Caspar Jacob Christiaan Reuvens (22 January 1793 – 26 July 1835) was a Dutch historian and archaeologist. He was the founding director of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Dutch National Museum of Antiquities) in Leiden, the world's first ever professor of archaeology (at Leiden University), and conducted the first excavations at the Roman provincial site Forum Hadriani in the Netherlands.
Personal life and education
In 1798, when Reuvens was only five years old, he lost his mother. His father was a prominent jurist, had been Minister of Justice for a short while, and filled various other important offices. Reuvens' father was transferred to Paris after the annexation of the Netherlands by France under Napoleon in 1810, so the young Reuvens lived there for some years. In 1813 Reuvens graduated from the University of Paris with a degree in law. During the reign of Napoleon, Paris received art from all the conquered nations and Reuvens studied with the famous antiquarian Vivant Denon, the director of the Louvre Museum. It has been argued that this experience in Paris would prove an inspiration for Reuvens' later efforts to establish a Dutch national museum for archaeology.
In 1814 Reuvens and his father returned to the Netherlands where they both found work as lawyers. Reuvens continued his childhood and teenage interest in the ancient world by studying and writing commentaries on Greek and Latin literature. These were published in 1815 under the title Collectanea litteraria.
In 1816 Reuvens became a professor in Harderwijk, and in 1818 at Leiden University (see below). Around this time Reuvens' father was killed in Brussels as a key witness in some sort of scandal. The details of the murder case remain unsolved.
In 1822 Reuvens got married, and three children would follow within the decade. Reuvens died in 1835, aged only 42, of what seems to have been a stroke. He is buried in Leiden.
Professorships
The newly established first king of the Netherlands, William I, attempted to restart the University of Harderwijk in 1815. Caspar Reuvens was appointed professor of Greek and Latin there, and began his teaching in 1816. In 1816 he became correspondent of the Royal Institute and six years later became a member.
In 1818 the Ministry of Education aborted the unsuccessful attempt to start a school at Harderwijk. There were only six professors, of which Reuvens was one. His area of expertise, Latin and Greek, did not have any vacancies at other universities though. At this point the Minister of Education wrote a letter to King William I suggesting a professorship of archaeology for Reuvens, as the young man showed a keen interest in antiquities. The king signed the royal decree on 13 June 1818, making Reuvens the world's first archaeology professor.
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
With Reuvens' appointment came the directorship of the archaeological cabinet of Leiden University. This collection of antiquities consisted of the inheritance of the Papenbroek Collection which came into the university's possession in 1743.
Immediately upon starting his teachings in Leiden, Reuvens boldly requested a new building for the collection, the creation of an archaeological library and had several other demands for the trustees. Apart from a few elementary needs for his teachings, most of the requests were ignored and did not receive any response. When in 1819 Reuvens directly approached the minister of education for funding, he discovered that this straight line to the government was a much more fruitful way of gaining funds than through the trustees. The Ministry of Education paid for casts of the Elgin Marbles and their transportation to the Netherlands, without having the university involved.
Reuvens quickly added several other university collections of antiquities to the Papenbroek Collection, and thereby extended the variety to include Egyptian artefacts. With government support he began gathering various collections from outside Leiden as well, and occasionally he received personal gifts for the archaeological cabinet. Some organizations did not mind parting with their antiquities, since they were often an alien group of objects among larger collections of for example biological or geological specimens. Other organizations fought academic and political battles with Reuvens. (Also see Rijksmuseum van Oudheden).