The Contemporary Archaeology of Old Cities: State Heritage and its Production in Rhodes and Acre

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Among the historic urban centers represented on the UNESCO World Heritage List, nearly half are located in states of the Mediterranean Basin. Through the lens of contemporary archaeology, this paper traces how the material fabric of historic urban centers is manipulated to conform to particular ideas and visions for what an "old city" should be. Viewing these material interventions (including conservation, reconstruction, demolitions, and site management) as a process of contemporary site formation draws attention to the everyday grounded practices of power and resistance inaccessible through conventional ethnographic methods.

This paper examines the case studies of Old Town Rhodes (Greece) and the Old City of Acre (Israel). The urban layout and architecture of both cities date to the Crusader and Ottoman periods. Old Town Rhodes was, until the Second World War, a primarily Muslim and Jewish quarter, and the Old City of Acre today is populated primarily by Palestinian Citizens of Israel. The paper summarises a systematic photographic surface survey of interventions on the surfaces of Old Town Rhodes and the Old City of Acre made by both residents and state heritage projects that reflect struggles to materially inscribe the meaning of each city.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24521