An engaging and perceptive examination into how the study of archaeology in early nineteenth-century Paris considerably shaped the Romantic zeitgeist of the era. This book elucidates how archaeology was viewed as the core of the romantic experience of history, as a 'magical science capable of undoing the work of erosion and of rescuing even the most traceless being from amnesia', during a period when mortality and destruction and the 'fugitive character of the present' greatly pressed on the minds of the nation, notably including writers such as Balzac, Hugo and Chateaubriand. It delves into a wide range of genres such as travel narratives, erudite reports, fictional resurrections and visual reconstitutions. A refreshing and insightful work.