collecting

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La Tène: A place of memory

When La Tène was discovered more than 150 years ago, the site gave its name to the second half of the Iron Age across much of Europe, and objects of La Tène type are often equated with the Celts. But what was found at La Tène? Andrew Fitzpatrick and Marc-Antoine Kaeser explore the changing interpretations of this iconic site.

ABove Ninagawa Noritane, photographed on 15 July 1879. He was notably reluctant. As his American friend Edward Morse recalled: ‘I actually abducted him… to the photographer’.

Ninagawa Noritane

In the 1930s, an admirer remembered Japanese antiquarian Ninagawa Noritane fondly as ‘simple-hearted and unpretentious. He was frugal and sometimes walked around wearing a lampshade hat woven with rush.’ He added, perhaps unnecessarily, ‘It should be said that he was…

Above Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc, in a 1637 engraving by Claude Mellan.

Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637)

It is hard to disagree with the astronomers. They clearly felt that naming a single lunar crater after Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc in 1935 was insufficient and, in 1993, honoured him again, this time with an asteroid. But astronomy is…