Search results

AbstractThis article contributes to our understanding of the links between forced exile, refugee trauma, and antiquities. It zooms in to the case of the Ottoman Greek refugees who fled to Greece in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the defeat of the Greek army by the Turkish National Movement forces in 1922. It critically discusses memories of ordinary people from Lithri (ancient Erythrai, modern-day Ildırı), Nymphaio (near ancient Sardeis, modern-day Kemalpaşa), and Ayasolouk (ancient Ephesus, modern-day Selçuk). It also looks at aspects of the literary world of Smyrna-born poet and Nobel Laureate George Seferis. It is argued that, for these refugees, antiquities served as conduits, symbols, metaphors, and allegories for expressing the trauma linked to their state of uprootedness and forced exile. The refugees in question employed reverse "rescue archaeologies," where it was for antiquities to salvage refugees rather than the other way round. The main primary material consulted consists of refugee testimonies from the Oral Tradition Archive of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies and Seferis's diary. The approach is interdisciplinary and, besides Ottoman Greek history, draws on cultural geography, anthropology, archaeology as well as broader discussions in memory studies and critical heritage studies.

Greco-Roman antiquity is often presumed to provide the very paradigm of Western humanism. This paradigm has been increasingly thrown into question by new theoretical currents such as posthumanism and the 'new materialisms', which point toward entities, forces, and systems that pass through and beyond the human and which dislodge it from its primacy as the measure of things. 'Antiquities beyond Humanism' seeks to explode this presumed dichotomy between the ancient tradition and the 21st century 'turn': fourteen original essays explore the myriad ways in which Greek and Roman philosophy and literature can be understood as foregrounding the non-human rather than simply reflecting the ideals of classical humanism.

AbstractThe Syrian Civil War created an opportunity for increased trafficking of antiquities and has resulted in a renewed awareness on the part of a global audience. The persistence of criminal and organisational networks which facilitate antiquities trafficking networks (ATNs) has been recognised as significant, leading to increased interest in the development of new and improved methods of understanding such networks. While this field of research has traditionally been dominated by relevant areas such as archaeology, law, art and museum studies, there is a noticeable gap in crime prevention research. This paper presents a crime script of Syrian antiquities trafficking networks during the Syrian Civil War which has been generated from open source journalistic data. In creating a broad crime script for such a prevalent issue, this paper aims to demonstrate the need for further crime script analysis and specifically crime prevention research more generally within the study of antiquities trafficking.

During the 2011 political revolution in Egypt, scenes of ransacking and destroying antiquities from the Cairo Museum shocked viewers. This article discusses the importance of Egypt's antiquities and the realities behind their destruction. Adapted from the source document.

Conflicted Antiquities is a rich cultural history of European and Egyptian interest in ancient Egypt and its material culture, from the early nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth. Consulting the relevant Arabic archives, Elliott Colla demonstrates that the emergence of Egyptology—the study of ancient Egypt and its material legacy—was as consequential for modern Egyptians as it was for Europeans. The values and practices introduced by the new science of archaeology played a key role in the formation of a new colonial regime in Egypt. This fact was not lost on Egyptian nationalists, who challenged colonial archaeologists with the claim that they were the direct heirs of the Pharaohs, and therefore the rightful owners and administrators of ancient Egypt's historical sites and artifacts. As this dispute developed, nationalists invented the political and expressive culture of "Pharaonism"—Egypt's response to Europe's Egyptomania. In the process, a significant body of modern, Pharaonist poetry, sculpture, architecture, and film was created by artists and authors who looked to the ancient past for inspiration. Colla draws on medieval and modern Arabic poetry, novels, and travel accounts; British and French travel writing; the history of archaeology; and the history of European and Egyptian museums and exhibits. The struggle over the ownership of Pharaonic Egypt did not simply pit Egyptian nationalists against European colonial administrators. Egyptian elites found arguments about the appreciation and preservation of ancient objects useful for exerting new forms of control over rural populations and for mobilizing new political parties. Finally, just as the political and expressive culture of Pharaonism proved critical to the formation of new concepts of nationalist identity, it also fueled Islamist opposition to the Egyptian state.

Journals magazines and newspapers were the most important media between 1962 and 1974. Media can give us about political, economic and social condition the time under survey. For social point of view the preservation of Cultural Heritage is also important for the country. For Preservation of Revolutionary Council government passed Antiquities Preservation Act of 1962. By this law, rules and regulations on preservation of antiquities, prohibition of ancient artefacts to abroad, forbidding and controlling the excavation of ancient sites, specifying of ancient building which were preserved by the government and punishments were defined. Moreover, the Revolutionary Council Government had done the measures for the excavation of ancient sites, renovation of ancient buildings, recording researching and maintaining of ancient inscriptions, deciphering, recording and researching ink painting and mural painting in historical sites. In the period under surveying, the State and Archaeological Department made great efforts to get antiquities from abroad.