Excavating in Iran and Central Asia: Cooperation or Competition?
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Bruno Genito
Abstract
In the study of the human past, the Iranian plateau and Central Asia have the privilege to host some of the most significant historical, archaeological, and cultural developments on the planet. From around the second millennium BCE, the Iranian plateau participated in the realization of a series of ever larger and powerful political units, culminating in the Achaemenid dynasty of the first millennium BCE, and the numerous chiefdoms and political-state formations, many of which nomadic in character, in Central Asia. The activities of archaeological research in Iran and Central Asia, therefore, provide a framework for placing some of the most significant events of the past. In today’s ongoing European cultural and economic expansion, with Iran as a future near neighbour and Central Asia as a kind of suburban farther, but at the western border with China, the need for a more in-depth understanding and appreciation of their past and, therefore, of the present, can hardly be procrastinated over. These geographical areas have been essential in the history of mankind, regardless of their historical, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds, or their political/national outcomes in modern and contemporary times. The archaeological activities within those areas have been, for at least a century, essential to understanding the related Western and native consciousness of their historical past.
Abstract
In the study of the human past, the Iranian plateau and Central Asia have the privilege to host some of the most significant historical, archaeological, and cultural developments on the planet. From around the second millennium BCE, the Iranian plateau participated in the realization of a series of ever larger and powerful political units, culminating in the Achaemenid dynasty of the first millennium BCE, and the numerous chiefdoms and political-state formations, many of which nomadic in character, in Central Asia. The activities of archaeological research in Iran and Central Asia, therefore, provide a framework for placing some of the most significant events of the past. In today’s ongoing European cultural and economic expansion, with Iran as a future near neighbour and Central Asia as a kind of suburban farther, but at the western border with China, the need for a more in-depth understanding and appreciation of their past and, therefore, of the present, can hardly be procrastinated over. These geographical areas have been essential in the history of mankind, regardless of their historical, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds, or their political/national outcomes in modern and contemporary times. The archaeological activities within those areas have been, for at least a century, essential to understanding the related Western and native consciousness of their historical past.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Note on Transliteration XI
- Preface 1
- Introduction 5
-
Archaeology in the Time of Empires: Unequal Negotiations and Scientific Competition
- “Masters” Against “Natives”: Edward Daniel Clarke and the “Theft” of the Eleusinian “Goddess” 19
- Russian Archaeologists, Colonial Administrators, and the “Natives” of Turkestan: Revisiting the History of Archaeology in Central Asia 31
- The “Maîtres” of Archaeology in Eastern Turkestan: Divide et Impera 87
-
“Master” / “Native”: Are There Winners? A Micro-History of Reciprocal and Non-Linear Relations
- Subverting the “Master”–“Native” Relationship: Dragomans and Their Clients in the Fin-de-Siècle Middle East 107
- In the Service of the Colonizer: Leon Barszczewski, Polish Officer in the Tsarist Army 121
- “The General and his Army”: Metropolitans and Locals on the Khorezmian Expedition 137
-
Taming the Other’s Past: The Eurocentric Scientific Tools
- From the Emic to the Etic and Back Again: Archaeology, Orientalism, and Religion from Colonial Sri Lanka to Switzerland 177
- Legislation and the Study of the Past: The Archaeological Survey of India and Challenges of the Present 197
- Early Archaeology in a “Native State”: Khans, Officers, and Archaeologists in Swat (1895–1939), with a Digression on the 1950s 213
-
The Forging of Myths: Heroic Clichés and the (Re-)Distribution of Roles
- Archaeologists in Soviet Literature 239
- Archaeology and the Archaeologist on Screen 255
-
Reversal of Roles in Postcolonial and Neocolonial Contexts: From a Relation between “Masters” and “Subordinates” to “Partnership”?
- From Supervision to Independence in Archaeology: The Comparison of the Iranian and the Afghan Strategy 291
- The Postcolonial Rewriting of the Past in North and South Korea Following Independence (1950s–1960s) 307
- Excavating in Iran and Central Asia: Cooperation or Competition? 323
- Publishing an Archaeological Discovery astride the “North”–“South” Divide (On an Example from Central Asia) 343
- Role Reversal: Hindu “Ethno-Expertise” of Western Archaeological Materials 367
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Note on Transliteration XI
- Preface 1
- Introduction 5
-
Archaeology in the Time of Empires: Unequal Negotiations and Scientific Competition
- “Masters” Against “Natives”: Edward Daniel Clarke and the “Theft” of the Eleusinian “Goddess” 19
- Russian Archaeologists, Colonial Administrators, and the “Natives” of Turkestan: Revisiting the History of Archaeology in Central Asia 31
- The “Maîtres” of Archaeology in Eastern Turkestan: Divide et Impera 87
-
“Master” / “Native”: Are There Winners? A Micro-History of Reciprocal and Non-Linear Relations
- Subverting the “Master”–“Native” Relationship: Dragomans and Their Clients in the Fin-de-Siècle Middle East 107
- In the Service of the Colonizer: Leon Barszczewski, Polish Officer in the Tsarist Army 121
- “The General and his Army”: Metropolitans and Locals on the Khorezmian Expedition 137
-
Taming the Other’s Past: The Eurocentric Scientific Tools
- From the Emic to the Etic and Back Again: Archaeology, Orientalism, and Religion from Colonial Sri Lanka to Switzerland 177
- Legislation and the Study of the Past: The Archaeological Survey of India and Challenges of the Present 197
- Early Archaeology in a “Native State”: Khans, Officers, and Archaeologists in Swat (1895–1939), with a Digression on the 1950s 213
-
The Forging of Myths: Heroic Clichés and the (Re-)Distribution of Roles
- Archaeologists in Soviet Literature 239
- Archaeology and the Archaeologist on Screen 255
-
Reversal of Roles in Postcolonial and Neocolonial Contexts: From a Relation between “Masters” and “Subordinates” to “Partnership”?
- From Supervision to Independence in Archaeology: The Comparison of the Iranian and the Afghan Strategy 291
- The Postcolonial Rewriting of the Past in North and South Korea Following Independence (1950s–1960s) 307
- Excavating in Iran and Central Asia: Cooperation or Competition? 323
- Publishing an Archaeological Discovery astride the “North”–“South” Divide (On an Example from Central Asia) 343
- Role Reversal: Hindu “Ethno-Expertise” of Western Archaeological Materials 367
