Title: A Partnership of Unequals: Historicising Labour Relations between Local and Foreign Archaeologists in T\u00fcrkiye through Ottoman Comparanda<\/p>\n
Part II \u2013 Theodore Macridy: The Ottoman Archaeologist Who Worked for the King of Prussia by Filiz T\u00fct\u00fcnc\u00fc \u00c7a\u011flar (Aarhus University)<\/p>\n
Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2025
\nTime: 17:30
\nRoom: H-232<\/p>\n
Abstract: This lecture explores unequal labour relations in late Ottoman archaeology through the career of Theodore Macridy Bey (1872\u20131940), one of the first professional Ottoman archaeologists. Using his letters, reports, and European accounts, it examines how Macridy\u2019s role as commissar of the Imperial Museum required navigating between authority and subordination. Charged with enforcing the 1884 Antiquities Law, he defended Ottoman sovereignty while facilitating Western excavations\u2014often being treated as a subordinate by European colleagues.<\/p>\n
By tracing his progression from interpreter to curator, the lecture situates Macridy within imperial power structures and the professionalisation of archaeology. It highlights how extractive hierarchies in Ottoman\u2013Western collaborations around 1900 echo inequalities in modern fieldwork. Macridy\u2019s experience reveals how language, bureaucracy, and labour shaped archaeology in the Ottoman world and how their legacies persist in the discipline today.<\/p>\n
About the speaker: Filiz T\u00fct\u00fcnc\u00fc \u00c7a\u011flar is an archaeologist and art historian specializing in the history of archaeology, with expertise in Byzantine and Islamic archaeology. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Victoria in 2017 with a dissertation on Ottoman excavations in Raqqa. After postdoctoral research at the Forum Transregionale Studien and the Museum f\u00fcr Islamische Kunst in Berlin, she received an Einstein Fellowship at the Einstein Center Chronoi in 2024. Since 2025, she has been a postdoctoral researcher in the \u201cLost Cities\u201d project at Aarhus University, focusing on Ottoman archaeological practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Title: A Partnership of Unequals: Historicising Labour Relations between Local and Foreign Archaeologists in T\u00fcrkiye through Ottoman Comparanda Part II \u2013 Theodore Macridy: The Ottoman Archaeologist Who Worked for the King of Prussia by Filiz T\u00fct\u00fcnc\u00fc \u00c7a\u011flar (Aarhus University) Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2025 Time: 17:30 Room: H-232 Abstract: This [\u2026] <\/p>\n