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RECONSTRUCTION ART AND DISCIPLINARY PRACTICE: ALAN SORRELL AND THE NEGOTIATION OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2014

Sara Perry  and
Matthew Johnson
Sara Perry
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK. Email: [email protected]
Matthew Johnson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, 1810 Hinman Avenue, Evanston IL 60208, USA. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Alan Sorrell is best known today as a ‘reconstruction artist’, employed between the 1930s and the 1970s by the Ministry of Works and other bodies to produce reconstructions of ancient monuments and re-creations of ancient life. The archive containing many of his papers, working drawings, correspondence and other material was temporarily loaned to the Society of Antiquaries of London for study in 2010–11, and is now publicly accessible via the Sorrell family. This paper reports on initial research into the Sorrell archive and other documentary sources, funded through a British Academy Small Grant. We discuss how the archive throws new light not just on Sorrell's career and achievements, but on the intellectual and professional development of archaeology as a whole in the mid-twentieth century.

Résumé

Alan Sorrell, connu principalement aujourd'hui comme «artiste de reconstruction», a été employé entre les années 1930 et 1970 par le ministère des Travaux et d'autres organismes, afin de reconstruire les anciens monuments et de recréer la vie ancienne. Les archives contenant un grand nombre de ses documents, plans, correspondance et autres, temporairement prêtées à la Society of Antiquaries of London, à des fins d’étude, de 2010 à 2011, sont maintenant accessibles au public par l'intermédiaire de la famille Sorrell. Cet article relate les recherches initiales effectuées sur les archives de Sorrell et les autres sources de documents, financées par la British Academy. Nous exposons la façon dont ces archives projettent un nouveau jour non seulement sur la carrière et les accomplissements de Sorrell, mais aussi sur le développement intellectuel et professionnel de l'archéologie dans son ensemble au milieu du xxe siècle.

Type
Papers
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 94 , September 2014 , pp. 323 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2014 

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