Outline

The ruined ancient city scapes of Western Asia have attracted attention for as long as we can detect traveling. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the region saw an increase in travelers, for research, pleasure, exploitation, and religious reasons. As long as these sites have been visited by non-locals, their ruins and the soil upon which they were constructed, have also provided grounds for collections - collections which today are spread across the world. These cities, often in ruins, but not lost to their local settings, were, however, considered lost and in turn rediscovered by visitors from the West. They were considered exotic spaces that contained the physical remains of glorious civilizations connected to the western past and therefore deemed invaluable to Western travelers. Beginning in the 18th century, partly due to safer travel possibilities provided by the growing security - for Westerners - in the lands under Ottoman rule, there was a steady increase of Western and some non-Western travelers.

This conference aims to explore several strands of knowledge regarding travelers and collectors: firstly, travelers who engaged in collection and acquisitions. Secondly, the diverse material that antiquities became embedded in through the eclectic tastes and trade patterns utilized by these travelers, who often became collectors on various scales. Furthermore, the aim is to explore the entanglement of these actors and ‘lost cities’ and the ways in which they influenced and interacted with the European and Ottoman imaginaire. This necessarily includes antiquarian collectors who were primarily interested in the aesthetic and economic value that could be ‘mined’ from these city scapes. These accounts and collections interact with and need to be contextualized on smaller, local scales; a process through which we can uncover deeper and more nuanced ways of exploring the transfer of knowledge and material in this period. We take an ‘objects’ first approach in this conference and ask for engagement with the archaeological significance of these individuals’ collecting ‘habits’ and their impact on the landscapes from which they got the material and to which it was brought.

We seek to specifically include contributions that examine diverse travelers and collecting practices in the Greater Syria region in the Ottoman and Mandate periods, but which do so through research that goes beyond single-character accounts and narratives. Therefore we urge invited speakers to situate and nuance approaches that engage with the overarching patterns behind the single individuals or group travelers and engage with questions that speak to the influence on collections, public and private and the dispersal of cultural heritage from the region and its influence on the construction of the western world-view.

Speakers and discussants

• Anne Haslund (Mational Museum of Denmark)
• Eleanor Q. Neil (Aarhus University)
• Franziska Bloch (Museum für Islamische Kunst)
• Martin Gussone (Technische Universität Berlin, FG Historische Bauforschung)
• Miriam Kühn (Museum für Islamische Kunst)
• Nancy Highcock (Ashmolean Museum)
• Nicolas Amoroso (Domaine & Musée royal de Mariemont)
• Olympia Bobou (Aarhus University)
• Rory McInnes-Gibbons (Durham University)
• Rubina Raja (Aarhus University)
• Sarah Griswold (Oklahoma State University)
• Stefan Knost (University of Bamberg)
• Tine Bagh (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek)
• Vincent Engelhardt (Leiden University)
• Wendy Doyon (EUME)

Programme

Book of Abstracts (incl. programme)

Practical information for speakers

Travel

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.

Accommodation

Comfort Hotel Vesterbro
Vesterbrogade 23/29
1620 København
Website

Dinner and diet

A speakers’ dinner will be held 5 February, and we will cater for speakers during the conference. 

If you have any dietary restrictions (incl. allergies), please let Sine Saxkjær (saxkjaer@cas.au.dk) know no later than 18 January, so that the restaurant/caterers can be notified.

Photographs

We will take photographs during the conference, which we store and use for e.g. reporting purposes. If you do not want us to use photos in which you are depicted, please contact Julia Steding (j.steding@cas.au.dk).

Registration

If you wish to participate in the conference, please send an email to Julia Steding (j.steding@cas.au.d)

Note that lunch is only provided for speakers, but everyone is welcome to participate in the coffee breaks.Registration deadline: 1 February 2026.