewed by: Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa by Bonnie Effros Eileen M. Angelini Effros, Bonnie. Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa. Cornell UP, 2018. ISBN 978-1-5017-0210-5. Pp. 371. Effros examines the previously understudied French military officers' fascination with the Roman remains they discovered in Algeria from 1830 to 1870 (the period immediately following the conquest of the Ottoman Regencies of Algiers and Constantine), and the resulting violence that arose out of their archaeological exploration, which led to the development of a new identity for French military and civilian settlers. In her introduction, "War and the Destruction of Antiquities in the Former Ottoman Empire," Effros sets the stage for her study by drawing a comparison between the current press given to the destruction of ancient archaeological sites in Syria and northern Iraq by Daesh and the lack of attention given by journalists to the fact that "for more than a century Europeans argued that these antiquities, and the monuments of which they were a part, had little or no value to the Arab inhabitants of the lands from which they were purchased, stolen, received as gifts, or taken by force" (1). She further elucidates how 1870 and 1880 legislation met with limited success in its efforts [End Page 263] to ban the export of ancient remains as well as to establish antiquities museums in Istanbul and Tunis. Yet, even more painful to learn in "Knowing and Controlling: Early Archaeological Exploration in the Algerian Colony" is that while these French colonizers were conducting their work, they destroyed the history of long-established Muslim communities, thereby establishing an odd combination of respect for the Maghreb's ancient past while violently suppressing and exploiting its nineteenth-century existence. Particularly relevant in "Envisioning the Future: French Generals' Use of Ancient Rome in the 1840s" is her demonstration of how the French believed that in learning from Roman successes and mistakes, they would achieve complete domination of the region. Across the chapters "The View from Ancient Lambaesis," "Institutionalizing Algerian Archaeology," and "Cartography and Field Archaeology during the Second Empire," Effros demonstrates that through their efforts to record the history of the ancient Romans, while at the same time persecuting the Arab and Berber inhabitants of colonial Algeria, the French sought to acquire knowledge at the expense of others in order to become European imperialists: "By the early 1850s, however, French archaeologists, a significant number of whom were by this point metropolitan scholars or civilian settlers rather than military officers, were content to claim that Arabs and Kabyles were entirely uninterested in Roman antiquities" (161). But Effros is deliberate in explaining the actual position of the Arabs and Kabyles: "Antiquities played an integral part in their daily lives, belief systems, and customs, as has been demonstrated in contemporary cases in other parts of the Mediterranean such as newly independent Greece" (161). Complementing her analysis of how the French conducted themselves in Algeria from 1830 to 1870 is her epilogue, "Classical Archaeology in Algeria after 1870," which underscores how French actions in Algeria contributed to the professionalization of archaeology in France. Eileen M. Angelini SUNY Empire State College Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French