Of Doubtful Antiquity
Journal: British Academy eBooks
Year: 2013

This chapter examines the ways in which Britain's campaigns in the Crimean War (1854–56) became entangled in the ancient world. During the conflict, British officers in the Crimea went in search of ancient sites to excavate — while newspapers in London reported avidly on their finds. The chapter centres around Duncan McPherson, a military doctor who carried out several strikingly ambitious Crimean excavations in collaboration with Robert Westmacott, son of the neoclassical sculptor Sir Richard W