Empires of antiquities modernity and the rediscovery of the ancient near East, 1914-1950 Melman, Billie creator author. text bibliography Electronic books. History enk 2020 monographic eng remote 1 online resource (395 pages) : illustrations Empires of Antiquities is a history of the rediscovery of the imperial civilizations of the ancient Near East in a modern imperial order that evolved between the outbreak of the First World War and the decolonization of the British Empire in the 1950s. It explores the ways in which near eastern antiquity was redefined and experienced, becoming the subject of imperial regulation, modes of enquiry, and international and national politics. A series of globally publicized spectacular archaeological discoveries in Iraq, Egypt, and Palestine, which the book follows, made antiquity material visible and accessible as never before. The book demonstrates that the new definition and uses of antiquity and their relations to modernity were inseparable from the emergence of the post-war international imperial order, transnational collaboration and crises, the aspirations of national groups, and collisions between them and the British mandatories. It uniquely combines a history of the internationalization of archaeology and the rise of a new "regime of antiquities" under the oversight of the League of Nations and its institutions, a history of British attitudes to, and passion for, near eastern antiquity and on-the-ground colonial policies and mechanisms, as well as nationalist claims on the past. It points to the centrality of the new mandate system, particularly mandates classified A in Mesopotamia/Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan, formerly governed by the Ottoman Empire, and of Egypt, in the new archaeological regime. Drawing on an unusually wide range of materials collected in archives in six countries, as well as on material and visual evidence, the book weaves together imperial, international, and national histories, and the history of archaeological discovery which it connects to imperial modernity Introduction -- I: Antiquity and the New Post-War Imperial Order -- II: Biblical Pasts in Mandated Palestine -- III: "The Most Ancient Past": Mesopotamian Antiquities and Modernity -- IV: Egypt's Ancient Pasts: Empire, Antiquity, and Technology -- Bibliography -- Index. Billie Melman. aw----- Middle East Antiquities Middle East Historiography Imperialism History 20th century Moyen-Orient Antiquités Impérialisme Histoire 20e siècle HISTORY 20th Century Modern Colonialism & Post-Colonialism POLITICAL SCIENCE Archaeology SOCIAL SCIENCE Antiquities Historiography Imperialism Middle East 1900-1999 fast DS56eb 939.4 Empires of Antiquities : Modernity and the Rediscovery of the Ancient near East, 1914-1950 Melman, Billie. Oxford : Oxford University Press USA - OSO, ©2020 9780192558015 0192558013 0198824556 9780198824558 http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login?url=https://academic.oup.com/book/36953 EBLCP 200509 20260319182323.7 in00005718644 eng