Theme Organiser: Dr Michael Seymour
Location: B.P Lecture Theatre, Clore Centre, The British Museum.
This theme invites comparative and case-specific contributions on issues in the management of cultural heritage. Papers relating to heritage in conflict and post-conflict states, archaeology and the construction of identity, the value and treatment of archaeology and heritage in education and tourism, and the roles of state and non-governmental organisations are all encouraged. Within this theme we also welcome contributions on ancient and pre-modern approaches to the past. Papers here might include ancient libraries, collections and restorations, from the creation of ancient museums to restoration in modern times.
Please note that this is not a final time-table and may be subject to some change.If you wish to make any corrections, please use this form: CORRECTIONS FORM
As stated in your acceptance email, papers should be no more than 20 minutes long
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09.30 › Introduction | 09:20 › MacSweeney | 09:20 › Cordoba | ||
| 09:55 › Atakuman | 09:55 › Atris | |||
| 10:20 › Rutland | 10:20 › Bianchi | |||
| 10:15 › Keynote | 10:45 › COFFEE | 10:45 › COFFEE | ||
| 11:15 › Engin | 11:15 › Ratnagar | |||
| 11:40 › De Backer | 11:40 › Micale | |||
| 12:05 › Pedde | 12:05 › Habsburg | |||
| 12:30 › Sands | ||||
| 12:55 › LUNCH | 12:55 › LUNCH | 12:55 › LUNCH | ||
| 14:00 › Crewe | ||||
| 14:30 › Di Paolo | ||||
| 14:55 › Paz | ||||
| 15:20 › Keinan | ||||
| 15:45 › COFFEE | ||||
| 16:15 › Al-Salameen | ||||
| 16:40 › Saca | ||||
| 17:05 › Seif |
Cultural Heritage Abstracts
Plenary Session: Cultural Heritage Keynote Lecture
"When everyone's culpable, is anyone guilty?" Responsibility for the cultural heritage before, during, and after armed conflict.
Professor Peter Stone (Newcastle University)
Pressing Issues Concerning Tourism Development, Site Management and Archaeological Conservation at Petra, Southern Jordan
Zeyad Al-Salameen (Al-Hussein Bin Talal University)
Led by the cultural heritage community, the world reacted in horror and outrage as it became clear that the Iraq Museum had been looted in 2003. Concern only increased as the full extent of looting of archaeological sites in Iraq became clear. It is difficult not to agree with Colin Renfrew when he argues the events reveal "a tale...of gut-wrenching negligence and astonishing incompetence by American (and British) politicians and military leaders, and of their disastrous outcome"
Archaeologists had tried to brief Coalition forces as to the remarkable cultural heritage with which they would come into contact in Iraq. Some, myself included, had at least been listened to although our efforts can now be seen to have failed. Some archaeologists suggest that, by briefing the military, we abdicated our ethical position and became 'embedded archaeologists', lending legitimacy to the war through our well-meaning, but misguided, efforts.
Is the cultural heritage community without blame? In the latter half of the Twentieth Century, we failed to maintain the close relationship with the military developed during the Second World War and thus lost our ability to influence the military and their political leaders. Should we have tried? And what should we do now, in anticipation of the next conflict?
Heritage as a Matter of Prestige: A History of the State Heritage Discourse and Practice in Turkey
Dr Çigğem Atakuman (TUBITAK - Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey)
In the Ottoman Empire and its successor, the Turkish Republic, state heritage discourse and practice developed as a response to European interests in the lands of the Orient. Although the institutional format of this response was imported from Europe in the form of museums and archaeological practice, its content spoke of resistance to European imperialism. The Ottoman resistance emerging within the 'universalistic' practices of heritage has been called 'cultural camouflage'. Intrinsic to the character of rising nationalistic sentiments in the Ottoman Empire at the time, it has also been argued that this resistance spoke both of belonging and of conflict with Europe, not only in the language of heritage and history, but in the language of conquest and territory as well. Specifically, it emphasized the territorial possession of the cultural properties sought after by Europeans and asserted control over these properties to restore the Empire's loss of authority with the intention of achieving an acceptable level of recognition in the league of the civilized. This covert resistance against the imperialistic policies of Europe was legitimized as a keystone of the new Turkish Republic after the Turkish Independence War. More than a century after the institution of Ottoman museums and heritage legislation, the evolution of the same metaphor can be historically traced to understand Turkish heritage discourse and practice today. Specifically, Turkey's efforts to find a place in the European Union without giving up its "unique" cultural characteristics is integral to the shaping of this discourse, which, ironically, still operates within the limits drawn by the Ottoman legacy of pragmatic Westernization and the Kemalist legacy of authoritarian nation-building. This presentation will seek to place Turkey's state heritage discourse and practice within a national and international political context.
