Walter Scott's Romantic Archaeology: New/Old Abbotsford and "The Antiquary"

Abstract

All changes round us, past, present, and come; that which was history yesterday becomes fable to-day, and truth of to-day is hatched into a lie by to-morrow.(1) The past is recovered as private estate.(2) A WATERSHED DATE IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN SCOTLAND IS 1851. In this year, Daniel Wilson introduced term into English language with publication of Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, first systematic application in United Kingdom of relative dating system of prehistoric artifacts into stone, bronze, and iron epochs developed by Danish archaeologists C. J. Thomsen and J. J. A. Worsaae. In same year, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, under Wilson's secretariship, donated its entire collection for establishment of a National Archaeological Museum. Herald of a dawning scientific consciousness in Scotland, Wilson asserts in preface Prehistoric Annals that archaeology had outstripped laborious trifling of amateur antiquary and had joined the circle of sciences.(3) The national museum was play a fundamental role in these shifting sensibilities. In first volume of Society's revamped Proceedings, Wilson argues that government sponsorship was needed to secure advancement of Archaeological science by providing funds for proper housing and management of collection. Within public sphere of museum, then, Wilson's professional motives are allied more democratic principles: in archaeologist's words, to promote popular education, and excite a national interest in preservation of monuments of early art and civilization (2-3).(4) Wilson thus roots origins of Scottish archaeology within a curious paradox. Having on one hand raised archaeology above enthusiasms of amateur antiquarianism, Wilson on other grounds prospects for scientific archaeology within popular emotive appeal of backward-looking heritage. Antithetical scientific archaeology, heritage assembles objects within a discourse of national identity and educational entertainment, attractions that inevitably transform objects through desire for particular pasts. Peering into his disciplinary crystal ball, Wilson searches for a professional pedigree saturated in cultural value. Promoting amongst Scots a possessive attitude toward material past, Wilson, furthermore, locates archaeological origins in a more recent heritage site. In preface Prehistoric Annals, archaeologist asserts that zeal for Archaeological investigation which has recently manifested itself in nearly every country in Europe, has been traced, not without reason, impulse which proceeded from Abbotsford. Though such is not exactly source which we might expect give birth transition from intelligent spirit of scientific investigation, yet it is unquestionable that Sir Walter Scott was first of modern writers `to teach all men this truth, which looks like a truism, and yet was as good as unknown writers of history and others, till so taught,--that bygone ages of world were actually filled with living men.' (xvii)(5) Lingering at disciplinary crossroads, Wilson distances scientific archaeology from profitless dilettantism of text-based antiquarianism, yet he draws Scott's (and Carlyle's) humanistic history along with him. Wilson translates for his professional audience study of material history within a mode of storytelling that takes place of, or is a substitute for, objective history archaeologist claims represent. Quoting Carlyle's encomium Scott, Wilson writes Scottish prehistory as ontological narrative. Indeed, Scott's own heritage claims within historical romance--the preservation of ancient manners, as he states baldly in Postscript Waverley--encode affective nature of archaeological discourse that Wilson attaches origins of his profession. …