This research aims to evaluate the construction of Turkey and the “Oriental other” in Colonial Britain at the turn of the 20th century through a post-colonial theoretical perspective presented through the analysis of various data regarding the 'Aegean & Hittite Collections' gallery at the Public Museum Liverpool (now World Museum) from 1931 till the Blitz of June 1941. The sources include undocumented archives such as field notes, postcards and correspondence and what remains of the 'Garstang Hittite Collection' held at National Museums Liverpool (NML). A full investigation into how the collection was put together through curatorial and archaeological methods, what it consisted of, why these specific objects were chosen and what value were attributed by the collector and curators of the time along with gallery pals and visitors’’ guide book will allow for valid reconstruction and re-interpretation of the “Aegean & Hittite Gallery”. Furthermore I shall also explore the value of displaying a substantial collection of Hittite casts at a time when such objects were tools for Classical and Neo-Classical artistic education, understood by contemporary British society to be the pinnacle of artistic achievement. This Neo-Hittite imagery had no artistic value attributed to it and was displayed in a context of educational value for the lower social classes who could not perceive the ‘high’ arts involved in Classical Greek culture that had been adopted by aristocratic Britain as the paradigm for its own colonial identity; popularly reinforced nationally through various media, including exhibitions such as this, and also internationally through neo-Classical architectural design e.g. The Liverpool Acropolis. My thesis also relates the above premises with the life and work of Prof. John Garstang, his role within the Institute of Archaeology in Liverpool, his contribution to the “Aegean & Hittite Collections' gallery, his role as archaeological agent for private collectors, his work ethics and methodologies and his later role as establisher of British archaeological institutes in Jerusalem, Amman and Ankara. Academic reception of Hittite archaeology in Britain and the newly-formed nation-state of Turkey following the abolition of Ottoman rule in 1923 will also be considered especially regarding Garstang’s standing as a British archaeologist contributing to the Kemâlist Turkish capital city of Ankara in 1947. This research will place the Hittite Gallery’s contents and displays within their archaeological, cultural and intellectual contexts but also aims to explore the political use of contemporaneous Hittite archaeological negotiation both in Britain and Turkey at such a tumultuous time bound together through the work of Prof. John Garstang.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:617562 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Rutland, Francoise |
| Contributors | Greaves, Alan; Freeman, Phil |
| Publisher | University of Liverpool |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/18859/ |
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