Archaeological Heritage Management in the UAE, Policies for Training and Research
Dr Shereen Atris (College of Humanities, UAE University/ KCL)
The "archaeological heritage" is that part of the material heritage relating to which archaeological methods provide primary information. It comprises all remnants of human existence, encompassing places relating to all manifestations of human activity, abandoned structures, and remains of all kinds (including subterranean and underwater sites), together with all the portable cultural material associated with them. Considering that archaeological heritage constitutes the basic record of past human activities, its protection and proper management is essential to enable archaeologists and other scholars to study and interpret it on behalf of and for the benefit of present and future generations.
This paper looks into the management of archaeological heritage in the UAE. It discusses the concept and significance of archaeological heritage in a global perspective, and in relation to the Gulf region, in the past and the present. The study explores the challenges facing cultural heritage, investigating issues of human resources and the question of the lack of interest shown in specialized training for personnel in identification, conservation and restoration with regard both to scientific research and to related technical studies. Policies for the protection of the archaeological heritage are highlighted, with respect to their magnitude as a constituent and an integral component of policies relating to land use, development and planning as well as of cultural, environmental and educational policies. The study addresses international mechanisms for the exchange of information and experience among professionals dealing with archaeological heritage management at global as well as regional levels, and the establishment of regional centers for postgraduate studies in an attempt to establish a basis for the ideal archaeology of the future.
Perspectives of Near Eastern Archaeology between Science and Cultural Heritage management
Dr Alice Bianchi (Tübingen University)
Throughout the world increasing populations, industrial development, pollution and natural catastrophes are leading to the destruction of archaeological sites, in other words, to the destruction of part of our heritage. It is generally assumed that archaeologists and cultural heritage managers aim to analyse our heritage, to maintain it and to pass it on to future generations. Fundamentally, the heritage reflects the history that is relevant for individuals as well as for a community or a state. Generally, archaeologists tend to emphasize research while managers focus rather on maintenance and dissemination. This paper aims to investigate the synergies between Near Eastern Archaeology as an academic subject on the one hand and cultural heritage management on the other. On the basis of practical experience in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi the author will present considerations regarding features which associate methods and procedures used in archaeology with features applied to the management of material and non-material heritage. The various facets shared by archaeology and material culture range from documentation methodology, analysis and evaluation, conservation and protection, to the dissemination of the related information in several forms of public relations. All too often, some of the aspects mentioned remain circumscribed to the academic world, which is prone to forget or to minimize the importance of popularising the results of its work. In the author's view it is highly desirable to stress the common denominators between the different actors dealing with cultural heritage, to stimulate cooperation and dialogue between them and to integrate their activities at the educational level.
Present pasts: 10,000 years of life in a village
Dr Lindy Crewe (University of Manchester)
Cyprus has a rich prehistoric past but lacks, as do many parts of the world, highly visible or monumental remains through which to engage non-specialist audiences. There are very few sites that are integrated into the narrative of the history of the island, for either local communities or tourist visitors, and the pace of development is rapidly destroying many of the remaining deposits. Cypriot prehistoric communities did not leave tell-type sites. Populations often drifted over time, and abandonment and new establishments at key transitions are the pattern. Sites become visible, and partially destroyed, usually when the landscape is being modified through agriculture or building activity. This exacerbates conflict between archaeologists and landowners, compounded by a lack of understanding of how this often ephemeral detritus is crucial for learning about past peoples.
