Week 6, Monica Stern, "The Art Historian's Lens"

Regardless of the differences between Schliemann and Evans, including their respect for the sites and the history, I believe they both did great things for archeology and art history. Just the fact that at a young age Schliemann believed Homer's story of Troy could be real history and that he was dedicated enough to deal with the Turkish government to excavate at Hissarlik is moving enough. However, his accounted style of excavation is not scholarly and disrespectful. Excavation and archeology should be done to find out more about history and to preserve what has happened thousands of years ago, not destructive and propagandised. Evans, on the other hand, was very successful with the excavation at Knossos while maintaining some integrity to the land and the history. His use of stratigraphy is an intelligent way of chronology. This technique is so amazing in the way one can use it to find out the placement of walls and the general structure of an immensely old building. Although many people and art historians doubt his preservation and restoration of the Palace Complex, I believe that his close attention to detail and his use of stratigraphy could give him more reliability to rebuild it than say people like Schliemann. However, I do agree with the statement that it is a bit misleading to those tourists who do not know the history of his restoration or the societal bias that could have come into his architecture.