Archaeology, Nationalism and Heritage in Islamic Society: a Turkish Case Study

David Shankland, 2002. https://doi.org/10.5284/1000236. How to cite using this DOI

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David Shankland (2002) Archaeology, Nationalism and Heritage in Islamic Society: a Turkish Case Study [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1000236

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Digital Object Identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are persistent identifiers which can be used to consistently and accurately reference digital objects and/or content. The DOIs provide a way for the ADS resources to be cited in a similar fashion to traditional scholarly materials. More information on DOIs at the ADS can be found on our help page.

Citing this DOI

The updated Crossref DOI Display guidelines recommend that DOIs should be displayed in the following format:

https://doi.org/10.5284/1000236
Sample Citation for this DOI

David Shankland (2002) Archaeology, Nationalism and Heritage in Islamic Society: a Turkish Case Study [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1000236

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Overview

The aim of this project was to investigate the way that a present-day Islamic rural village interacts with the remains of the past within its territory and with a large-scale excavation in its midst, to set these research findings in broader perspective vis a vis modern Turkey, and also use this material to reconsider the practice and theory of anthropology and archaeology. Physically, the research was based in Anatolia, at the excavations that are taking place at the mound of Çatalhöyük, near the village of KüÇükköy, in the province of Konya.

The Village

Whilst it is extremely difficult to make categorical judgements, I suggest that the dominant way that the remains of the past are incorporated into the present in the village is achronological: that is, its inhabitants make no hard and fast distinction as to period, nor as to whether any particular remains may be of Christian or Islamic background. Within this overall orientation, their interaction with the mounds in their territory is partly pragmatic: they may regard them as field boundary markers, as repositories of treasure or gold, as sites of slightly unusual herbs for cooking, or as places where they may obtain waterproof earth with which to temper their house walls or roofs. However, they also perceive them as having a potential spiritual or religious place: any mound, whatever the period, may be regarded as being the grave of a holy man. This man may protect the remains from disturbance or from intrusion through supernatural intervention aimed against any interlopers. He may also be held to be saintly: that is, to be able to intercede with God on behalf of a supplicant. The villagers maintain that such a holy man (dede or yatir) may come from any period, that 'every age has its prophets'.

The Wider Context

After a series of comparative research trips, I realised that this stress on individual sanctity is not confined to the rural sphere. It is held, for example, strongly in urban Konya. Nevertheless, whilst widespread, such tomb or saint worship is frowned upon by Islamic activists who regard it as sinful, saying that no person may be regarded as having any power to intercede in the affairs of man or God after their demise. The official policy of the state too, is that such behaviour is inappropriate. However, there is a subsequent divergence. Islamists (such as those who support the political party, now closed, known as Fazilet) are acutely sensitive to the period from which archaeological remains may emerge, and often wish to impede efforts to restore or protect non-Muslim or non-Ottoman heritage. The Republican state, on the other hand, was founded upon a vision of multi-cultural secularism that assumed that archaeology could assist in creating a view of history that would not privilege any one period. These two opposing views may struggle over the way that any monument or excavation site is treated and displayed, with the state preferring to work with local or visiting archaeological teams in order to display Anatolia's multiple pasts, whilst the activists seek either to restore, or appropriate, buildings and scared sites for religious worship.

At Çatalhöyük, the location for this research, the archaeological teams fall on the secular side of this divide, working closely with the Republican state and thereby providing enormous publicity for those who stress the importance of Anatolia's prehistoric past. This is occasionally controversial for European commentators, who believe that all associations between state, nationalism and archaeology are dangerous. My research suggests rather the opposite; that in this case, the close working relationship between foreign archaeological teams (such as those from the UK), and the Turkish Republican state acts as a useful buttress against an Islamist view that would exclude and perhaps act in a hostile way toward the non-Muslim remains. I also suggest that, whilst the state officially disapproves of the tomb and saintly worship that I found in the village, by regarding it as 'Anatolian folklore' rather than religion, finds in its universal humanism a useful foil with which to combat religious fundamentalism. Thus, I conclude that the ahistoric tolerance of the villages coincides with the multi-cultural historical emphasis of the Turkish state, and that these two elements in turn may be contrasted with more culturally-exclusivist, organised Islamist activist groups.

Anthropology and Archaeology Methodology

During the course of the research, I came to realise that a neglected but pioneering figure, F.W. Hasluck, had anticipated much of the theoretical framework that I used to approach the village ethnography. I therefore organised an international conference on his work which took place in November 2001 at the University of Wales Lampeter. Hasluck was an archaeologist, working at the British School at Athens before the First World War who was nevertheless able to think 'anthropologically' and clearly anticipated much of the Malinowskian rejection of necessary cultural continuities. Whilst Hasluck was not taken seriously in his lifetime, his extensive posthumous works provide an unexplored field with which to look at both relations between Christian and Islamic communities and also at archaeology and anthropology just before they split into two distinct disciplines, a split that I would now argue has been not just harmful but also demonstrably unnecessary. These conference proceedings will be published in full by Isis Books, a specialist publisher of academic books on this region.

The final part of this research project lies in a wider consideration of the relationship between the methodology of archaeology and anthropology as they are practiced in Britain. Whilst this is perhaps the proper focus of a future, more theoretically based research project, my experience of working with a large, interdisciplinary research team at Çatalhöyük has made me convinced of the paramount importance of social anthropology re-internalising the standards of evidence and peer scrutiny, even at the point of the researches' making, that are habitually the case within modern scientific archaeology. A guest editorial appeared in Anthropology Today advocating this approach, and a detailed proposal is currently being considered by Routledge.

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