Collecting antiquities in wartime: The First World War Antiquities (Queensland) Project

Abstract

Abstract During the First World War (1914–1918), many service personnel collected souvenirs from the countries in which they served, but the collection of antiquities by service personnel remains a neglected area of research. Between 2019 and 2021, the R. D. Milns Antiquities Museum at the University of Queensland and the Queensland Museum collaborated in a research partnership to learn more about the antiquities collecting activities of First World War personnel from Queensland, Australia. In addition to reporting on the preliminary results of that pilot study, this paper also begins to address the question of why antiquities appealed to service personnel. Most artefacts in this study are from the private collections donated to the Queensland Museum and from three privately owned collections. Artefacts are mostly small ‘curios’ such as scarabs, figurines, coins and fragments of monuments collected in various theatres of the war.