So I’m having to do some fairly niche reading for my PhD, which starts in October, since I am investigating a concept from the 16th-17th centuries although it’s provenance is much older than that and begins with Ptolemy’s Geographia (149AD). I am tracing it’s roots and development through British History and Antiquarianism (the historical precursor to Archaeology) which flourished in the 17th century and was part of an epic effort to map Britain, one famous example being William Camden’s Brittania (1586). With its overriding pre-occupation with place Camden’s Brittania, arranged chronologically, is a county-by-county survey of England & Wales which travels from the South to the North and represents a new ‘topographical-historical method’ (Mendyk 1986 cited in Rohl 2011: 22).

The book articulates the image of the antiquary in 17thC England, it’s relation to the graphic arts, art and antiquity in the long 19th Century, the interpetation of ancient objects, prehistory in the 19thC, nineteenth-century antiquarian culture and the project of archaeology, antiquaries and conservation of the landscape, grand excavation projects of the twentieth century and antiquaries and the professionalization of archaeology.

I am hard at work on my Bibliography and see some exciting trips to the Bodleian library, Oxford in the future.

Key words: antiquarian, antiquities, archaeology, barrow, conservation, culture, England, excavation, landscape, place, history