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Colonialism and Mapmaking in the Ancient Near East

Explore the intertwined history of colonialism, empire-building, and mapmaking in the Ancient Near East from various perspectives and historical events.

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Colonialism and Mapmaking in the Ancient Near East

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  1. ARCH 0351 / AWAS 0800 Introduction to the Ancient Near East Brown University ~ Fall 2009 Colonialism, mapmaking and the Middle East September 22, 2009

  2. The torch of civilization Tympanum over the entrance to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago

  3. what is colonialism, imperialism, empire? (and what does it have to do with mapmaking?)

  4. The Course of Empire – (Thomas Cole, 1836, Oil) The Arcadian or Pastoral State Savage State The Consummation of Empire Destruction

  5. The Course of Empire – Desolation (Thomas Cole, 1836, Oil)

  6. The Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca 560-330 BC).

  7. British Empire 1897

  8. Mehmet II enters Constantinople Fausto Zonaro, (1854-1929) Ottoman Empire 1683

  9. what is colonialism, imperialism, empire? (and what does it have to do with mapmaking?) or: “Map is Not the Territory” (Alfred Korzybski) J.L. Borges, Exactitude in Science (tragic uselessness of the perfectly accurate map)

  10. Pietro della Valle’s diary (Vatican) Pietro della Valle Italian traveller in Asia, 1586-1652. Map of the Middle East 1607. Mercator, Gerhard (1512-1594)- Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612)

  11. Carsten Niebuhr German Traveller, surveyer, geographer 1733-1815. “the scientific exploration of Egypt, Arabia and Syria” sponsored by Frederick V of Denmark. Travels through Arabia (google book)

  12. Description de l’Egypt Napoleon Bonaparte’s “scientific” expedition.

  13. ARCH 0351 / AWAS 0800 Introduction to the Ancient Near East Brown University ~ Fall 2009 Colonialism, mapmaking and the Middle East II September 24, 2009

  14. Pietro della Valle’s diary (Vatican) Pietro della Valle - Italian traveller in Asia, 1586-1652. The first to identify the site of Babylon. Picked up some tablets at Ur (Tell al Muqayyar) Map of the Middle East 1607. Mercator, Gerhard (1512-1594)- Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612)

  15. Carsten Niebuhr German Traveller, surveyer, geographer 1733-1815. “the scientific exploration of Egypt, Arabia and Syria” sponsored by Frederick V of Denmark. Travels through Arabia (google book)

  16. Description de l’Egypt Napoleon Bonaparte’s “scientific” expedition to Egypt (1798-1801). Recording of natural history, flora and fauna, archaeology, physical geography, technology, weights and measures, hydrography, meteorology, medicine,

  17. Orientalism an episode in Western humanitistic thought • representations of the East in the literary and • pictorial works of mainly Western or Western educated • authors- work of art, architecture, novels and travel writing, antiquarianism... • idea of the travel to the East, and meeting with the stereotypical “other”. Associated with romanticism and classicism • East appears in these narratives (literary and pictorial) as exotic, sensual, colorful, decaying, often violent, place of inertia: people are lazy, a ridiculous excess of sexuality and eroticism, despotism as the main political tendency among the eastern monarchs • an aspect of European imperialist project

  18. Automatic Turkthe chess playing automaton built by the miraculous Hungarian Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1769 to impress the Empress Maria Theresa

  19. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824 – 1904) Snake Charmer (1870) Oil on canvas

  20. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824 – 1904) Moorish Bath (1870) Oil on canvas

  21. Death of Sardanapalus (1827), Eugène Delacroix.

  22. Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525 - 1569) Tower of Babel (1563), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  23. Other orientalisms Photographs of an Armenian–Iranian photographer: Antoin Sevruguin (1840-1933)

  24. Birth of Near Eastern archaeology • Rediscovery (early travellers, antiquarians) • Early archaeological work (mid 19th c. excavations) • International phase • Large scale excavations • Scientific archaeology.

  25. Many languages Persian king Darius I’s monumental tri-lingual inscription at the site of Bisutun, Iran in Old Persian, Elamite, Akkadian Deciphering cuneiform writing Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895): cadet in British East India Company

  26. This Assyrian version of the Old Testament flood story identified in 1872 by George Smith, an assistant in The British Museum. On reading the text he ... jumped up and rushed about the room in a great state of excitement, and, to the astonishment of those present, began to undress himself.' The most famous cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia The so-called ”Flood Tablet”, relating part of the Epic of Gilgamesh

  27. Austin Henry Layard (1817-1894) Excavations at the site of Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in Northern Iraq.

  28. Austin Henry Layard’s travels (1839-41)

  29. a former botanist Paul Emile Botta appointed as French consul in Mosul (1842) Excavations on the mound of Khorsabad (1843-1845) on the behalf of the Louvre museum

  30. Drawings of E. Flandin

  31. Hormuzd Rassam (1826-1910), a Chaldean catholic Excavations at Nineveh, Nimrud, Balawat, Toprakkale, Tell Sheikh Hamad, and others...

  32. A 19th century bestseller

  33. From Assyrian Nimrud to British Crystal Palace: whose architecture? Layard’s architect Ferguson’s reconstruction of Nimrud citadel (Publ. 1849) + Crystal palace of the Great exhibition of 1851, at Hyde Park, London.

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