Download PDF | A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, Breaking New Ground, Kluwer Academic Publishers (2002).
287 Pages
Preface
Archaeology has a long and distinguished tradition in the Middle East, but its realm has been limited to uncovering the history and social processes of the distant past. During the late 1980s, a number of scholars, following the lead of post-medieval archaeology in western Europe and Historical Archaeology in North America and coastal Africa, made calls for an archaeology of the recent past of the Middle East. Those calls included improving the discipline of archaeology by testing notions in the material record of the recent past, finding the commonalities in history for national groups that imagined their pasts as separate, and countering the impact of colonialism and imperialism in the region by exposing historical trajectories. The contemporary political situation in the region made it increasingly clear that new bridges to connect the distant past and the present were possible and necessary.
Filling the gap between the contemporary eastern Mediterranean and the archaeological past required archaeologists to confront the history of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire, whose tule started in Anatolia in the fourteenth century, controlled at its height the area from Vienna to Mesopotamia and Arabia and across North Africa, and lasted until the First World War. The legacy of this empire for the Middle East and Southeast Europe has left a significant imprint on the lives and relations of people living in this region.
Like others who took up the call for an archaeology of the recent past in the Middle East, a sustained commitment to the history and cultures of the region was the force behind our research. In Baram’s case that involved an evaluation of various understandings of the emergence of modermity in Israel, while Carroll’s interest centered around the recent past of Anatolia. Our common interests and training in North American historical archaeology provided us with methodological and theoretical frameworks that seemed worthwhile to bring together and develop for the eastern Mediterranean.
We recognized that, although historical archaeology began in North America as the study of European influence and settlement in the post-Columbian era, a growing number of historical archaeologists were successfully tracing the material record of the modern world for peoples throughout the globe. For us, an archaeology of the Ottoman period became a logical extension of global historical archaeology. However, our understanding of this field was never quite the same as it was for most archaeologists working in North America; for us historical archaeology was never truly juxtaposed against prehistory. After all, in the Middle East, ‘history’ begins five thousand years ago. More importantly, the Ottoman Empire was an _ independent polity, not one of the Western European colonies which have come to dominate discussions in global historical archaeology.
Nevertheless, it was in historical archaeology that we were both able to develop our research interests focusing on global and local changes in the material lives of communities in the Middle East over the past 500 years. We are concerned with the relationships between material culture and documentary sources, and have a commitment to understand the lives of the people excluded or ignored in conventional histories (specifically regional histories of ethnic groups separated from changes brought by imperial influences, and Ottoman and global histories which have traditionally examined large scale processes at the expense of local formations). We appreciated the contributions that historical archaeologists brought to our understanding of the history and social life of the last five centuries. Most importantly, we hoped our archaeological approaches would add complexity to the simple caricature of the Ottoman centuries as a deleterious period in world history or a stagnant empire capable of changing only in the presence of Western European expansion.
As an archaeology that focuses on the global movement of goods, power relations, and the emergence of identities, Historical Archaeology should be able to contribute new insights into the Middle Eastern past, particularly in terms of understanding the roots of the present-day. Material remains could provide insights and open avenues for locating common histories for people who have imagined their societies as separate. By tracing the material remains of colonialism and imperialism, the processes of domination and resistance, accommodation and social change can be put into light of a common history. Those anthropological concepts are vitally important in the Middle East and Balkans today, since they address issues that are continually contested and confronted, all too often and sadly with very tragic consequences. But until recently, the material remains from the recent past in the Middle East which could have shed some light on the recent past of this region were simply avoided, ignored, or bulldozed away.
Throughout the 1990s, mostly implicitly and without any sustaining scholarly organization, archaeologists began to face the challenges of an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, and a wealth of new archaeological materials recovered from excavations were retained for analysis. It became clear to us that the archaeological literature on the Ottoman period was growing, as an increasing number of scholars from a variety of different disciplines, such as history, art history, classics, and geography expanded their examination of the Ottoman period in terms of its material culture. The result was increasing numbers of descriptions of Ottoman artifacts and landscapes, published archaeological reports inclusive of the Ottoman period, and discussions of the socio-politics of archaeology in the region. Yet, the growing research seemed disorganized, and centered mainly around regionally specific issues. The two of us felt that the archaeology of the Ottoman past would benefit from a more comparative approach. To coordinate some of those endeavors, we decided to organize a conference focusing on Ottoman archaeology.