In light of the above, this paper outlines a new project which aims to engage adults and children, local communities and international audiences, with the process and the less readily accessible results of archaeological research through integrating an ongoing excavation as well as existing archaeological data into a multi-vocal framework for public dissemination. The village of Kissonerga near Paphos serves as an ideal case study through which to develop these themes. Sites include some of the earliest Neolithic wells in the world (c. 8,000 BC), areas of Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement (5,000-2,500 BC), the only known coastal settlement of the Early-Middle Bronze Age (2400-1700 BC, this is the active excavation component), as well as Late Roman-Byzantine remains and the modern village itself. The project aims to tell the story of a village and its community, from the first settlers on Cyprus, through changes in social organisation and subsistence strategies to the present day. The distant past will be brought to life through the use of computer imaging and by employing the material culture to emphasise how and why archaeological techniques bring the people of the past to life. The recent history of the village will be engaged with through ethnographic studies, including animal husbandry and plant lore. By taking a community-centred and diachronic approach to these dispersed archaeological components it is hoped that the importance of each within the larger picture can be conveyed to a wide audience and bring the human story to the fore.
Early Dynastic People and Neo-Assyrians in the Wake of Cultural Heritage and Conflict : "We, As Them", or "We, And Them" ?
Mr Fabrice de Backer (Doctoral Candidate, UMB, Strasbourg, France and UCL, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium ),
Early Dynastic populations, mainly from Mari, Ebla and Ur, shared some common features not only with one another but also with one of the most famous civilizations of the 1st Millenium BC: the Neo-Assyrians. These periods share the same kind of context, both in a kind of endemic state of war and in the struggle for natural and artificial resources and political supremacy. More than this, it seems that people had the same ideas about the army composition, equipment, organisation and depictions. In fact, their basic units, weapons, vehicles, and tactics are clearly the same up to a certain point. The visual arts also represent common ground for these periods and people, as the themes are roughly the same, such as the scenes of fight, victory, slaughter, deportation and banquet. The treatments of these topics also bear common features for the basic and higher status individuals, the attempts at perspective and the colours and supports on which they were carved. Although we do not have conserved wall reliefs from the ED, the so-called minor arts, shell and ivory, were parts of these people's interest in decoration. The author will attempt to demonstrate these points of similarity, before addressing the question of Cultural Heritage in time of conflict, trying to see how one can explain so many common features in two civilizations separated by such a huge time-span and space. Finally, one can raise the question of whether the Neo-Assyrians saw Early Dynastic artworks and, if so, where, how, when, and why they have chosen, if so, to use the same principles as them. Another good question would be to ask whether these common features represent only a kind of coincidence, linked to the historical context of both people. This would be a wonderful topic for a deeper study on the anthropology of Ancient Near Eastern societies.
Historical, Topographical, Mental Paths: Cypriot Antiquities inside Italian Museums
Dr Silvana di Paolo (ICEVO - National Council of Research)
The spirit of colonization and the rivalry between the main European countries shifted the focus from the political and economic fields to that of the acquisition of Cypriot antiquities for the European museums. The composition of the Italian Cypriot collections was based on a pre-eminently didactic objective, since the pieces were acquired with the intention of being displayed in a public museum. The aim of this paper is the reconstruction of exposition strategies of Italian museums, applying a semiotic approach.
The Next Generation: Mobilizing Social Networks for Heritage-based International Cooperation
Ms Ashley Sands and Ms Kristin Butler (University of Southern California)
The Next Generation is an effort launched by members of the emerging generation of archaeologists to employ social networking technologies in service of our jointly shared interests in research, preservation, and archaeology and heritage careers. This network is an activist project that seeks to create spaces for emerging archaeologists to discuss topics and concerns and shared possibilities online, with a face-to-face opportunity to meet in London during 7ICAANE.
Presently, the Next Generation project invites archaeologists mainly working on ANE archaeology or from countries in the Middle East and Mediterranean, such as Turkey (including northern Cyprus), Greece (including southern Cyprus), Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, West Bank & Gaza. Multi-lingual translation is being developed for the online forum (Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, and Hebrew).
