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Worsaae and British Antiquities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Judith Wilkins
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Extract

J J. A. Worsaae’s recorded words during his travels in the British Isles in 1846-7 indicate that he neither underestimated the significance of his visit, nor lacked confidence in the tenability of the ideas he expressed. His previous journeys in Norway, Sweden and Germany were a useful preparatory experience. Notwithstanding his youth and his high spirits, Worsaae must have appreciated his influential position as the exponent in Britain of ‘an entirely new enquiry into the history of the earliest state of the European nations, by means of the antiquities alone’. The discovery of ‘a stone period, in the history of Europe’ was, he declared, the first achievement and the vindication of the method.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 35 , Issue 139 , September 1961 , pp. 214 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1961

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References

1 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, III, 1845-7, 328-9.

2 First published in Copenhagen in 1843. Thoms’s translation was published in 1849 as The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark.

3 Published in En Oldgrandskers Erindringer, ed. V. Hermansen, 1934. I am grateful to Mr T. G. Bibby of the Forhistorisk Museum, Aarhus, for drawing my attention to this publication.

4 T. D. Kendrick, ‘The British Museum and British Antiquities,’ Museums Journal, 51, 1951-5, 144; and in ANTIQUITY, 1954, 132.

5 An account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland and Ireland. 1852.

The Industrial Arts of Denmark from the Earliest Times to the Danish Conquest of England. 1882.

The Prehistory of the North. 1886.

6 Glyn Daniel, A Hundred Years of Archaeology. 38-54 and 77-85 ; Joan Evans, A History of the Society of Antiquaries. 280-1.

7 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, in, 1845-7, 328-33.

8 The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, VI.

9 Unpublished letter in the archives of the Second Department of the National Museum, Copenhagen. I was able to study some of this material in July i960 and am very grateful to Dr O. Klindt-Jensen, Dr G. E. Daniel and Mr D. M. Wilson for their advice and encouragement, and to members of the First and Second Departments for their kind assistance. I only regret that Mr Victor Hermansen’s sudden death deprived this work of so much valuable criticism.

10 Unpublished letter in the National Museum, Copenhagen. I am very grateful to Mr D. M. Wilson of the Department of British Antiquities in the British Museum for looking for Worsaae’s reply to Birch, unfortunately without success.

11 Unpublished letter in the National Museum.

12 T. D. Kendrick, op. cit., 144.

13 Thomas Wright, The Celt, the Roman and the Saxon. 1852. His arguments were unchanged in the 3rd ed. of 1875.

14 J. M. Kemble, The Utility of Antiquarian Collections as Throwing Light on the Pre-historic Annals of the European Nations. Address to the Royal Irish Academy, February 1857.

15 The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, 122.

16 Thomas Wright, Essays on Archaeological Subjects. 1861, 13.

17 Sir George Hill, Treasure Trove in Law and Practice from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. 1936, 182.

18 Horace Marryat, A Residence in Jutland, the Danish Isles and Copenhagen, 1860, 252. Chap, XVI is an interesting and detailed account of the National Museum in Copenhagen at this time.

19 The Athenaeum, no, 1112, 171.

20 Unpublished letter in the National Museum.

21 Unpublished letter in the National Museum.

22 A. H. Rhind, British Antiquities Their Present Treatment and their Real Claims. 1855.

A. H. Rhind, The Law of Treasure-Trove. 1838.

23 Unpublished letter in the National Museum.

24 C. P. Kains-Jackson, Our Ancient Monuments and the Land Around Them. 1880. A list of the prehistoric monuments it was proposed to schedule under Lubbock’s bill. Appendix A gives some details of the debates, and names of supporters and opponents at the division on the second reading in March 1877.

25 Joan Evans, A History of the Society of Antiquaries. 1956, 330-3.

26 Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord. N.S. 1884-9, 143-192.

27 Joan Evans, Time and Chance. 1943, 105-6.

28 Unpublished letter in the National Museum. I am very grateful to Dr Joan Evans for her comments.

29 Edmund Gosse, Two Visits to Denmark, 1872 and 1874. 1911, 251-7.