Photography and Archaeology (Reaktion Books - Exposures)

Photography and Archaeology presents archaeological photography as a product of archaeological thought, and of our hopes and fears about our past and present.  The first ever book-length study of its topic, it examines some of history's most famous archaeological excavations, as well as lesser-known and even unpublished finds, from the Mediterranean and Middle East, as well as Asia, Europe and the Americas.  Spanning the dual histories of both fields from the early nineteenth century to the present, it makes evident how whatwe know of the archaeological past has always been related to how it has been photographically represented and circulated: in scholarly folios, popular accounts, scientific archives, museums, manuals and numerous other formats.  Photography in particular has allowed archaeology to circulate widely and take on the varied assumptions made by different audiences about the material traces of the past and their meaning and use in the present.
 
Photography and Archaeology surveys the thought of archaeologists, critics, historians, photographers, artists and theorists, in describing how its images are caught between two opposite, if not contradictory, tendencies.  While photography has served archaeology as a guarantor of documentary objectivity, it has come into its role not by just recording but also fundamentally remaking the archaeological object, not least through underwriting a vision of archaeological artifacts as distinct works of art.  Beautifully illustrated with archaeological images, many published here for the first time, it discusses archaeological examples and images by renowned photographers including Maxime du Camp, Francis Frith, Auguste Salzmann and Ernst Herzfeld, as well as contemporary photographers and artists such as Aaron Levin, Jeff Wall, Patrick Nagatani and Marilyn Bridges. 
 
Photography and Archaeology will be of interest to archaeologists, art historians and photographers as well as anyone captivated by archaeology's ongoing engagement with the past.  Frederick N. Bohrer is an art historian who has spent nearly two decades studying the modern uses of the image of the ancient past.