How local can you go? An Ottoman view of archaeology and heritage

Join author and professor of Ottoman history, Edhem Eldem, for a different look at Western archaeological collections and to ask: what about the Ottoman side of the story?

From the Parthenon Frieze to the Pergamon Altar, from the Venus de Milo to the Mshatta Façade, some of the most iconic remains of ancient civilisations exhibited in Western museums originate from the lands under Ottoman rule during the 19th century.

The great names associated – for good or for bad – with these and other acquisitions, from Elgin to Schliemann, from Layard to Wiegand, were all Western travellers, adventurers, diplomats, antiquarians and archaeologists. The grand narrative of archaeology and heritage in that part of the world has been a predominantly Western one, for which the Ottoman lands are seen to provide a mere setting, while its peoples and elites can be reduced to the role of unconcerned and passive onlookers – if not portrayed as a threat to the preservation of a heritage they were deemed incapable of appreciating and unjustified to claim.

The objective is to propose an alternative and critical narrative based on the local dynamics of this complex process – without settling for vindictive accusations of plunder and cries for restitution, or paying lip service to a hidden nationalist or anti-Orientalist agenda. The question is simple, but challenging, as suggested in the title of the lecture: 'How local can one go' in telling the story of archaeology in the Ottoman lands?