ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Archaeologists in the Midst of Crime... Popularizing Archaeology through Films and detective Novels

• In Event: Mediating Knowledge: Self(re)presentation of a European Scholar Across Political Regimes 2

English Abstract

The presentation of archaeological research has played an important role since the establishment of the Institute of Archaeology. Systematic archaeological research was seen as one of the tools for building national identity, and its results had to be accessible to the general public. In this sense, the results of archaeological research were presented in a series of documentary and popular educational films, which began to appear in the 1930s and then massively from the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. In the mid-1960s, however, archaeology and archaeologists found their way into the detective novels of Václav Erben and immediately gained the attention of readers. Authentic employees of the Archaeological Institute, research at real archaeological sites, and presentations of specific finds attracted thousands of readers across generations. Many of the detective stories featuring archaeologists were also made into films, and these books and films remain very popular with audiences to this day. Václav Erben's work became one of the key steps in popularizing the field of archaeology and archaeological research itself. The main aim of my paper is to show how the archaeologists and their work was presented to the public and how they were seen through the pages of detective stories.

Author

• Marcela Starcova, Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech republic