page_title: Clarence Bicknell
section_title: Archaeology
hierarchical_section_title: Clarence Bicknell / Life in Italy / Archaeology
context_page_description: Clarence Bicknell was a British vicar, amateur archaeologist, botanist, artist, Esperantist, author and philanthropist. He founded the Bicknell Museum in Bordighera, Italy. Also named after him is a street in Bordighera, and two plant species.
context_section_description: Bicknell first visited the Valle della Meraviglie (Vallee des merveilles) in the Maritime Alps in 1881 in search of rare plants. Located close to the border with France, the "Valley of Marvels" is the site of 35,000 Bronze Age petroglyphs, the recording of which became a major new research project for Bicknell. The rock carvings had been known and written about since at least 1690, but Bicknell was the first person to make a methodical study of them. Starting in 1885, he spent summers in a rented house at nearby Casterino, venturing out to draw, make heelball (wax and lampblack) rubbings and photograph the petroglyphs, eventually creating 12,000 images of the carvings. An even larger number of carvings were located in the nearby Val Fontanalba, many of which he and his helpers also copied. He catalogued these, and speculated about their age and purpose. Most show ploughs, oxen and weapons, but some feature men and geometric patterns. They are thought to date from between 1000 and 1500 BC. He delivered a paper on his findings to the Societa Linguistica in Genoa in 1897, that was later published. One of his associates in this research was palaeontologist Arturo Issel of Genoa who visited Bicknell at the site and used many of his illustrations and findings in his own books. Among others he met or corresponded with to discuss his findings were the French prehistorian Émile Cartailhac and British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans.
  The house he rented at Casterino each summer was sold in 1903. No other suitable house nearby was available for rent so he decided in 1906 to build his own summer house in the valley. This he called Casa Fontanalba and the interior he decorated with his own paintings, carvings and other craft work with botanical and archaeological themes in a style inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement. The walls he decorated with mottos and other inscriptions written in Esperanto.
caption: The Vallée des Merveilles (Valley of Marvels).
exif: {}