Archaeological Excavation Changing an Urban Landscape: The Case of a Mass Killing Site of the Bangladesh Genocide.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 1999 the discovery and excavation of a local mass killing site forever changed the urban landscape of a residential area in the capital of Bangladesh. The excavation of this killing site of the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide and later the establishment of a memorial at the site, transformed the locality into a major historical site inciting interactions among generations with this redefined landscape. In the earlier phases of the excavation the authorities in charge faced many challenges of maintaining international standards for archeological excavation. This resulted in a fascinating case study of the interrelationships between urban landscapes, local identity, shared memory and forgetting, and archeological excavations of a local mass killing site. Gradually, with the establishment of a memorial and its centrality to local identity, this site turns into a space of exchanging genocidal trauma within a generation, facilitated by archaeological excavations, revealing shared-memory of atrocity crimes of the locality.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow