In the first decades of the 20th century, in the Antiquities studies significant and radical transformations occurred. Innovative mindsets assert themselves following the results of the great archaeological campaigns in Greece, the East and Italy. The cultural debate, characterized by the comparison with the increasingly widespread positivist instances, materialized a renewal of the theories and methods of archaeological research in its relations with history, philology, linguistics and ethnology. However, common to all new research leanings is the subordinate role reserved for women.

The first women who approached archaeological studies, even if in non-decision-making roles, belonged to the aristocratic class and carried out independent studies, under the impulse of classicism and romanticism, in similar disciplinary fields, concerning the exploitation of ancient languages, cultures and art. In any case, when the scientific data allow us to reflect on the role of women, it must be admitted that some of them played a significant role in the development of the archaeological research. In this paper a brief summary of the female scholars who, in the first decades of the 20th century, contributed to the progress of the archaeology’s methods directly or indirectly; among these female scholars Annemarie Schwarzenbach and her tireless research activity in the rediscovery of Persia must be included. For Schwarzenbach the archaeology and “the recovery of the buried origins” are an excuse to escape, avoiding the lack of a “healthy” constructiveness that the cultural milieu of her time required. She tried to move forward on an unknown path and towards an uncertain knowledge, no longer accompanied by the awareness of the incomparable greatness of the past of which only the “misery of crumbling ruins” remained.

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