| Date | 15-16 May 2025 | |
| Time | 9:00-17:30 | |
| Venue | Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen |
Over the last decade, archaeological archives have gained renewed attention in scholarship due to several factors, such as a heightened awareness of the importance of the decolonization of archaeology as a field also through historiographic research, the location of world heritage in conflict zones, as well as the rapidly growing climate crisis, which also impacts the tangible remains of the past. Archaeological notes and documentation, however, have always had the interest of scholars working in the periods after the time from which the material itself stems. Such “archival material”, usually not originally intended to become actual archives and often found in the shape of unorganized notes and scattered documentation spread across several nation states and held by a mix of private or public institutions, has long been known often to hold a plethora of knowledge. Knowledge which is not limited to solely the archaeology, the archaeological material or the archaeological process. Most often, however, such knowledge, in a broader sense, is not easily understood and unleashed. It will usually take experts with very particular interests, skills and knowledge – both pertaining to the archaeology and history of the material, the place(s), the people(s) as well as the historiographic contextualization of the material – in order to locate and communicate the content of such archives in a meaningful manner. Yet archive archaeology remains a field that is not well defined and such archival material often ends up orphaned between interested researchers and the places that have become the custodians of the material.
Through a set of contributions offered by experts within their various fields, this conference will focus on the advances made in the field over the last decades and the challenges that such archival material still leaves us with and which we struggle to find ways of dealing with in a uniform way, which in turn would allow for comparisons across archives and their materials. The conference will cover material from excavations undertaken in the 19th and 20th centuries in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. The conference will also address the issues of soft power involved in archive archaeology, a power which institutions holding often unprocessed materials have over such materials, which frequently have been entrusted to them by coincidence. How do we as an academic community move forward in a quest to make archival materials available to all interested and ensure that it is published and enters the scholarly debates, while respecting the content of the material as well as working ethically with it?
There is an immense potential for better understanding archaeological practice of the 19th and 20th centuries through such material, which also offers further openings into fields such as mapping developing research interests, and personal and political networks – competition and alignment – through researching and sometimes digitising such archival material. However, such information and its implications also put a particular responsibility on the researchers dealing with archival materials. The conference will therefore also seek to address the varieties of methodologies and considerations, which experts have applied and made in the course of their research.
TBC
For invited speakers we will cover travel (economy class only) and up to 3 nights of accommodation. Please book your own travel to Copenhagen, and we will reimburse you after your stay (please book your ticket directly through an airline and not via a travel search engine). We would appreciate it, if you could book sooner rather than later in order to get a reasonably priced flight.
You will receive a link to Aarhus University's travel reimbursement form. Please keep your receipts as you will be asked to upload documentation for your expenses.
NOTE: As soon as you have booked your flight, please forward your itinerary to Sine Saxkjær (saxkjaer@cas.au.dk), so that the hotel booking can be finalised.
Comfort Hotel Vesterbro
Vesterbrogade 23/29
1620 København
Website
A speakers’ dinner will be held 15 May, and we will of course cater for you during the conference.
If you have any dietary restrictions (incl. allergies), please let Sine Saxkjær (saxkjaer@cas.au.dk) know no later than 1 March, so that the restaurant/caterers can be notified.
