Freud's Archaeology: A Conversation between Excavation and Analysis

Freud's interest in antiquity and his self-described obsessive collecting of ancient artifacts is well documented.1 His library, as well as his own texts, are replete with references to excavation, buried cities, and to the works of archaeologists and philologists. Archaeological excavation also holds a unique discursive position within Freud's conception of psychoanalysis, in which the analyst is often pictured as an excavator plumbing the sedimented depths of the psyche. This metaphorical dialogue between analysis and excavation in Freud's thought has generated a wealth of scholarship that engages with archaeology's role as an allegory for psychoanalytic work. Yet Freud also asserted that the excavation of repressed memories and of historical artifacts is “in fact identical” (), p. 259). This special issue of American Imago takes to heart this putative claim that the excavation of repressed memories and of historical artifacts is “identical.” Archaeology's double function of allegory and activity for psychoanalysis makes any clear demarcation within psychoanalysis between these two “identical” disciplines less straightforward than previously imagined. The papers in this issue dwell on these convergences—of archaeology and analysis, allegory and practice—by asking what can be generated by taking seriously Freud's claim of equivalence between archaeology and analysis, between his work as an analyst and his role as a collector of antiquity, and between archaeology's aim to both uncover and to “construct” the past.

Freud's use of archaeology has been called a “mighty metaphor,” by Donald Kuspit (1989) and “a master metaphor” by Peter Gay (1998, p. 172), sentiments that have echoed in many discussions since. However, designating archaeology as a