research and to the po1itica1 and administrative needs of the liberal state. Thus, it encouraged the foundation of the Escuela Superior de Diplomatica (Higher School of Diplomacy, 1856–1900) for the technical training of historians, including the most important figures of the scholarly societies (Pasamar and Peiró 1991, 73). Interest in the recovery and preservation of antiquities, and in the organization of that heritage was also expressed in the foundation of the National Museum of Archaeology and of the museos arqueológicos provinciales (“provincial archaeological museums”) in 1867 (Barril 1993, 48).

Collecting, which was encouraged because items acquired were considered investments (Barril 1993, 55–58), provided another link between private initiative and the state. Some collectors were members of the haute bourgeoisie (sometimes ennobled, like the marquis of Salamanca), but others were representatives of the middle class who were influential politically or intellectually (juan vilanova y piera, for example). Scientifically motivated, they studied the ancient inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula in the light of new information obtained in the rest of Europe, and the attention paid to Spanish evidence by some foreign scholars played a part in this study. Thus, from france, archaeologists édouard lartet and emile cartailhac studied prehistory, Colonel Stoffel worked on the Roman period, and the German E. Hubner studied Latin epigraphy (Gran-Aymerich and Gran-Aymerich 1991). At the same time, some Spaniards (for instance, the marquis of Cerralbo) and foreign residents of Spain (such as Henri and Louis Siret, O. Sandars, and George Bonsor) financed their own excavations and carried out studies of their finds, subsequently giving or selling their data and finds to the state. These people were archaeologists more than collectors. A third group comprised local scholars. In other cases, the archaeological activities of foreign scholars in Spain (such as Pierre Paris and A. Engel, at the start of their careers) consisted of isolated travels to collect pieces and to know and popularize Spanish art (Marcos 1993, 80).

In the first third of the twentieth century, archaeological activity became structured legally, academically, and scientifically (Ruiz Zapatero 1993b, 47). The protective legislation (Ley de Excavaciones y Antiguedades [Law of Excavations and Antiquities] of 1911; Ley de Patrimonio Historico-Artistico [Law of the Historical and Artistic Heritage] of 1933) and administrative agencies (Junta Superior de Excavaciones y Antiguedades [Higher Board for Excavations and Antiquities], established in 1912, and its actas and memorias) that were instituted in this period have served as a reference point until the present (Barril 1993, 57).

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Painted limestone bust of the “Lady of Elche,” from La Alcudia de Elche, fifth century B.C.

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In 1900, the Universidad Central (Central University) in Madrid received the responsibilities and resources of the Higher School of Diplomacy (Marcos 1993, 75). Three chairs in archaeology were established: Arabic archaeology (1912) for Manuel Gomez Moreno, primitive history of mankind (1922) for hugo obermaier grad, and pre-Columbian archaeology and American ethnography (1933) for Hermann Trimborn. At other universities, archaeological instruction was not separate from other branches of history, and professors of the discipline only joined their faculties later on, although Pere Bosch Gimpera’s 1916 chair at the