INTRODUCTION

Historians have before them various relics left over from the past. There are government documents, newspapers, the natural landscape, paintings, tools and utensils, books, items of clothing, films, and the like. All these relics were made into what they are by processes which began in the past even if they have not yet ended. Historians study these relics in order to obtain an understanding of the past from which they derive. Historians cannot have direct access to the past, in the way we can to the present, simply because it has gone. Instead they must begin by recreating, or perhaps creating, the past from relics available to them in the present. A newspaper article exists as a relic from the past, and historians use it to identify as a historical object an action that was performed or an event that did occur in the past. A ruin exists as a relic from the past, and historians use it to identify as a historical object a building as it was in the past. A ship's logbook exists as a relic from the past, and historians use it to identify as a historical object a voyage made in the past. A tumulus exists as a relic from the past, and historians use it to identify as a historical object a human encampment that existed in the past. Historians study relics from the past. They use them to reconstruct historical objects, or, perhaps we should say, to construct historical objects.