Kirsten Eppler

• History of research in archaeology
• Ethics in Archaeology; Colonial Archaeology and Postcolonial Studies
• Environmental archaeology; rural archaeology in the Roman provinces and in the Middle Ages
• History of Collections and Museum Studies

Digging, Collecting, Knowing - Archaeology in its Beginnings: Early Concepts of the History of Man and Nature in the Pre-Modern Period. A knowledge history of archaeology in the early modern period in the context of archaeological objects in early modern collections.

Long before archaeology was academically socialized and differentiated as a profession in what is now Central Europe in the course of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, material relics of the past were unearthed from the ground in a variety of ways, both accidentally and purposefully. Contemporaries recognized the historicity of such ground finds and interpreted them accordingly, fitting them into the respective world interpretation and scientific models of their time. As material manifestations of past epochs, they found their way into aristocratic as well as bourgeois collections or cabinets of Arts and rarities. In this way, the objects were placed in an order and context that, on the one hand, was shaped by the knowledge of the past at the time, but on the other hand, was thereby also newly gained and further developed - a thesis that is worth investigating.

The interdisciplinary dissertation project aims to explore these processes of negotiation, reshaping, and circulation of knowledge in relation to ground finds with theoretical-methodological approaches of material culture studies and recent sociology of knowledge on the basis of textual and material sources, thus shedding light on the roots of archaeological science in the pre-modern era. More precisely, a deliberately broadly chosen period since the 16th/17th century will be investigated, which will then fade out at the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th century, in order to make long-term developments visible on the one hand, and to conclude with the institutional establishment of the archaeological sciences and museum presentations in the modern sense on the other hand. Selected "scientific" literature as well as collections of this period, which are usually subsumed as "knowledge spaces" under the concept of the Arts and Rarities Chamber or the Scholars' Collection, as well as their inventories from the Central European region will serve as references, since digging, collecting, and knowledge were understood universalistically at that time.

Articles

Jean-Jacques Chifflet ‘Anastasis Childerici I. Francorvm Regis […] (1655)‘/ Leonhard David Hermann ‘ Maslographia Oder Beschreibung Des Schlesischen Massel […] mit seinen Schauwürdigkeiten (1711)‘, in: Ulrich Pfisterer, Cristina Ruggero (eds.): Phönix aus der Asche. Bildwerdung der Antike – Druckgraphiken bis 1869. / L’Araba Fenice. L’Antico visualizzato nella grafica a stampa fino al 1869. [Ausstellung München Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, 27. Juni – 22. September 2019], Petersberg 2019, pp. 233-234/ S. 236-238.

Archäologische Bodenfunde und Antiquitäten: Sammlungspraxis, Wahrnehmung und Interpretation, in: Landesmuseum Württemberg  (ed.): Die Kunstkammer der Herzöge von Württemberg. Bestand, Geschichte, Kontext, vol. 1, Ulm 2017, pp. 249-261.
Auch als Online-Publikation erschienen: https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arthistoricum/reader/download/602/602-17-87258-1-10-20191210.pdf

Frühmittelalterliche Bodenfunde, in: Landesmuseum Württemberg (Hrsg.), Die Kunstkammer der Herzöge von Württemberg. Bestand, Geschichte, Kontext, vol. 1, Ulm 2017, / pp. 293-306.
Online publication: https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arthistoricum/reader/download/602/602-17-87261-1-10-20191210.pdf

Vergoldete Sporen des 16. Jahrhunderts, in: Landesmuseum Württemberg (Hrsg.): Die Kunstkammer der Herzöge von Württemberg. Bestand, Geschichte, Kontext, Bd. 2, Ulm 2017, S. 969–970. Online publication: https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arthistoricum/reader/download/603/603-17-87285-1-10-20191210.pdf

Frau – Mann, Jung – Alt, Arm – Reich: Museale Darstellung und Visualisierung frühmittelalterlicher Gesellschafts- und Gender(re)konstruktionen im Landesmuseum Württemberg, in: Jana Esther Fries, Doris Gutsmiedl-Schümann, Jo Zalea Matias, Ulrike Rambuschek (eds.): Images of the Past. Gender and its Representation, Münster 2017, pp. 171–184.

Das Fürstengrab von Gammertingen im Landesmuseum Württemberg, in: Schönes Schwaben 4 (2015), p. 56.

Merkurstatuette aus Munderkingen, in: Badisches Landesmuseum (Hrsg.): Imperium der Götter. Isis, Mithras, Christus. Kulte und Religionen im Römischen Reich [Exhibition Karlsruhe Badisches Landesmuseum, 16. November 2013 - 18. Mai 2014], Darmstadt 2013, p. 40.

with Rainer Schreg, Jasmin Pittori, Markus Dotterweich: Geoarchäologische Untersuchungen im Umfeld der Wüstung Oberwürzbach. Ein Beitrag zur Landnutzungsgeschichte, in: Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg 2010, pp. 228-230.

Conference reports

with Verena Bunkus: Falsche Prinzessinnen, Scharlatane und selbsternannte Experten. Hochstapler in neuzeitlichen Gesellschaften, 10.07.2017 – 12.07.2017 Gotha, in: H-Soz-Kult, 01.11.2017, https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-7379.