Case Studies in the Colonialist World of Mandate-Era Archaeology

Over the last couple decades, the scholarly world has begun to wrestle with its part in the western colonialist enterprise of the last few centuries. This includes the roles played by archaeologists working in the Middle East in the waning days of the Ottoman empire. This presentation explores the lives and roles of three Middle Eastern men involved in excavations of that era: Labib Sorial, a Copt from Luxor most known as a dig architect; Boulos el-‘Araj, a Palestinian Quaker from Ramallah whose main job was drawing pottery; Berberi Mahmoud Aisa a Muslim from Quft in Egypt who was a reis or foreman who supervised fieldwork. While their careers all intersected at Tell en- Naṣbeh in 1929 (near Ramallah), they spanned considerable geographic and chronologic ranges. How did these local archaeologists navigate the often fraught social dynamics of the western-led excavation hierarchies of which they were a part?

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Host or Publisher Finger Lakes Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association