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Copie dactylographiée en 13 volumes de l'Inventaire original MEG manuscrit
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Registre L
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Establishing a hierarchy for mankind

In the early 19^th century, societies judged rudimentary lost the virtuous image that Jean de Léry, Montaigne and Rousseau had given them. The ideology of progress labelled these Others as “primitive.” Science supported European domination of the world, contradicting the equality of all men decreed in the rush of revolutionary enthusiasm.

Eurocentrism and American archaeolog

When Mexico gained its independence in 1821, the country came into fashion. An exhibition was immediately held in London, laying the magnificent vestiges of pre-Hispanic Americas before European eyes. "American antiquities" became a separate department in the Louvre. In Geneva, a "Mexico" section was set up distinguishing pre-Columbian works from other ethnographic objects. But the association between ancient American civilisations and the declared sources of Western civilisation was short lived. In Geneva as in Paris, they were finally set aside and relegated to museums specialised in ethnography.

Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune, “He returns to his equals,” frontispiece of: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (1755) in the Paris edition, 1801. ©BGE, Centre d’iconographie genevoise