by Gustaf Trotzig

Ever since the ice-cap began to melt and the first people set foot in what we now call Sweden, some 12 000 years ago, almost everything that they have undertaken with a view to keeping warm, finding food, protecting themselves from dangers, organizing themselves and their surroundings, has left its mark on nature in some way or other. In areas where people have lived for long periods the older traces may have been eradicated or been superimposed by younger marks but they often remain in some form. In certain places, in ancient towns for example, where in earlier times people used to throw their rubbish into the street, the traces of the centuries lie upon each other in layers that can be measured in metres. Archaeologists can study these, reading them like the pages of a book.

Out in the farming country people have lived and died, moved around, ditched and drained bogs, filled up water courses, enlarged their fields, changed their agricultural methods, taken new machines into commission, etc. All this has altered the landscape but the traces of the lives of earlier generations and their activities may still remain, perhaps as monumental grave mounds or ancient fortifications or less striking remains beneath the tilled earth. Perhaps there are the bottoms of posts that once supported the walls and roof of a house, sooty stones from the hearth, rubbish that has been thrown away, dead persons buried, mourned and missed, or valuable items that were avariciously hidden away and have been saved from the plough.

But it happens, from time to time, that the ploughshare goes deeper and fastens onto something from the past, bringing it up to the surface. It can happen, on other sites too, that things are discovered when digging foundations for a building or extracting gravel from what transpires to have been a burial site for a village. Such discoveries are seldom made by archaeologists. Rather it is the farmer or the person fetching gravel who reports to somebody who knows about these things.
Such a discovery may be a sign that there is more to be found beneath the surface and one therefore needs to act quickly when the alarm is sounded in order to preserve the information.

Before the preservation of our heritage was as well organized as it is today it was often an interested amateur or one of a small number of officials who took care of the discovery and investigated the site, documenting it in various ways – often with a camera – and marking the site on the map. Reports from such investigations can be found in the archive of the Board of National Antiquities in Stockholm or in the county museums or county administrations.

The photographs illustrating this article are from a number of reports of finds in the above-mentioned archive. They form a natural part of the documentation. There are sections of maps, sketches, photographs – often several chosen to illustrate for the reader where and how the find was made.

Photography, when it was invented in the 1830s, was as revolutionary as the steam engine. For the first time in human history it was possible to produce pictures without the assistance of an artist who could draw or paint. It seemed as though the image on the retina of the photographer could be fixed and it became possible to make use of an extra eye in a box for this purpose. There is no difference, in principle, between the first box-cameras and the cameras of today. Even in IT society, the laws of optics obtain, even if the ‘ability to see’ has been radically improved. The art of photography developed in the field of tension between photography’s subjective vision and the camera’s limited and mechanical impression on the plate.

When photography was first introduced, the French pioneers considered that archaeology was a possible and suitable field for the new technology and there was a special reason for this. Only a few decades had elapsed since the French expedition to Egypt which had aroused an interest in early Egyptian culture and, not least, in the written hieroglyphs. The fortunate discovery of the Rosetta stone had made it possible to interpret hieroglyphs as the stone bore the same text in hieroglyphs and in Greek letters. Drawing hieroglyphs in such a manner that they could be read was enormously time-consuming and mistakes were frequent. But a photograph, claimed the enthusiasts, could cover a whole surface at one fell swoop and everything would be correct.

As is often the case with new inventions, early photography was beset by many problems. It was not until the 1880s that the camera became more readily usable even though many practical problems remained. At an early stage photography was divided socially with simple and cheap cameras for the people and more expensive and sophisticated cameras for serious amateurs and professionals. With smaller sizes and better film the camera became an increasingly common tool in connection with excavations and by the early years of the twentieth century one can claim that it was a standard tool for archaeologists all over the world.

At first sight the photographs reproduced here may seem rather pointless, indeed rather silly, and it is precisely this aspect that makes them attractive for closer analysis. For they illustrate, in some way, the irrational dimensions of the camera and of photography.

The pictures were taken by different people on various occasions and at different sites between 1924 and 1962. Comparing them, one finds three central elements forming the corners of a triangle so to speak: the site of the find; people with some connection to the find; and the photographer, the expert.

