An archaeological excavation is a destructive process: as it reveals the remnants of the past, it destroys the physical site where the remains are located. This was recognized from the 19th century, when archaeology began separating itself from antiquarianism and started becoming a scientific field of study on its own. The process created the necessity for keeping meticulous records of the excavation process. Excavation diaries, drawings, maps, photographs, and catalogues of artefacts have been in use for more than a hundred years to document and record the site before, during, and after the excavation. This legacy data, the methods, and decisions taken in compiling and archiving it are now the subject of a new field: archive archaeology.
The investigation of the methodologies in collecting and archiving data from the late 19th and early 20th centuries is important: even though the process appears scientific, and therefore objective, the material’s collection is subject to unacknowledged biases. As an example, it was considered normal to record the names of European or North American scholars in photographs, but not those of local workers. This practice reveals unacknowledged colonial imperialism on behalf of the photographer or the person recording the names of the photographed individuals. Another example is that photographs are categorized and archived under the name of the subject matter, which is usually the depicted building or artefact depicted, while the workers who may appear in the image remain unidentified and become erased from the archival record. One way of addressing the colonialism of past archaeological excavations is to examine, research, and acknowledge these biases and to repopulate the archives with the locals who contributed to the investigation of the sites. Another assumption from the late 19th and early 20th centuries is that archives could be moved away from the excavation site. Thus, the archives from Ingholt’s excavations in Palmyra travelled with him to Lebanon, Denmark, and the United States before they were donated to Denmark’s Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, instead of remaining at the local museum of Palmyra or deposited in the archives of the Directorate of Antiquities at Damascus.
Such legacy data also offers the possibility of further investigations in areas where excavation is impractical or impossible. This may be because the site has been removed from its original location, as in the case of temples or houses in areas where water dams were constructed, or because it has been built over and so cannot be investigated again, as it happens often in modern cities. It may also be because the site is in a conflict zone, and so excavations or other scientific investigations are impossible. Through this legacy data we also learn more about the local workers, who are not mentioned in the publications that followed the excavations; our only source here is the archival records of the excavation leader.
So, while archival material datasets have inherited problems from the time of their formation, they also offer great potential for further investigations. In the cases where sites such as Palmyra are inaccessible because of wars and political instability, they form documentation of the material culture of the site and help scholars fight the illicit trafficking of antiquities. The topic is too broad to be covered here, but perhaps these examples help highlight the problems and delicacy needed when dealing with archival data, as well as archives’ still largely untapped potential.
