Journal of Literature and Humanities (Jun 2024)

Ethno-Assyrıologıcal Analogıes And Eclectıc Landscape From Glocal To Global

  • Serdar Özbilen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.55590/literatureandhumanities.1456463
Journal volume & issue
no. 72
pp. 57 – 72

Abstract

Read online

Archaeology as a discipline began in the 19th century following the main moves of globalization, such as the worldwide spread of capitalism and the imperialist moves of the colonial powers. The discipline's core intellectual goals were also global, such as understanding the vast spread of material culture and the evolution of human ancestors later in the century. In the 20th century, this trend grew even greater; however, with the emergence of numerous social actors towards the end of the 20th century, this situation changed dramatically for many reasons. Archaeology has shifted from a potentially limited, Western narrative of the past to a chaotic but pluralistic study of past material culture from a variety of contradictory perspectives. This is actually a major epistemological shift from a normative, uniform, and integrative narrative to a diversity of different interpretations. The idea of glocalization has been put forward in order to clearly reveal the 'heterogenizing' aspects of globalization. In this vein, it is quite common to find proposed issues related to the "rehumanization" of archaeology and global archaeology. In this article, in the light of a number of examples, the ways in which localities were 'produced' in the ancient Near East, especially in the light of Assyrian examples in the Upper Tigris Basin, and some of their reflections on the global are examined. Our goal is to understand some of the ideas that underpin these recommendations.

Keywords