Archaeology, archive, emotions: Connections between archaeologists of different centuries through archival documents
Chiara Cecalupo, Conex-Plus-Marie Curie Fellow, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Abstract
In recent years, the study of archival documents of various chronologies has emerged in the field of archaeological research as a valuable aid in reconstructing ancient excavations, collections, restorations, dispersions and historiographical processes. In my own case, I have been involved for many years in the study of archival documents of archaeologists between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century who worked in Malta and Italy and, from this experience, I would like to draw material for the speech proposed here. With this speech, I will join the conference by sharing some personal experiences and contributing the discussion on the researcher’s emotions at the archives.

In the General Archives of the Missionaries of Africa there are numerous letters from Maltese archaeologists to Father Delattre, the great discoverer of Carthage from late nineteenth centuries. Studying those texts, now in press, I often found myself identifying with the characters who had created them. In particular, I was attracted by the letters written to Delattre by the German scholar Alfred Mayr, whom essays I had studied and commented in some articles in 2020. Mayr started investigating Maltese archaeology during in doctorate in 1896-8 and then made of Maltese early-Christian tombs his main scientific interest. In those letters I found incredible similarities with my own scientific path and aspirations; in their desires as young scholars I saw my own ambitions and, through those documents, I felt part of a timeless scientific and human journey.

The first part of the talk will therefore be based on the presentation of these documents from a scientific point of view, and this will be followed by the story of the personal emotional experience of feeling represented as a scholar and a human being by the letters of these past archaeologists. It will be clear how the study itself is driven by the emotions connected to the archival findings: I paid deeper attention to these letters (despite their marginal role in the wider horizon of history of archaeology) because I felt a connection with the man who wrote them, his life and his aspirations. By studying them I feel I am somehow re-living my own path as well, in a physical way as well. Reading his words about his discoveries recalled vividly my first trip to Malta and the excitement of the discovery that led with it.

The aim of the talk will be to use this specific case to reflect on the emotional baggage of the archival work for us archaeologists who deal with the past through the papers of the scholars who preceded us. The text will present the relationship - admittedly one-sided, but no less emotional - that can arise through the papers between the contemporary scholar and the one who created the documents. I will also present the feelings of attachment with research of this kind, which begins as historiographic but then becomes biographical and autobiographical, allowing us to reflect on the finiteness of the archaeologist as a man, but on the echo of his work that lives on and is reproposed through the papers of those who come after him.

Bio notes
Chiara Cecalupo is CONEX-Plus-Marie Curie Fellow at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, where she is the PI of the project “LIT! Reception of catacomb art in European culture and architecture between the 19th and 20th century”. She received her PhD in Museology and History of Early Christian Archaeology at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana in Rome, where she is also guest lecturer in the same subjects. She collaborated with several research institutions in Italy, Malta and other European countries. Her main research focus is on the rediscovery of early-Christian catacombs in the Mediterranean basin. She has a strong interest and record of publication in history of archaeology, antiquarian studies, archival studies for archaeology and reception of antiquities from the 16th to the 19th century.