O contributo dos relatos e guias de viagens para o estudo da Antiguidade Clássica no Sul de Portugal

Abstract

The aim of this communication is to stress the potential of reports, travel accounts and guidebooks as sources for the study of classical Antiquity. The area of analysis is Alentejo, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The description of landscape elements, forms of territorial occupation and settlements, the action of men on the landscape, as well as assessments of evaluative and aesthetics parameters are an integral part of guidebooks and travel accounts. But they also have potential as repositories of information that could be used by anyone who is interested in the study of classical Antiquity. The successive images and perceptions about the classical legacy, the importance given to them in terms of speech, the reference to material and privileged vestiges and even the omissions reflect, among others, the various perspectives that authors and editors transmitted at different times and at distinct historical contexts.