Empreintes, moulages, traces : d’Orient en Occident

• Main Author: Alain Schnapp
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication 2016-03-01
• Series: In Situ : Revue de Patrimoines
• Subjects: moulded casts; copy; archaeology; memory; ruins; materiality
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/insitu/12409

Ruins, in the Latin and Greek acceptation of the term, are what is left of a monument or a site which was inhabited by men. Vestiges are related to ruins, but with a different meaning. Vestigia in Latin signifies footprints, just as ichné in Greek refers to the prints left by animals’ feet. A mould or a print is the opposite of a ruin, a hollowed-out trace which keeps something of the original form. According to Simmel, the ruin is culture going back to nature. Thinking about this contrast, our paper will look at the role of prints and moulded casts in the definitions of antiquarian practices in the ancient Orient, in China and from China to the West.