Chapter 9. In fact, this lack of concern towards Islamic antiquities (with
the exception, perhaps, of numismatics, epigraphy and paleography (Etting-
hausen 1951: 21–3), and to a very limited extent also towards all other
non-classical antiquities) became diluted in the late nineteenth century, when
non-classical antiquities became a focus of Western curiosity (Ettinghausen
1951; Rogers 1974: 60; Vernoit 1997). From that period, Islamic antiquities
became the target of both local nationalists and the prosperous classes in the
Western imperial powers. Yet, whereas for local nationalists the Islamic past
was a Golden Age explaining the origin of the nation, for Westerners it
became equivalent to exoticism, and the representation of the Other (Said
1978). Thus, in the West, especially from the 1890s, Islamic art was taken as a
whole. Funding for Islamic archaeology centred on monuments and coins
and their aesthetic and commercial value. The fresh attention directed to-
wards the Islamic past would eventually draw Western archaeologists to
explore other areas under the power of Constantinople from Albania and
Kosovo to the territories in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. These areas are not
discussed in this chapter for this would take us beyond the chronological
limits established for this work, although sporadic initiatives may have
occurred in this period (see, for example, Potts 1998: 191).
European hegemonic views of the past were contested in diVerent ways in
each of the countries analysed in this chapter. In the southern European
countries antiquities became, from early on, metaphors for the national
past and icons of national prestige and, therefore, measures were taken to
protect them from the imperial craving for them. Laws were passed to
criminalize the export of antiquities. Societies were organized and archae-
ology was taught at university level. In this way, imperial archaeologists had to
content themselves with studying antiquities in competition or collaboration
with local archaeologists. (Yet, in the long term, the accounts from the
imperial archaeologists were more successful. In widely read histories of
archaeology produced in the post-imperial powers (still Britain, France, and
North America) their names are spelled out, while similar treatment is not
given to their Italian and Greek counterparts.) In the nineteenth century, the
growing use of imperial languages—English, French, German and perhaps
Russian—also nourished the creation of national academies with traditions
separate from each other. The transformation of the ethos of foreign schools
in Italy is a case in point. Italian was abandoned as a medium of communi-
cation shortly after the internationally inclusive Istituto di Corrispondenza
Archaeologica was substituted by the nationally-led foreign schools from the
1870s. In this atmosphere the endeavours of local archaeologists were often
met with contempt by archaeologists coming from more prosperous coun-
tries. However, it would be too simplistic to claim that in the archaeology of
Europe and the Ottoman Empire 129