(Fig.1)

The earliest picture (Fig. 1) shows a walking stick stuck in the ground beside one of the stones that denotes the site of the find to the far left. In the centre of the picture there are two men, one of whom, wearing a cap, is looking fixedly at the ground while the other, wearing a hat and coat with a velvet collar, pale coloured spats and with his hand inserted into his coat in a Napoleonic gesture, looks straight into the camera. Both of them seem a bit out of place with their city shoes in the newly ploughed field. The report from which the picture is taken says: ‘At Johan Karlsson’s place […] a number of small, round pieces of earth have been discovered which are remarkable for their high levels of carbon. The discovery, which took place when the field was being ploughed, on Friday the 14th of this month was reported to me on Monday whereupon I inspected the site. […] I made the attached sketch and took two photographs’. If one looks closely it seems as though the man on the left is rather out of balance. Perhaps it is his stick that denotes the edge of the site: it is here, precisely here. The man wearing the hat seems to be of a certain rank in society, used to posing and honouring the site with his presence.

(Fig.2)

On the picture from 1938 (Fig. 2) we see a man wearing a bowler hat and pointing down at the earth at an angle. We know the following about this picture: ‘On 30 April this year, the Gothenburg Museum received from the jeweller Ivar Werner a gold armring broken in two pieces. The ring had been handed in to Mr. Werner by the finder Mr. Erik Nilsson who had found it a few days earlier while quarrying stones in order to build a jetty. […] On the same day, 30 April, the researcher Otto Thulin visited the site and took the accompanying photograph […]. In the picture the discoverer finds the site of the find’.

(Fig.3)

The third photograph is a winter picture. Here we see a well-dressed man wearing a fur hat and a long overcoat holding a spade and looking into the camera. In this case it is a matter of a site at which a cranium was found, emanating from a grave that had been disturbed when someone was digging for gravel. The picture credit states that ‘the cranium was discovered where the man is standing’.

(Fig.4)
The last picture (Fig. 4) shows a boy looking into a thicket. This is the site of the find of a stone axe from ‘the east bank of the Dala River’.

These pictures are united by the fact that they all treat the same problem. How, using the means available, one can best fix the event: that an archaeological relic has been found at the spot.

The expert who has travelled to the site has the task, with his informants on the spot, of communicating this event to others. In the first instance to the responsible authority but, in a larger sense, to science, thereby adding a further piece to the puzzle of our knowledge of the past.

When one looks at the photographs today one may ask what role they play in the context. What did one wish to express by means of them? It cannot be a matter of locating the site of the find since the pictures lack identifiable landmarks. So that it is not possible to relate the places that have been photographed with any specific piece of terrain, building or suchlike that would make it possible to find the site from the photograph. So there must have been some other reason for taking the pictures.

I believe that one should look for the explanation in the investigative situation and its role play.

Ancient objects have come to light at these sites entirely accidentally and this is beyond everyday life; something remarkable. An expert has been contacted who has come to the site, probably from the city and carrying his scientific apparatus. Everything has been unpacked. The site has been carefully investigated. The discoverer has been questioned about the circumstances of his discovery. One may assume that he has told his interrogator about his reaction when he suddenly made the discovery and that the expert has explained to him how old the find may be as well as telling him about different finds and has, not least, praised the discoverer for having reported the find. Notes have been taken, measurements and sketches have been made and it was precisely here that the event took place – at these points. The find and the finder have received their recognition through the work that has been invested.

And so the camera has been got out; expensive and complicated. This is certainly not a box camera but a piece of professional equipment owned by some institution.

Everybody has to play their role, take up their given positions. The expert behind the camera, the place where it all happened and those who are to appear on the picture in focus.

The informants have been photographed previously. They know that one has to stand still and they think: now I am being photographed. The expert thinks: now I am taking a photograph.

One press of the shutter and the instant is fixed on the plate in the form of black-coloured particles of silver in a layer of gelatine. Reality is captured for an instant.

The camera has done its job. Everything that the lens has seen has been recorded, from the irregularities of the ploughed furrows to twigs and grass and the people too. This has now been documented with all the capacity of the photograph to record what can be seen with the same exactness as if it were a matter of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

But the sites of finds: did they really get recorded on the photograph? Perhaps not for practical purposes; yet in some fashion. Most important was the photography itself; a guarantee that the event had actually taken place; and a ceremony too.

Translation William Jewson