WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF ISLAMICATE ARCHAEOLOGY IN EUROPE?
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 14/01/2021

Over the past few decades, traditional narratives of European history and archaeology have been called into question, and the elegant evolutionary picture of European civilisation, that few would have challenged fifty years ago, is progressively being replaced by a more complex and nuanced approach to the past. Yet there remain significant gaps in the story. The presence of Muslim-ruled societies in the European continent is often seen as an uncomfortable parenthesis; an interruption of the ‘natural’ historical development of the regions in which it has occurred. Even if not couched in such explicitly evolutionary terms, the presence of Islamicate culture – including material culture – in Europe is often approached from a perspective that distinctly (but not necessary consciously, or explicitly) emphasises its ‘otherness’, turning the study of Islamicate archaeology into a niche academic field that rarely interacts with the mainstream. The time is ripe for a reassessment of the role played by Islamicate societies in European history, and archaeology must assume a leading part in this process. We recognise the diversity of Islamicate cultural heritage in Europe, not least in the way it is studied and its varying relationships (or perceived relationships) to contemporary societies, but there are significant points of intersection between the different archaeologies, not least that we face similar challenges of addressing difficult narratives. In this introductory paper, we ask: what is the future of Islamicate archaeology in Europe, and what should our role be in shaping this?


Author(s): Govantes Edwards, David (Universidad de Cordoba; Universidade Nova de Lisboa) - Duckworth, Chloe (Newcastle University)