The Ingholt Archive
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Book Series
Archive Archaeology, vol. 7
Excavating Cities and Archiving Knowledge
Olympia Bobou, Miriam Kühn, Rubina Raja (eds)
- Pages: approx. 378 p.
- Size:216 x 280 mm
- Illustrations:101 b/w, 87 col., 4 tables b/w.
- Language(s):English, French
- Publication Year:2026
- € 155,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62518-8
- Hardback
- Forthcoming (Nov/26)
- € 155,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62519-5
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The volume seeks to uncover how current urban archaeological approaches and methodologies have, often unknowingly, been shaped through the re-examination of archival and photographic materials along with archaeological and historical publications.
Subject(s)
BIO
Olympia Bobou (Aarhus University) is an assistant professor in classical archaeology, based at the School of Culture and Society - Unit for Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology, History and Legacy Data. She is an expert in Hellenistic and Roman sculpture.
Miriam Khün is curator at the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin–Preußischer Kulturbesitz. As part of her work, she oversees the excavation and photographic archives. Her current research engages with the history of collections, with a particular focus on archival practices.
Rubina Raja (Aarhus University) is Professor of Classical Archaeology and Head of Unit for Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology, History and Legacy Data. She heads numerous further collaborative research projects, among those the Lost Cities project funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Germany.
Summary
Western Asia underwent a radical transformation in the early twentieth century: once part of the Ottoman Empire, the region was fragmented along arbitrary lines that disregarded the cultures, traditions, and populations that inhabited it. Archaeologists were not impartial witnesses to this transformation, but rather were agents whose actions influenced how the cities of the region were perceived and understood.
Stemming from the Lost Cities Rediscovered project funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, the contributions in this volume take a dual approach to the notion of a ‘lost city’, viewing it simultaneously as a living settlement framed as lost by colonial or occupying powers so that it could be ‘rediscovered’ by their agents, and as an archaeological site rendered lost by the conscious or unconscious disciplinary choices of excavators. Through the re-examination of the archival material left behind by these travellers and archaeologists, the chapters in this volume enable a more nuanced and complex understanding of how the ‘rediscovery’ of these lost cities was shaped.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
1. Excavating Cities and Archiving Knowledge: Re-examining the Rediscovery of ‘Lost Cities’ in the Late Ottoman and Early Mandate Periods
Olympia Bobou, Miriam Kühn, and Rubina Raja
I. Stories from the Archives
2. Excavating the Archive: Robert Wilson in the Footsteps of Alexander the Great in the 1820s
Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis
3. Living Among the Ruins: Local Engagements with Archaeological Landscapes in Late Ottoman and Early Mandate Syria
Filiz Tütüncü Çağlar and Eleanor Q. Neil
4. Recreating Biblical Past: Shaping Narratives to Promote the Discoveries at Ur
Mathilde Sigalas
II. Photography
5. Like Joining the Pieces of a Puzzle: Examining the Documentation Surrounding Early Urban Excavations
Olympia Bobou, Miriam Kühn, and Rubina Raja
6. Lost Cities in Forgotten Photo-Archives: The Role of Amateur Archaeological Photographers in Documenting the Ancient Heritage of the Near East
Stefano Anastasio
7. Excavating the ‘Lost Cities’ of Libya: Archaeology and the Violence of Fascist Colonial Domination in the Late 1920s and Early 1930s
Simona Troilo
8. (Re-)Excavating Lost Cities in the Late Ottoman and Early Mandate Periods: A Historical and Political Multi-lateral Stratigraphy
Olympia Bobou, Miriam Kühn, Eleanor Q. Neil, and Rubina Raja
III. Explorations and Excavations
9. Lost Cities of the Upper Euphrates Region
Michael Blömer
10. Digging up the Caliphal Residence: A Critical View on Methods and Documentation of the Excavations at Samarra (1911–1913)
Stefanie Janke
11. Reassessing Archaeological Legends: Colonial Knowledge Production and Local Communities in Ottoman Bilād al-Shām
Sebastian Willert
12. Le Service des antiquités et sa politique de fouilles durant les premières années du mandat français
Michel al-Maqdissi
IV. Archives and Tools
13. Tell Halaf Expedition and the Ottoman Imperial Museum: New Archival Perspectives
Nilay Özlü, Ceren Abi, and İsmail Keskin
14. Found then Lost: Excavating Archaeology’s Past
Jen A. Baird
Index