This engagement is an attempt to create networks and relationships that would not exist otherwise between new archaeologists from diverse educational, socio-economic and national traditions. This is a multi-agent, multi-directional cultural diplomacy effort. Through the process of dialogue, we will discover ways to affect the future development of our field - its practices, ethics, and policy matters. This paper will analyze the issues, conflicts and successes of this conversation thus far. Topics of discussion already include access to funding, to academic freedom, to mentors, to language training, to travel, to family support, to field experience. Other conversations naturally emerge from our educational traditions, politics, or cultural issues that relate to valuing the past. All these affect research and potentially impinge on creating and sharing archaeological knowledge.
Problems in the cultural heritage of Turkey
Dr Atilla Engin (Cumhuriyet University)
In recent years some important steps have been undertaken toward the preservation and protection of cultural heritage areas in Turkey. In order to preserve archaeological sites for future generations some important works have been carried out. In Turkey, which is a developing country, ongoing construction and development projects are the main reason for the destruction of archaeological sites. Very important archaeological areas which have either not been investigated at all or have been studied through excavation only to an insufficient degree, have disappeared under the floods caused by dam projects and still more are under threat.
In the Keban, Karakaya, Kargamlş, Birecik and llsu dam areas some limited rescue excavations are being carried out. However, at the smaller and less important dam sites construction work usually begins without any investigation. To this problem have been added in recent years an intensification of agricultural work, of road construction and of illegal excavation, so that the archaeological heritage of the country is subject to an unprecedented threat of destruction.
Trade with historical objects from developing countries is one reason for an increase in illegal excavation, and global antiquities trafficking has become an important business. The antiquities trade is one of the most important reasons for illegal excavations in Turkey. As a large country, Turkey has tried to register many archaeological sites as protected monuments. Already, however, the tracing of the boundaries of registered monument sites has created problems and shortcomings. Also the registered monuments are to an important extent already subject to conscious or unconscious destruction. On many recently registered archaeological sites agricultural cultivation work continues, causing the successive levelling of settlement mounds by carrying off some surface material every year. Surface surveys carried out during the last years in the Sivals and Kilis provinces revealed extensive destruction of archaeological site areas. This destruction reaches a level that has formerly never ever occurred. It is therefore absolutely necessary to proceed with measures against this destruction and to take the responsibility of our generation to future generations seriously.
Archaeological Inventories and Cultural Heritage Management in the occupied Palestinian territories
Miss Adi Keinan (University College London)
This paper aims at dealing with the issue of cultural heritage management in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, focusing on the aspects of data collection and dissemination, i.e. the creation and use of archaeological inventories and GIS as heritage management tools. This research emerges from a recently concluded project, which included the construction of a database of all Israeli archaeological activities (surveys and excavations) in the occupied territories – the West Bank and East Jerusalem – since their occupation in 1967, and its migration into a GIS environment. I will present this database in the context of future use as a heritage management tool, focusing on its limitations, ways of overcoming them, and possible integration with Palestinian inventories for the creation of a powerful management tool, both in conflict and post-conflict realities.
A Land Without Autochthons: Anatolian archaeology in the early twentieth century
Dr Naoise MacSweeney (University of Cambridge)
It is an oft-cited truism that cultural heritage can be deployed in the service of political agendas or to legitimise territorial claims. This is most common in places where groups assert their autochthony and claim kinship with the ancient indigenous inhabitants. In contrast, this paper explores how archaeology can be used by groups who are not 'native' to the land where they are staking their claim.
In the early twentieth century, Anatolia was for all purposes is a land without autochthons. The bitter conflict between Greece and Turkey from 1919-22 was staged in a landscape which both sides claimed, but to which both had arrived as historical migrants. But while neither Greeks nor Turks could claim kinship with the prehistoric inhabitants of the land, this did not prevent them from engaging politically with cultural heritage. In the years just before, during, and after the war, the Greek and Turkish archaeological traditions developed strikingly divergent narratives of Anatolian prehistory. Both of these narratives focus on the experience of arrival and settlement, rather than autochthony and indigenous ownership. On one side of the Aegean, Greek scholarship on the 'Ionian Migrations' mushroomed, and Bronze Age connections with the Greek mainland were highlighted. On the other, Turkish archaeologists stressed the Hittites' links to central Asia, and encouraged the study of deep prehistory and Palaeolithic migrations.