In 1996, we invited several dozen archaeologists, historians, art historians, and other scholars to gather at Binghamton University, State University of New York, to participate in a conference entitled Breaking New Grounds for an Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: A Prologue and a Dialogue. The conference was conceived with one major objective in mind—to open a dialogue about archaeology of the Ottoman Empire. The specific goals of the meeting were to uncover the potential of, and begin to unite, the new field of study, as well as to present and discuss the results of archaeological studies from a wide variety of sites and regions of the former empire. Binghamton University is one of the centers of Ottoman Studies in the United States and the home of The Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations, which has encouraged research into the Ottoman Empire’s role within global world systems for over two decades. Binghamton University, therefore, provided an opportunity for feedback from Ottoman historians and sociologists.
We were very pleased with the response, both from the scholars who attended the conference and the interest the gathering created. It is becoming increasingly clear that the scholarship on archaeology of the Ottoman Empire needs to be united, and some possible goals of the field made more explicit. This volume is meant to present the findings from a range of projects and approaches and to begin the process of organizing that archaeological research. Our initial goal was to improve contact between and create a dialogue for archaeologists who, like ourselves, have focused on a relatively unexplored time period. In the process, we hoped to break down some of the barriers which isolated scholars working in various regions throughout the former imperial provinces.
The feedback and responses provided results which were far more rewarding than what we initially set out to accomplish. Charles E. Orser, Jr. encouraged us to create this volume, and Eliot Werner and Herman Makler at Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers helped us carry it through to completion. We appreciate their patience and support throughout the various phases of this project, since a number of seasons of field work in Turkey and Israel led to delays. We have been pleased to see interest in an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire develop over the past decade.
Yet, despite a growing interest in archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, we still are concerned that this field has yet to find its place in the ranks of more established archaeological research. We hope that this volume demonstrates the potential of archaeological investigations for understanding the recent past of the Middle East, and introduces an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire to a wider scholarly audience. As we discuss in the introduction, there are many avenues for an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire. We envision the volume as an invitation to a dialogue within the field of archaeology on the Ottoman period material record and encourage discussions of the theoretical implications of the case studies, If this volume encourages archaeologists to place the Ottoman period within their preview and consider some of its material remains, we would be satisfied with the endeavor.
UZI BARAM LYNDA CARROLL
The Future of the Ottoman Past
Uzi Baram and Lynda Carroll
INTRODUCING AN OTTOMAN ARCHAEOLOGY
From the fourteenth century, until its demise in the early twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was one of the world’s great empires. Stretching from the regions now known as Croatia and Romania, to Iraq and Yemen, and across much of North Africa, this empire had a significant influence on world history, and more significantly, on the history and peoples of the Middle East and Balkans in general.
Yet, based on the narratives archaeologists tell about this region, one would hardly notice that the Ottoman Empire ever existed. While archaeologists tell grand and glorious stories of this region’s past, few have taken the opportunity to explore the Ottoman period. Instead, the archaeological narratives of this region tell of prehistoric achievements of humanity and of the rise of agriculture and settlements. We have a good understanding of the great cities of the Bronze Age and of the empires of the Iron Age, as well as the Classical civilizations of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium. Some archaeologists even examine the early history of Islam in this region. But just as we begin to reach the doorstep of the present, archaeological insights—and research—trail off.
The fact that there has been little sustained archaeological interest in the recent past of the Middle East is due, not to a lack of material remains, but to ideological blinders to what constitutes an archaeological past, and what its relevance could be. There are, after all, very clear and firmly entrenched ideologies of what constitutes an archaeological period in the Middle East. Archaeology in this region has a long tradition of being the search for a distant, romantic past— a past comprised of golden ages, and heralded as the birthplace of civilization. Few archaeologists have romanticized about the Ottoman period. Few consider the Ottoman period to be a golden age worthy of sustained research. This is a major boundary which has to be crossed as we break new grounds and move toward an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire.
Archaeologies of the recent past have proven to be quite successful in other parts of the world, such as historical archaeology in North America and post-medieval archaeology in Great Britain. Yet, the recent past of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans is still considered irrelevant for archaeologists. The archaeological past in this region is, after all, more often than not, separated chronologically as well as culturally from the Middle East of today. The result has been the construction of an artificial barrier separating the past and the present.
