Writers on Ruins: An ‘Anthology of Archaeological Travel Writing’

Most contemporary travel writing focuses on the here and now, with only brief glimpses back. But recently, Oxford University Press published a collection of travel stories about visits to ruins entitled From Stonehenge to Samarkand: An Anthropology of Archaeological Travel Writing. The book features old and relatively new stories by such writers as Tom Bissell (a World Hum contributor), Paul Theroux, Robert Byron and Mark Twain. The New York Times called it a “smart” collection,  and the Washington Times declared it “an admirably well-produced survey of the personalities and accomplishments of those pioneering people eager to recapture past relics of human history.”

The book’s editor, Brian Fagan, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, writes about the book’s genesis and focus in the Oxford University Press weblog. Perhaps most interestingly, he also reflects on how archaeological travel has changed over the years, and not always for the better.

Just last year I accompanied a tour to the Roman city of Ephesus in Turkey. We shuffled down the main street in dense groups, each with our own guide, each waiting for the group in front of us to move on. At Angkor Wat, a sacred complex on a scale that beggars the imagination, there are few facilities for visitors—the Cambodian government cannot afford them. The already-worn temple steps are slippery smooth from thousands of visitors a day, the magnificent friezes worn shiny by generations of massaging hands. Instead of exhilaration, I came away feeling deeply depressed. Yes, the Parthenon is still magnificent to behold, Machu Picchu high in the Andes remains an unforgettable place, but much of the magic is gone now that cultural tourism with its cruise ships, jumbo jets, and diesel buses has become a booming international business.

The Parthenon, Valley of the Kings, Stonehenge, Ephesus and several other major ruins are now on Fagan’s “sites to avoid” list because of crowds. But plenty of other ruins “still intoxicate” him, he writes, including:

Avebury (only a few miles from Stonehenge, where you can walk through the stone circles), Hadrian’s Wall, Palmyra in Syria and Petra in Jordan, Olympia in Greece, site of the original Games (an expansive field of ruins that is strangely moving), the amphitheater at Epidauros, also in Greece (in spring and fall, a place where the acoustics enchant), Chaco Canyon in New Mexico (which is truly spectacular), Ta Proem, a Khmer temple near Angkor Wat (where serpentine tree roots envelop the ruins in a romantic frenzy), the brooding moiae of Easter Island, massive ancestral statues that ring the coast, the huge city of Teotihuacán on the edge of the Valley of Mexico (much visited, but large enough to swallow crowds and a brilliant statement of ideological and supernatural power that humbles you) and, finally, well off the beaten track, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar on the Orkney Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean north of Scotland, where you will step into the heart of a deeply evocative ancient landscape.

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