Near-Eastern Archeology under Siege: from Real Destruction to Virtual Reconstruction
Dr Maria Gabriella Micale (University of Rome "La Sapienza")
Since the First World War and more recent local conflicts in the region, Near-Eastern antiquities have played a key role between the so-called Great Powers and local Governments. Archaeology developed as a political field of interest and, at the same time, as an instrument of diplomacy and (often) unbalanced exchange. Thus, development of knowledge and demolition of material remains developed in parallel, reflecting the double nature of archaeological activity not only because of excavations (according to a modern consciousness of archaeological practice) but also because of different assumptions and purposes of each country involved in them.
Even before the commencement of archaeological expeditions to the Near East, the destruction of local heritage started with the rise of the trade of antiquities between East and West, which from the beginning has been perceived and promoted as a manifestation of a cultural interest in the antiquities themselves. Through decades of archaeological excavations, national politics and international relations, pieces of ancient Near-Eastern material and architectural culture, by means of their careful selection, have functioned as instruments in shaping identities and defining roles in the East as well as the West. This paper aims at summarizing, by means of several case-studies, the relation between destruction of Near Eastern heritage (due to archaeological activities, political and diplomatic agreements, legal and illegal trade and excavations) and its reconstruction (by means of the building and arrangements of Museum, collections, the creation of models, drawings, in situ rebuilding), at the same time tracing the assumptions of both. The paper also considers the development and improvement of the use of digital reconstruction and Virtual Reality during and after conflicts, which represent the last frontier between national needs of identities' preservation and Western presence in Near East.
Community Archaeology in Early Bronze Age Tel Bareqet, Israel: School Children and Agency for Active Public Engagement in Cultural Heritage projects
Dr Yitzhak Paz (Ben Gurion University, Israel)
Tel Bareqet is an EBII (ca. 3050-2700 BCE) fortified urban center, located at the eastern edge of the central coastal plain of Israel. An extensive salvage excavation on the lower part of the site was followed by a new on-going community archaeology project that concentrates on the fortified upper mound acropolis, which involves schoolchildren as the back-bone of public engagement. Community archaeology has become very popular over the past decade. These projects seem to be gaining academic importance as well, and are considered by some people to be vital to the survival of archaeology as a whole Still, community archaeology projects often stir debate regarding their importance, role, and existence. A major theme of these discussions is the role played by the community. In particular, the question is often raised of what role, if any, should be given to non-professional local populations in a project's scientific decision-making. Faulkner (2000) identifies two methods of archaeological study. In 'archaeology from above', authorities impose restricted roles on the community in a desire to adhere to universal, standardized field practices. In 'archaeology from below', community participants are completely involved in every stage of the project. The current paper aims to present the controversy between these two types of archaeological practices, through the examination of a community archaeological project in which schoolchildren constitute the community participants, that is the excavation at the proto-historic Tel Bareqet. On the one hand, the excavation strives to maintain the highest scientific standard; on the other hand, it depends upon the participation of unskilled young people in the excavation process. This current paper will thus include two main themes: one - the scientific results of two seasons of excavations in the fortified acropolis of Tel Bareqet and second – a discussion of the theoretical and methodological framework that has been developed in order to create an agency for active community engagement in our cultural heritage project.
Ancient Near Eastern Motifs in the European Art of the 20th century AD
Dr Brigitte Pedde (Freie Universität Berlin)
In Europe in the 20th century AD many artists drew their inspiration from ancient Near Eastern artefacts. In most cases they did not copy them exactly, but transformed and changed them according to their own styles and forms of expression. There are a number of famous masterpieces in art history created by this kind of reception. Each artist dealt with these motifs in his own manner. Nevertheless, it is a fact that there is no well-known painter or sculptor whose work is profoundly marked by the reception of Near Eastern artefacts. The way modern artists have dealt with these artefacts, however, reveals their particular perceptions of the civilizations of the ancient Near East.
ohn Garstang & the Lost Hittite Gallery: Turkish Cultural reassessment through Hittite Archaeology – the British perspective, 1920s to 1930s.
