Archaeology of a Post-History
Geologists conduct borings and archaeologists dig into the ground to gain knowledge of the past from material evidence. And if they are lucky, they can trace the course of time in the layers, almost as with the annual rings of a tree trunk. In urban areas, however, the sequence of deposits is often disturbed or even destroyed, making it harder to read the historical processes. But these structures below ground elude our everyday perception, anyway. The aboveground building structures that we see show hardly any sedimentation. Their historicity is more like the model of a palimpsest, on which texts are repeatedly erased so that the writing surface can be newly inscribed again and again. On ancient papyrus, traces of prior text were disturbances that pointed to the earlier use of the paper. But the nature of overwriting has experienced a fundamental transformation with the unfolding of modernity in the 19th century. Because of the ruptures tradition was undergoing everywhere, a new consciousness of history developed that sought to limit the losses or even reverse them. Museums were founded, protection of historical monuments ensued, the homeland preservation movement arose, and historicism developed.