Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Anatomy-Astronomy

ARC
Arch by eight Corinthian columns in Languedoc marble, sur-
I! mounted by statues. The structure is crowned by a bronze
Archaeo- equestrian group (taken from Venice), consisting of a cha-
l°Zy- riot drawn by four horses, guided by the allegorical figures of
Victory and Peace. The marble bas-reliefs were executed
by the I^est sculptors of the imperial epoch. But the colossal
Arc d Etoile, at the extremity of the Avenue des Champs Ely-
sees, is the grandest monument of the kind erected in modern
times. It commemorates the victories of Napoleon and his
armies, and was begun in 1806, but not completed till after
the Revolution of 1830. Its form is that of a parallelo¬
gram, its height and its breadth about 150 feet. It consists
of three arches, the height of the central one being 95 feet,
and that of the lateral arches 52. Its eastern and western
fronts are adorned by colossal allegorical groups in relief;
above them are bas-reliefs representing some of the most
striking scenes in the imperial wars. The frieze which runs
all round the structure is of the same description. The
attic is adorned with bucklers inscribed with the names of
victories. The interior of the arch is likewise inscribed
with the names of Buonaparte and his generals. A stair
inside conducts to the top of the building.
The arch at Hyde-Park Corner, surmounted by the co¬
lossal equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, and
the Cumberland Gate, are the only representatives of this
kind of structure in our country.
Arch, from the Greek ap^ds, a prefix of many English
words, used to signify chief, or of the first rank.
ARCHAEOLOGY, from dp^atos ancient, and Adyos a
description. The term Archceology, like that of Antiqui¬
ties, has been employed, until a very recent period, in a
sense so restricted and arbitrary, as strikingly to contrast
with the latitude admissible according to the original deri¬
vation of the word. Where any attempt has been made to
assign precise limits, it has most frequently been reserved
as the exclusive designation of Greek and Roman antiqui¬
ties, though its fitness for the most comprehensive definition
in relation to all which pertains to the past has not escaped
the attention of scientific writers; and it is even employed
by Dr Pritchard, on several occasions, as nearly synony¬
mous with palaeontology. In this use of it, however, he has
not been followed, and the term is now universally adopted
to designate the science which deduces history from the re¬
lics of the past. So comprehensive a subject necessarily
admits of great subdivision, and some of the most important
branches of the study will be found treated of under the
heads of Egyptian, Etruscan, Assyrian, Mexican, Indian,
Greek, and Roman antiquities.
The aspiration of the human mind after some knowledge
of the mysteries of the future is not more innate or uni¬
versal than the desire to recover the secrets of the past.
The question Whence? no less than that of Whither? is
found to give shape to the mythic legends of the rude bar¬
barian, and to constitute an important element in the
poetry and mythology which are the beginnings of every
nation’s oral and written history. With the progress of
society the value of such indices of the past becomes ap¬
parent, and we accordingly find abundant traces of an
archaeological spirit in the literature of every civilized nation.
The influence of the same spirit no less invariably marks
every epoch of great progress. The revival of arts and
letters in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was alike
signalized by a renewed appreciation of Greek and Roman
models ; and while the progress of opinion in the fifteenth
century was accompanied by an abandonment of medieval for
classic art, the tendency of Europe in our own day, amid
many elements of progress, has been singularly consenta¬
neous in the return to medieval art, and the attempt to attain
to higher excellence than has yet been achieved, by a more
perfect development of the ideal of the middle ages.
ARC 419
It is mainly owing to the successful labours of the geolo- Archseo-
gist that archaeology has been so extended as to embrace the
entire range of human history, and has at length been de-
veloped as a systematic science, by which the intelligent in¬
vestigator is enabled to pursue his researches among records
long preceding all written annals; and thereby to recover
chapters in the history of nations heretofore deemed irre¬
coverable. The geologist, with no aid from written records,
follows out his inquiries through successive periods in the
history of the preadamite world, and reveals to us the cha¬
racter of the living beings which animated those long-past
epochs of the globe. Beginning with the first traces oflife
in the primary fossiliferous strata, the geologist passes on
from system to system, revealing a wondrous process of de¬
velopment, and disclosing to us marvellous revelations of
long extinct being, until at length in the latest diluvial
formations he points to the remains of animals identical
with existing species, and even to traces of human art—the
evidences of the close of geological, and the beginning of
archaeological periods. Here, at least, archaeological science
ought to be ready to take up the narrative at the close of
those geological chapters ; and with a minuteness of detail,
and a certainty as to conclusions, unknown to the elder science.
Such, however, has not been the case until very recently.
The British geologist, pausing at the dawn of the historic or
human period, turned to the archaeologist for the remaining
chapters of the history of life on our globe, and received for
answer a record of Roman traces but meagrely supplementing
the minuter details of recorded events. Nearly the same was
the case with all historic antiquity, with the single exception
of the wonderful monuments of Egypt, which still preserve to
us the records of a civilization going back nearly to the emer¬
gence of our globe from the waters of the Mosaic deluge.
The traces of the primitive arts and civilization of the
aborigines of Europe were long familiar to the antiquary, be¬
fore any intelligent conception was formed of their value as
historic records. The interpretation of these is mainly due to
the successful labours of the archaeologists and ethnologists
of Denmark and Sweden, added to the spirited co-opera¬
tion of zealous British coadjutors. By these investigators
the remains of primitive art have been brought under a sys¬
tematic classification, and thus the desultory and often mis¬
directed labours of the antiquary have given place to re¬
searches characterized by a scientific accuracy in no degree
inferior to that of the most careful palaeontologist.
This system of Primitive Archaeology is arranged into
three great divisions, entitled the Stone, the Bronze, and
the Iron periods, warranted alike by evidence, and by its
practical convenience. The Stone Period, as the name im¬
plies, is that in which the rude aboriginal arts, which the
commonest necessities of man call into operation, are as¬
sumed to have been employed entirely on such natural ma¬
terials as stone, horn, bone, &c. The Bronze Period is that
era of progress in which the metallurgic arts appear to have
been introduced and slowly developed ; and the Iron Period
is that of matured metallurgic arts, and the accompanying
progress consequent on the degree of civilization which is the
necessary concomitant of such a state of things. All these
periods embrace eras of national history concerning which
no contemporary written records exist, and in relation to
most of which, and especially to those of the first two periods,
nearly as little is known from any other source as of the
Palaeozoic or Carboniferous periods of the geologist. It
need not, therefore, excite surprise that the process of his¬
toric induction pursued on this basis has been called in
question by historical writers of very high standing, but
w hose exclusive labours on the records of periods admitting
of documentary evidence and charter-proof render them
little disposed to sympathize in a course of induction in re¬
lation to human history, such as has in the hands of the