Dr Françoise Rutland (University of Liverpool)
The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast the changing negotiated meanings of Hittite culture as presented in contemporary Turkey and Britain from 1920s to 1930s. This period spans Garstang's (1876-1956) employment with the Institute of Archaeology in Liverpool (1907-1941), and his work in Turkey from 1907. Crucially this coincided with political transitions between the two World Wars, the end of the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of the Kemâlist political group. This movement re-interpreted Hittite archaeology as the historical sociological underpinning for their unionist campaigns in Turkey.
Until 1941 his Hittite collection was held and displayed at Liverpool Museum which allows me to compare the contrasting notions of how Hittite archaeology was presented in Britain and in Turkey during this time of European upheaval. Garstang's career highlights the developing and difficult international relations between Britain, Turkey, Europe (mainly France and Germany) and America before and after World War II. Garstang's involvement in these developments continued with his foundation of the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara (BIAA) in 1947, the first international academic institution based in Ankara - the Kemâlist Turkish capital – rather than the Ottoman capital, Istanbul.
The materials that form the basis of this re-appraisal are artefacts acquired by Garstang during his travels at Boğazköy, Sakçe Gözü and Mersin and from other archaeologists such as Woolley. These are now held at National Museums Liverpool. The original collection loaned to this institution, was largely destroyed during the July 1941 blitz, however substantial administrative records and correspondence remain to give a good insight into his archaeological ethos and diplomatic involvement in Anglo-Turkish political relations. Further evidence is provided by Garstang's largely unseen collection of glass-plate photographic records held at the University of Liverpool.
No Gold! So why are you digging here? Community Outreach efforts at the site of Tell Zeidan
Dr Iman Saca (Saint Xavier University)
The field of community archaeology is still considered a developing subfield of archaeology aimed at reaching out, engaging and involving local communities in protecting, interpreting as well as benefiting from the archaeological and heritage sites within their communities. In today's modern context archaeologists are realizing, that for both practical and ethical reasons they should reach out and work with local communities, no matter the definition of that community.
This presentation explores ongoing community outreach and partnership efforts at Tell Zeidan, Syria. Examples of current, and future, community involvement and participation in the collaborative process between archaeologists and community representatives will be highlighted. Community archaeology is a collaboration amongst all participants, which promotes a sense of trust, civic involvement, and leads to sustainable long term benefits to all parties involved.
The success of an archaeological project and the long-term protection of the site depends on having the understanding and support of the local community. Lack of understanding of what archaeology is and what archaeologists do, combined with unaddressed curiosity leads, in many cases, to the looting and destruction of sites. Explaining the goals of archaeology and the specifics of the fieldwork at Tell Zeidan to the community in both the City of Raqqa and in the villages closest to the site has general educational value, is important for building a close working relationship with the Antiquities Authorities, and can play a major role in protecting the site from future damage from looting or agricultural development.
It is both a professional and an ethical responsibility for community outreach efforts to be an integral part of any archaeological research project. Community archaeology has a very unique and critical role in transforming archaeology into a discipline that contributes to the betterment of society and the protection of human heritage worldwide.
Urban development and archaeology in Beirut: searching for common grounds
Dr Assaad Seif (Coordinator of Archaeological Reasearch and Excavations, Directorate General of Antiquities, Ministry of Culture, Lebanon)
This paper explores the practical, ethical and legal challenges of heritage management in post-conflict Beirut. It discusses the new issues facing the archaeological venture in the urban reconstruction process. It also tackles the developer funded archaeology explaining its advantages and limitations in this context. Within this framework, it exposes the solutions and approaches adopted by the Directorate General of Antiquities (DGA) concerning rising issues related to building versus excavations dilemma. On the other hand, knowing that the excavation dynamics are more or less driven by the construction and development, the policy of the DGA to adapt its scientific and research strategies in order to fit within this imposed urban development framework is also explained.
