Unsilencing the Archives
New Approaches to the History of Archaeological Labor in the Mandate Period Middle East
Edited by Melissa S. Cradic Edited by Helen Dixon Edited by Felicity Cobbing Edited by Aaron J. Brody Edited by Samuel D. Pfister Edited by Jeffrey R. Zorn
Hardback (Forthcoming)
(September 2026)
ISBN: 9780897571326
8.5 x 11 inches
Price: $100.00
Over the last two decades, western academia has begun to explore and come to terms with its part in the recent colonial past and its lingering effects in the present. Scholars investigating the regions of Southwest Asia and North Africa are no exception, but this is still a relatively new and uncomfortable field and topic for this part of the world, and there are still relatively few studies that explicitly wrestle with it. In recognition of this deficiency, and in an effort to begin to ameliorate it, the Badè Museum, the Palestine Exploration Fund and the Archaeological Research Facility (UC Berkeley) came together in 2021 to sponsor a virtual exhibit at the Badè Museum (“Unsilencing the Archives: The Laborers of the Tell en-Naṣbeh Excavations (1926-1935)”), created and curated by Dr. Melissa Cradic and Sam Pfister, along with a yearlong series of YouTube lectures on this topic (hosted at the Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley’s YouTube channel). This volume, emerging from the lecture series, is devoted to exploring the agency of many unnamed or underappreciated agents of archaeology within this colonial past. It serves as a kind of festschrift in honor of the often poorly documented, yet important, role(s) played by Middle Easterners during the period of the British Mandate. The chapters in this volume focus geographically on Palestine and the wider Middle East during the British Mandate period (roughly 1918–1948), with particular attention to sites, institutions, and individuals connected to archaeological work in Mandatory Palestine and neighboring regions such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran. Methodologically and thematically, the contributions emphasize “unsilencing” archival records by foregrounding marginalized actors—especially local laborers, Palestinian scholars, and regional intermediaries—while exploring themes such as knowledge networks, colonial power structures, archival practices, and the socio-economic dimensions of archaeology, including labor, naming, and antiquities circulation.
- Edited by Melissa S. Cradic
- Edited by Helen Dixon
- Edited by Felicity Cobbing
- Edited by Aaron J. Brody
- Edited by Samuel D. Pfister
- Edited by Jeffrey R. Zorn
Other Titles in this Series
Reflections of Empire
Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on the Pottery of the Ottoman Levant
Volume 64
City and Cemetery
Excavations at Kourion's Amathous Gate Cemetery, Cyprus. The Excavations of Danielle A. Parks Volume 1: Context, Analysis, and Conclusions
Volume 76
City and Cemetery
Excavations at Kourions Amathous Gate Cemetery, Cyprus. The Excavations of Danielle A. Parks Volume 2: Human Bone, Ecofacts, and Artifacts
Volume 77
The Nabataean Temple at Khirbet et-Tannur, Jordan, Volume 1
Architecture and Religion. Final Report on Nelson Glueck's 1937 Excavation
Volume 67
An Examination of the Stratigraphy and Neolithic-Iron Age Pottery from Tel Jezreel, Area A
Volume 73
The Nabataean Temple at Khirbet et-Tannur, Jordan, Volume 2
Cultic Offerings, Vessels, and Other Specialist Reports. Final Report on Nelson Glueck's 1937 Excavation
Volume 68
Crossroads and Boundaries
The Archaeology of Past and Present in the Malloura Valley, Cyprus
Volume 65
The Archaeology of the Ostraca House at Israelite Samaria
Epigraphic Discoveries in Complicated Contexts
Volume 70
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