Performance and display at the first meeting of the British Archaeological Association, Canterbury, 1844

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe congress of the British Archaeological Association in Canterbury in September 1844 was the first archaeological conference in Britain. This paper examines the visual practices of performance and display incorporated within the congress, focusing on three events: a trip to watch a barrow excavation; a visit to the Faussett collection of antiquities; and an unrolling of an Egyptian mummy. Through an analysis of these events the paper examines the ways in which members of the nascent British archaeological community in the early Victorian era learned how to observe archaeology within the correct social, intellectual and spatial frames.