In spite of—or perhaps in reaction to—these boundaries, a growing number of archaeologists, archaeological commentators, art historians and historians have actively argued for, advocated and aided in the development of an Ottoman archaeology over the past two decades (e.g., Glock 1985; Kohl 1989; Silberman 1989; Baram 1996; Orser 1996:194-198; Seeden 1990). Some scholars have called for filling in the gap which separates the past and the present (e.g., Silberman 1989), since for the most part, the peoples of this region often believe that they have separate and competing pasts. Others challenge the notion of a stagnant, passive, unchanging Ottoman period (Baram 1996) and envision in this archaeology a challenge to a history of colonialism and imperialism (Kohl 1989). Others have hoped to use the archaeology of the recent past to understand the historical development of the modern Middle East (e.g, Davis 1991; Seeden 1990; Ziadeh-Seely 1995). Many scholars have, after uncovering Ottoman components in multi-component sites, found the artifacts of the Ottoman period important enough to describe and typologize (e.g., Aslanapa et al. 1989; Robinson 1983,1985; Hayes 1992; Baram 1995). Some include this time period in their analyses and interpretations of archaeological places (e.g., Foss 1976, 1979; Toombs 1985; Brown 1992). Whatever the motive, it is clear that since the 1980s, the number of archaeological studies focusing on remains which date from the Ottoman period has been growing, complimenting an earlier corpus of archaeological materials (e.g., Wiegand 1925; Riis and Poulsen 1957).
CONTEXTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OTTOMAN PAST
The boundaries isolating the Ottoman period from the archaeological past are not solely temporal, but also geographical and intellectual. But what are these obstacles which have prevented the development of the field of Ottoman archaeology? Certainly, Ottoman period sites can be found scattered across the landscapes of the eastern Mediterranean. Archaeologists often encounter the Ottoman period deposits on sites, if only by necessity as they delve deeper into the archaeological record.
The greatest—and most challenging—obstacle which must be overcome in the creation of this field are the attitudes which archaeologists have toward the Ottoman period. In addition, archaeologies of the Ottoman past will no doubt be influenced by the various meanings this period has for the people who live in the empire’s former dominions. In both cases, the Ottoman period has remained an unpopular period for archaeological study.
The unpopularity of the Ottoman Empire stems largely from the perception that its growth marked a deleterious period in world history. This view is propogated both by Western scholars and by people living in the regions once ruled by the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire is often considered to have been a period of ‘decline and decay’ from antiquity, as the empire began to lose much of its wealth, centralized power and prominence on a global scale (e.g., Gibb and Bowen 1962; Inalcik 1973; Kinross 1977; Palmer 1992) starting in the late sixteenth century. European powers referred to the empire as ‘The Sick Man of Europe.’ While the meanings of this period of the Ottoman Empire has been widely debated (e.g., Abou-el-Haj 1991, Kafadar 1995), it is not coincidental that these images of decline and decay fit nicely into the concepts of progress and Western triumph which characterize much of modern Western thought and scholarship, including archaeology.
A broadly defined ‘Western Tradition’ was built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on what were considered to be classical foundations, and were based almost exclusively on the connections to a Biblical past, or Hellenism and neo-classical revivals. Any traces of the present—of an Ottoman present—were considered ‘annoying and debasing the illustrious ancient tradition’ (Todorova 1996:45). The regions touched or ruled by the Ottoman Empire located in the margins of Europe (e.g., Herzfeld 1987:1-27), were considered to be polluted by centuries of Ottoman rule. At the same time, by emphasizing the classical civilizations of deep antiquity, archaeologists help to reinforce this ideology. Neglecting or ignoring an unpopular Ottoman period, Ottoman landscapes are more often than not presented as devastated, empty or abandoned during the Ottoman period. These judgements provided the ancient past with a more preferable place in history books; perusing an archaeology of a glorious, ancient past was a more desirable endeavor than developing the archaeology of a despised one. This remains largely the case today.
Perhaps even more importantly, archaeology in this region is deeply embedded within contemporary political ideologies. Today, many of the artifacts, monuments, sites and even cultural legacies are seen as symbols of the power politics of an unpopular Ottoman past, and therefore evoke unpopular memories for many groups in this region. The distant past, often examined through archaeology, is highly romanticized, and understood as a past of heroic ancestors, existing before the time of the Ottoman Empire. Much of the archaeological research in the Middle East and the Balkans is supposedly aimed at tracing the development of groups of peoples living today. However, the foundations for ethnic and national identities in this region are presented as lying mainly in an ancient past (e.g., Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Silberman 1989). As a result, the more recent past is deemed separate and disconnected from the present. In this process, geo-political boundaries and tensions of the present obscure the many common experiences of people living under the dominions of one empire. Those common experiences, which negate nationalistic calls for separations, more often than not influence a perception of the Ottoman past as a negative era for a place or people.
