Summer Adventures in France and Malta
By: Madi Guth, University of North Alabama
This summer I had the honor of visiting France with the UNA Foreign Languages Department and Malta with History professor Dr. Benedict Lowe. During my time in Europe this June, I experienced French and Maltese cultures and history that I will certainly carry with me as my studies continue. While I was in Paris, I witnessed the eventful last-minute Olympics preparations and visited several museums and important sites- the Panthéon, the Louvre, Musée Carnavalet, and more. My favorite museum in Paris is the Musée Carnavalet, which is dedicated to the history of the city. Inside, one can find a plethora of historical portraits and memorabilia ranging from the time when Paris was once Lutèce, the city’s Roman name, through the revolutionary period, and up to the modern era. However, the most meaningful part of my trip to France was the daytrip that I took to attend the Association pour la sauvegaurde de la Maison de Saint-Just’s annual meeting in Blérancourt, a small town about forty minutes north of Paris by train, in the Aisne department. At the conference, I met with some of the most knowledgeable and dedicated historians of the young revolutionary. We held a ceremony for the plaque celebrating the tree planted in 2017 in honor of Saint-Just’s 250th birthday. During the ceremony, the founder of the association, Bernard Vinot, read one of Saint-Just’s Convention speeches. After a nice lunch in a nearby restaurant, I spoke with Vinot, the current association president Anne Quennedey, and others interested in preserving the memory of the French Revolution and Saint-Just. We also toured Saint-Just’s childhood home. In the 1980s, the Association bought the house, saved it from demolition and renovated it into a museum dedicated to Saint-Just. As I prepare for my upcoming thesis on the life and ideas of Saint-Just, this trip provided me with meaningful connections to the figures I study as well as some of the historians I cite in my research.
After two eventful weeks in Paris, I then flew to Malta for a week of digging with the Melite Civitas Romana, Dr. Lowe’s archaeology team’s project, at a Roman villa in Rabat. During my week of volunteering with the project, I learned how to correctly excavate, document, and clean artifacts properly. I uncovered several shards of pottery, ranging from the Roman period to the early twentieth century. The more modern pieces that we found can be sourced from the first excavations done on the site in the early 1900s. I also found a few assorted animal bones and teeth while excavating in the backyard area. When the group was not excavating on-site or cataloguing at the St. Paul Catacombs, we took a short trip to Hagar Qim, one of the several Neolithic temples on the island. After I parted ways with the group, I visited the National Archaeology Museum, St. Agatha’s Catacombs, and the Hypogeum, a mysterious underground Neolithic site utilized throughout Maltese history and rediscovered in 1902. More information about these historic locations can be found on Heritage Malta’s website. Updates on the Melite Civitas Romana project can be found on the Intercontinental Archaeology Facebook page.
To say that I will carry these experiences in France and Malta with me as I continue my studies would be a massive understatement. My time abroad this summer gave me invaluable research experience as well as a plethora of new connections to other historians and archaeologists.
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Photos from Left to Right:
1: Madi Guth, Madi with Historians from the Saint-Just Association, 2024, photography, France.
2: Association pour la sauvegarde de la Maison de Saint-Just, Exterior of the Maison de Saint-Just, n.d., Photograph, https://associationsaint-just.jimdoweb.com/.
