The frontispiece of the antiquarian scholar Caylus's multivolume anthology of antiquities frames the past as a buried heritage, concealed but accessible to those with the proper tools. Classical figures extract the evidence of ancient life from its physical remains, reading material artifacts just as scholars read literary texts. The French inscription on the fallen column, "recueil d'antiquités," refers to the gathering of antiquities that was the first step in registering, restoring, and resurrecting the past.

The Getty Research Institute, Research Library has a number of works by Caylus.