At its height in the mid-sixteenth century, the Ottoman empire stretched north from the Balkans and south to the Arabian peninsula, encompassing much of North Africa (see Figure 1.1). The empire brought a vast variety of people under its dominion, and was comprised of many different religious, linguistic and ethnic groups, which at dif-ferent times and places lived side by side with one another, all as Ottoman subjects. Many groups—organizedmainly around and administered through religious communities (known in the nineteenth century as millets)—enjoyed relative independence, and for centuries retained their own languages, and religious and cultural practices (e.g., Itzkowitz 1996:37-38; Rustow 1996:250). These groups, however, did not live in isolation of one another. Religious conversions occurred, and linguistic boundaries were often not nearly as clearly defined as they appear to be in modern nation-states.
However, throughout the nineteenth century, and especially after the fragmentation of the empire in the early twentieth century, groups began to understand their identities differently. Ethnic, linguistic, and religious affiliations were often collapsed, renegotiated, or redefined. In many cases, these identities were transformed into national identities organized around the modern nation-state. Regarded as a period of imperial rule, the Ottoman past became reconceptualized as a period of ‘detested alien domination’ (Brown 1996:5).
The creation of national identities were, for the most part, based on the idea of common roots of people living within these locales which were created in antiquity, and not in the recent past. The use of the distant archaeological past is therefore a powerful tool to build nationalism and/or ethnic identities, and can help secure these perceptions of the past, whether they are positive or negative. For much of the twentieth century, this simple observation helps to understand the lack of sustained archaeological research into the Ottoman centuries. And in each contemporary nation-state in which these archaeological sites can be found, the potential for an Ottoman archaeology is therefore firmly entrenched within the various meanings ascribed to the Ottoman past.
Although it is obvious that modern national borders do not necessarily delineate any past landscapes, in the case of the recent past this can not be stressed enough. This goal, however, relies on assumptions of primordialism. The primordial approach assumes present-day ethnic identities and geopolitical borders have radiated from the distant past. The antiquity of ethnicities and even nationalities are essentialized, grounded in peoplehood, and used as a given, objective fact to be assumed at the beginning of any analysis. This reductionism removes complexity from people’s identities and creates a fixed boundary or border between peoples. These divisions, created in the relatively recent past, are difficult to transcend, especially considering the unpopularity of the Ottoman past.
THE OTTOMAN LEGACY
United by a common past under Ottoman rule, all of the former Ottoman provinces can lay claim to an Ottoman legacy. However, few do. The one major exception is the Republic of Turkey; whether they want to or not, Turks have inherited the legacy of a past which is mostly unpopular, since Turkey is considered by many to be the successor state to the Empire (Brown 1996:5).
Indeed, Western scholars, commentators, and travelers alike often referred to the multireligious, multiethnic, and multilingual Ottoman Empire simply as ‘Turkey’ (Brown 1996:5). The Ottoman state was established by the late thirteenth century in Anatolia as the migrations of nomadic Turkic tribes from central Asia brought these people to western Asia Minor. But as it expanded, the Ottoman empire included many different groups of people. Some of them converted, and some were conscripted into the service of the state. The resulting mixture was a Muslim administrative and ruling elite—serving the state and Islam, and using the Ottoman language—which was a mix of Persian, Arabic and Turkish. These elites—and only these elites— are considered to be Ottomans (e.g., Itzkowitz 1996:31).
However there are many, often conflicting meanings for the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. The Republic of Turkey became a nationstate in 1923, and its formation was based largely on state ideologies which rejected the Ottoman past (Sterling 1993:2-3). Over 70 years later, many Turks do not wish to study an Ottoman past—through archaeology, history, or by any other means. For many, the Ottoman period symbolizes an unprogressive, stagnant period of Turkish history, put aside and forgotten after the formation of the Republic in 1923. Many Turks do not even feel that they can trace their roots back to the Ottomans. Many look to an Anatolian peasantry—and not an Ottoman elite culture—to find their heritage.
