Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Preface
- How Well Do Facts Travel?
- Part One Introduction
- Part Two Matters of Fact
- TWO Facts and Building Artefacts: What Travels in Material Objects?
- THREE A Journey through Times and Cultures? Ancient Greek Forms in American Nineteenth-Century Architecture
- FOUR Manning’s N – Putting Roughness to Work
- FIVE My Facts Are Better Than Your Facts: Spreading Good News about Global Warming
- SIX Real Problems with Fictional Cases
- Part Three Integrity and Fruitfulness
- Part Four Companionship and Character
- Index
- References
THREE - A Journey through Times and Cultures? Ancient Greek Forms in American Nineteenth-Century Architecture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Preface
- How Well Do Facts Travel?
- Part One Introduction
- Part Two Matters of Fact
- TWO Facts and Building Artefacts: What Travels in Material Objects?
- THREE A Journey through Times and Cultures? Ancient Greek Forms in American Nineteenth-Century Architecture
- FOUR Manning’s N – Putting Roughness to Work
- FIVE My Facts Are Better Than Your Facts: Spreading Good News about Global Warming
- SIX Real Problems with Fictional Cases
- Part Three Integrity and Fruitfulness
- Part Four Companionship and Character
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
Archaeology constantly deals with so-called “facts.” Public opinion clearly associates the field with demonstrable facts. Since the object of archaeology is investigating the past by analysing material phenomena, the discipline is expected to have something substantial to say about the “travel” – meaning in this case the historical continuity – of such “facts.” The existence of ancient civilizations with their apparent immutability has generated confidence in the existence of cultural and artistic continuity, or at least of a gradual development that transmits facts through time. The numerous modern revivals of ancient forms and ideas, both in scholarship as well as in the broader context, have seemed evidence for the existence of a “cultural memory” within which facts might comfortably travel through time.
This article examines this widely held popular assumption. I suggest that the answer to the question of what travels and how largely depends on the interest and focus of the beholder rather than on the phenomena beheld. Seen in this light, both classical revivals in art and architecture and the academic investigation of ancient Greek culture turn out to be creative undertakings that mould and even invent the shape and meaning of the past. The material with which I will illustrate this is Greek-inspired American architecture of the nineteenth century and the public response to this phenomenon.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- How Well Do Facts Travel?The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge, pp. 72 - 110Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010