assaad.seif@dga.culture.gov.lb
Studying the South Asian Bronze Age: Indian and cross-cultural comparisons
Prof. Shereen Ratnagar (ex-Nehru University, Delhi)
In a larger project I have entitled "A Past to Mirror Ourselves", my thesis is that as the modern Indian nation constructed its identity in recent times (evoking caste, tradition, minimal warfare, etc.) , so its image of itself was inscribed on to its remote past, especially so where the grand "Indus Valley Civilization" was concerned. In Harappan cities (2600 – 1800 BC), evidence for craft specialization, segregated living quarters, buildings outside a walled town, private wells, and the street drainage of Mohenjo-daro have each been read as evidence of a caste "system". But caste distinctions and hierarchies are not a primordial form of social organization. In fact it is hard to find actual instances from later history of cities divided into separate quarters for different castes. I also find such extrapolations objectionable (seeking a remote antiquity for a pernicious system). I thus move to a comparative approach. The challenge is its validity. Do we have to insist that Mesopotamia is Mesopotamia, and India is uniquely India? I refer to the similarity of the technological bases and socio-political structures in the two areas, acknowledging also the differences, mainly the presence/absence of identifiable temples. The large southern Mesopotamian cities had an organic growth around early temples, but in settlements to the north, citadels do tower above the residential areas. Do the histories of these towns help us, by analogy, to isolate some factors (e.g., local/regional cultures, the establishment of administrative centres by states that had developed further south) behind the Harappan dual morphology–and why it occurs where it does on the Harappan map? Such interpretations may have greater credibility–certainly, they are falsifiable–as compared with the essentialist frameworks.
Archaeology in Conflict – the "Blue Shield" Perspective
Mr Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen (President, Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield)
The "Blue Shield" session at the 7ICAANE is intended to inform scholars in particular from Near Eastern countries how to communicate and interact with the International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) and the Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS) as the prime international NGOs that officially deal with the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict and natural disaster on the basis and by the mandate and within the framework of the conventions of international law. It will also inform scholars on how to establish a national committee and to communicate and interact with other national committees – all in order to enhance archaeological heritage protection in the various countries of the Near East on NGO level.
The Blue Shield is the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross. It is the symbol specified in the 1954 Hague Convention for marking cultural sites to give them protection from attack in the event of armed conflict. It is also the name of an international committee set up in 1996 to work to protect the world's cultural heritage threatened by armed conflicts and natural disasters. The International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) covers cultural property protection issues of archaeological and historic sites, museums, archives and libraries. It brings together the knowledge, experience and international networks of the five expert organisations dealing with cultural heritage: an unrivalled body of expertise which is available to advise and assist in responding to events such as war in former Yugoslavia and hurricanes in Central America. ICBS is international, independent and professional. The international Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS) is a network of national committees all over the world coordinating and facilitating practical work on the ground. ICBS/ANCBS are the prime international bodies that officially deal with the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict and natural disaster on the basis and by the mandate and within the framework of the conventions of international law. The national Blue Shield committees and their international bodies are devoted to coordinating and strengthening international efforts to protect cultural property at risk, providing and promoting cultural heritage protection training programs and awareness raising with international and governmental decision makers on the importance of the 1954 Hague Convention and its Protocols and the international symbol of the Blue Shield.
Spanish contributions to the history of the archaeology of Iran and Oman in the early 17th century. García de Silva (1550-1624): Intuition and discovery
Prof. Joaquín Córdoba (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
In the early 17th century, Iran and Shah Abbas' court were places of both interest and attraction for European politics. Stories of travellers start to describe precisely ruins and monuments until then barely unknown. García de Silva y Figueroa, ambassador of king Felipe III of Spain, carried out remarkable observations on archaeological sites of the Oman coast and inner Iran. Their exhaustive descriptions and his sharpness made most of the pages he wrote a first-hand testimony to the very first archaeological exploration of the ancient Near East.