There are exceptions. Some Turks (and others) consider the “height” of the Ottoman period to be a glorious past of a great Turkish Empire (Brown 1996:5). Growing appreciation for the many historical monuments in Turkey (as well as in the former Ottoman provinces) by art and architectural historians in Turkey is a testimony to Turkish pride in some aspects of an Ottoman past (see for example Yenisehirlioglu 1989). Whether the Ottoman Empire is understood as a great Islamic Empire or a great Turkish Empire, this potentially has additional meanings for Turks participating in contemporary cultural and religious revivals in Turkey.
While people in the Republic of Turkey often have conflicting attitudes towards the Ottoman period, in another areas, perceptions of the Ottoman centuries are more resolute. In Israel, the Ottoman years are often described as inconsequential. Historically, Ottoman Palestine was often described by travelers as desolate and by local historians as suffering under the Turkish yoke. Many of these studies either state or imply a stasis for the four centuries of Ottoman rule, and a period of a decline from glorious ancient heights, to a period of no internal innovation. The Ottoman centuries are contrasted with the glories of Roman era construction and legendary stories of great kings and conquests. As the Holy Land for the great monotheistic religions, there are accounts which stretch through the Ottoman period which describe the expectations of travelers against the extant landscape (examples include Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, among many others; for the critique of the Orientalist literature, see Said 1979). Those views have structured notions for the ranking of this land’s history. The Ottoman period landscape is assumed to be empty. When the Ottoman centuries are considered within an historical light, the people of Ottoman Palestine are seen, first, as passive victims of the Ottoman Turks and, later victims of the West—or in the idiom of world-system theorists, victims of capitalist penetration.
Even in the few attempts to include the Ottoman period within the broad archaeological history for the region (e.g., Levy 1995), studies of the Ottoman period sit uncomfortably with the Bronze and Iron Ages. For several generations of archaeologists, the artifacts and architecture of the four century long Ottoman period in that region were often avoided, ignored, or bulldozed away. As the study of the distant past, archaeology in Israel supports the agenda of a Biblical Archaeology. Attempts to incorporate spatial and material information from the Ottoman period face disciplinary assumptions about the character of archaeology.
The disciplinary issues intersect with the nationalist appropriation of the Ottoman period landscape. Thus one of the most famous symbols of Jerusalem is the walls around the old city, especially the fortification known as the Tower of David. Neither the Tower of David nor those walls are Biblical in their construction. The walls were built in the mid-1500s by order of Stileyman the Magnificent. The most obvious evidence of the Ottoman past in Jerusalem is appropriated and made more ancient to satisfy the needs of the city’s present owners.
Many questions remain for archaeological research in Israel. For example, should the archaeology of this modern period keep the agenda of Biblical Archaeology? Can the study of a modern empire use the tools and analyzes from the deeper past?
In other places, such as the Balkans, open hostility to the memory of Ottoman rule is quite clear. The result has been an attempt to separate and isolate ‘indigenous’ (and therefore ancient) local traditions from foreign, Muslim, Ottoman influences (Todorova 1996:47). This requires ethnic separation and assumes ethnic characters are unchanging through time. A notion of stasis for the Ottoman centuries is a useful tool for that goal, and characterizes much of the historiography of the region. For example, in his work, Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe, Stoianovich (1994:20) argues for a permanence of a primordial Balkan culture which can be traced back to Neolithic times. The Ottoman centuries may have separated a Balkan past from the present, but both a Balkan past and present are assumed to be essentially the same.
A prominent example of this process is Bosnia. The 1990s war in the realm of the former Yugoslavia was predicated on ethnic primordialism. The notion of primordialism assumes that identity—and therefore associations with places—arefixed and eternal. This provided enough justification for Christian Serbian forces to remove the last lingering remnants of Ottoman rule. The destruction of the Mostar Bridge, the Saravejo Library, and other historical monuments was only one—albeit symbolic—omponent of a war against a multi-ethnic and dynamic past in that region. The targeting and massacre of Muslim populations in Bosnia during the war was an even more tragic one (e.g., Rusinow 1996; Sells 1996).
Complex and contradicting meanings of the Ottoman past are played out in different ways in each of the successor states to the Ottoman Empire. The material remains of the period intersect with local histories in similarly divergent manners; while goods and people circulated throughout the many provinces of the Ottoman Empire, archaeologists today are faced with different boundaries and obstacles presented by competing nation-states, or in consideration of ethnic conflicts and rivalries, different languages and different modes of scholarship. In this context, a call for archaeological investigations of the Ottoman period moves not only among theoretical concerns from anthropology and history, and methodological issues in archaeology, but also among ideological issues.
