Classical archaeology

The Classical Archaeology is a special direction of archeology and a scientific discipline that deals with the material remains of the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, especially the Greeks and Romans.

Description

Archaeology with a purely antiquarian interest already existed at the time of Renaissance humanism. Significant representatives of Flavio Biondo and Poggio Bracciolini. Cyriacus of Ancona ( 1391 - 1455 ), an Italian merchant and humanist, considered one of the founding fathers of modern classical archeology. It is sometimes called the father of archeology. As the founder of classical archeology in an art and cultural historical sense applies Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

It covers the period from the late Bronze Age ( Mycenaean period ) until the end of the 6th century AD, with the archeology in recent decades, especially in regard to the late antiquity played a major role in the research progress. The transitions to the prehistory and early history on the one hand and early Christian archeology on the other hand are fluid. Stand in Winckelmann and his first successors still clearly a judgmental, classicist approach the center, the archeology is now generally characterized by a more neutral approach to the ancient world.

Classical Archaeology is today the one from library research, which has a not to be despised share in the work of the archaeologist, and the evaluation of the material already found and the archaeological fieldwork. Since archeology as opposed to ancient history hardly deals with written sources, but primarily with material legacy of the era, these are the focus of research. It can be either to remnants of buildings, everyday objects, weapons, and even to waste. Everything the archaeologist gives information about the lifestyle of antiquity, is of importance. A big part of making the art historically relevant objects such as statues, bronzes, architectures, or residues thereof, vases, etc. The result is that classical archeology today in a high - no less high and the view - Dimensions operates antique art history.

Moreover, there should be many points of contact between classical archeology and ancient history and prehistory and early history, as these subjects often have to rely on the results of each other's discipline: Material (archeology) and literary ( Ancient History ) evidence are often not independent evaluate each other. A cross-disciplinary cooperation, however, been realized only rarely - to the detriment of science, as the methodological approach to the ancient world especially in ancient historians and archaeologists is often different and the researchers therefore evaluate and classify the sources and results of each other's discipline sometimes wrong. Also the fact that quite a few scholars study both subjects during training, yet could not change remarkably little.