New Publication: Rediscovering “Lost Cities” and the birth of urban archaeology
New publication by Olympia Bobou, Miriam Kühn and Rubina Raja in edited volume on resilience in perceptions and interpretations of abandoned cities.
The volume, edited by Martin Zimmermann and published by PeWe, is a collective publication featuring projects funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation as part of the ‘Lost Cities: Living with and Perceiving Abandoned Cities in Cultures around the World’ funding program. The contribution by Bobou, Kühn, and Raja with the title Rediscovering “Lost Cities” and the birth of urban archaeology. Urban Excavations in the Late Ottoman and early Mandate Middle East and their impact on developing archaeological practices is focusing on the use of early excavation archives of three cities (Samarra, Palmyra, and Gerasa) as sources that reveal the entrenchment of ideas about the past and the entanglement of politics and scholarship in the region of Western Asia, and as a paradigm for how this new research approach can develop pluralistic archaeological histories.
Citation:
Bobou, O., Kühn, M., & Raja, R. 2026. ‘Rediscovering “Lost Cities” and the birth of urban archaeology.Urban Excavations in the Late Ottoman and early Mandate Middle East and their impact on developing archaeological practices’, in M. Zimmermann (ed.), Abandoned Cities. Resilience in Perceptions and Interpretations (Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag), pp. 111-130.
Read more about the publication here.