We want to challenge the priorities of archaeologists in the Middle East. In worst case scenarios, Ottoman period artifacts have been destroyed in the process of development, or other archaeological endeavors. Even when these samples are examined, however, remains from the Ottoman period are most often treated as afterthoughts, as the recent deposits on otherwise thoroughly examined _ sites.
A re-examination of the long term historical development of the Middle East can only be attempted by de-romanticizing the archaeological study of the past, by filling in the gap between the distant past and the present, and by examining the Ottoman past as one would examine other sites. However, does a call for archaeology of the Ottoman period mean that archaeologists should simply begin to survey and excavate Ottoman period sites, with little discussion of its relevance? Does the inclusion of the Ottoman period on its own necessarily make for better understandings of the past?
We should not assume that inclusion alone will in anyway challenge existing understandings of the Ottoman past; it is possible that an archaeology of the Ottoman period will do little more than simply extend the range of time periods which archaeologists study. Conducted in isolation from one another in a vast variety of contemporary nation-states, archaeologies of the Ottoman period may only help to fuel the arsenal of identity building which already exists. After all, archaeology can be used to support existing perceptions of the past as easily as it can challenge them. Descriptions of local histories can easily be explained as the fading legacies of glorious pasts characterizing classical antiquity.
The goals of archaeology in the region must be reconceptualized for an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire to be successful.
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF AN EMPIRE
Archaeologies of the Ottoman period do exist. The extant corpus of publications is a credit to scholars willing to excavate, analyze, and commit to publish about these materials despite the lack of a systematic framework for scholarly discussions. A growing number of studies have successfully shown the archaeological community the potential Ottoman components of archaeological sites can have for understanding long term developments of a region (see, for examples, Aslanapa et al. [1989] for the Iznik excavations; Foss [1976], [1979] for Sardis and Ephesus; Hayes, [1992] for Sarachane in Istanbul; Johns ef al., [1989] for Jordan; Preziosi [1989] for Crete; Toombs [1985] and Eakins [1993] for Tel el-Hesi). These studies have, each in their own way, introduced the material world of the Ottoman period to archaeology,
However, what can really become of an archaeology of the Ottoman period? Are we simply concerned with a chronological designation? We argue that this cannot be. First, and foremost, Ottoman archaeology is not simply the archaeology of the Ottoman period, but
an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire.
The difference between an Ottoman period archaeology and an Ottoman archaeology is subtle, but essential. The first definition implies an archaeology which examines people living during a specific time period. These studies are mostly exclusive and limited to areas defined by contemporary geo-political boundaries. This is not to suggest that local histories be ignored, nor that archaeologists solely use the empire as their unit of analysis. Instead, an archaeology of an empire provides crucial information about the local histones and social developments of the empire, in what Sinopoli (1994:169) calls the material consequences of an empire. An archaeology of the Ottoman empire is far more inclusive, since it provides a political economic context to our studies. In this way, we can begin to understand the workings of the empire as an integral part of the development of local histories, and the links between localities and an Ottoman imperial administration. But also, we can examine social action on the local level as a part of the development of the empire, to be compared and contrasted with other regions. An archaeology of the Ottoman Empire links local and imperial histories in dynamic relationships.
Reconceptualizing an Ottoman archaeology as an archaeology of an empire at first may seem daunting. However, only by visualizing Ottoman archaeology as an archaeology of an empire can we deal with many of the problems which archaeologists face in this field.
According to Sinopoli (1995:4), the challenges of conducting archaeologies of empires include issues of scale, internal variability, and the need for collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts between scholars in various fields. This, of course, also applies to the Ottoman case. In this case, archaeologies of local histones can be transformed from nationalistic rhetorics professing primordial origins, to an study of an empire and local variability. However, archaeologies disarticulated from the context of an Ottoman Empire can be integrated within the larger context of Middle Eastern and Ottoman studies by reconceptualizing the Ottoman Empire as a world empire, and to appreciate the global nature of this empire. In order to do this, we must turn to some recent debates in Ottoman studies.
OTTOMAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND GLOBAL ANALYSES
Much of the recent scholarship on the Ottoman Empire’s place in the world owes its ontology to Immanuel Wallerstein and a world systems approach. In a series of publications (Wallerstein 1974, 1980, 1989), Wallerstein unveiled the notion of spatial inequalities for conceptualizing this development of the modern world system. Wallerstein posits the development of the modern world system in the aftermath of the Columbian voyages, with the linking of the Old and New Worlds, and provides a framework for viewing historical events and social processes not as unique and separate but as globally integrated. The interactions are not simple; from the sixteenth century onward, these interactions are driven by a powerful and ruthless core in western Europe, acting against other regions. The peripheral regions are in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
One aspect of this socio-historical investigation into the modern world system produced an agenda for the study of the Ottoman Empire (Islamoglu and Keyder 1977). The study of the Ottoman Empire offered challenges for a global framework; the Ottoman Empire was its own world Empire, and thus cannot be conceptualized in the same way as other regions which were part of European colonization efforts. The Empire always maintained its political autonomy, even when economically it became, according to world systems theorists, a semiperipheral region.
Kasaba (1988) provides several definitions for the use of world systems theory in Ottoman studies. Within the world system, according to Kasaba (1988:6): The incorporation of the Ottoman Empire was achieved mainly through the mediation of trading activities that linked the sites of agricultural production in, especially, the Balkans and Western Anatolia with the process of production and/or household consumption elsewhere in the world economy, especially in core areas.
Incorporation, for the world system theorist, involves two stages. First, there must be links established between local production processes and the larger scaled capitalist world economy. Then, that region’s political structures must be integrated into ‘the interstate network of the world system’ (Kasaba 1988:4). Beginning in the mideighteenth century, but then escalating throughout the early twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was positioned as subordinate to the economic power of an industrial, Western European core. Provinces in the Balkans and Western Anatolia, in particular, became the suppliers of raw materials and cheap labor for the west. And while the empire began to loosen its political integrity during the nineteenth century—losing provinces to nationalistic movements and imperialism—the Empire continued to maintain its political independence.
The world system approach has allowed exploration of both the events and processes of the last several centuries in the region within a global framework (e.g., Marcus 1989; Masters 1988). In addition, the world systems approach provides two contributions for an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire. The first is an appreciation of the large scale political economic history of the empire. The second contribution, likewise, is its global approach, as it examines historical spatial inequalities, social interactions on a global scale, and examinations of economic power differentials and political economic geography. This is crucial for any understanding of the context of material events and processes for the region. Therefore, an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire which examines the region as a geo-political isolate would do disservice to understandings of the social processes of the Ottoman centuries. Some of the valuable components of this approach include its foci on spatial networks, the perception of global power relations, and the concern for large scale social processes which are illuminated.
However, one of the great strengths of using archaeology is its local level focus on small portions of past landscapes. While we hope that local regions and sites of the Ottoman past can be contextualized within their the global processes of change that mark the modern period, conceptualizing the Ottoman past on various scales of analysis should be a priority.
There are major critiques of a world systems theory (e.g., J. AbuLughod 1989; Asad 1987; Wolf 1982); for example, examining the Ottoman Empire only on the global level does not allow us to look at any internal dynamics involved in the processes of change. As Faroqhi (1984:8) notes,
Underlying much social history relating to the Ottoman Empire we find the assumption that the Ottoman social system changed little if at all in the course of the centuries, except where European intervention disturbed its functioning.
This, of course, is tied into the second critique of this approach—that world systems analyses is plagued by an implied Eurocentrism. World systems theory places interactions among regions in the center of social science analysis, and then primarily examines ‘the west’ and ‘the rest.’
We take these critiques seriously. While it is tempting to simply attribute economic transformations on a powerful global capitalist economy, it is also essential to look at how the expansion of capitalism interacted with individual groups or communities. Economic transformations did not affect all groups the same way. Studies should therefore also say something about real people or local communities, their actions, and how they interact with different political economies; while actions are connected to global processes and a larger world system, we should not subsume local histories in global processes, but instead try to examine anthropological subjects (Roseberry 1988).
Ultimately, the relationship and dialogue between a global economic structure and specific local developments may be better understood as ‘entanglements,’ through which collective and_ individual action led to the intertwining of local groups with global capitalism. Archaeologists are well suited to address some issues of changes, at the most local of levels. If successful, archaeologists can help bridge the gap between local changes and their larger political economic contexts.
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