Christina Luke's timely book on the struggles of cultural and natural heritage preservation and the challenges of conducting research-driven archaeological work also reveals a broader story of heritage, capitalism and world politics in the last century. It is set in the local context of a small area of western Turkey along the Gediz Valley. The valley is scattered with important archaeological sites such as Sardis, the capital of the Lydian Kingdom and a UNESCO World Heritage site, and Bintepe, a landscape covered with hundreds of artificial burial mounds and tumuli, which is a UNESCO list candidate. This volume reminds us that the practice of archaeological research is as much about the present as it is about understanding the past, a view shared by many archaeologists including the founder and long-time director of the Sardis excavations, George Hanfmann, and undoubtedly by Christina Luke herself.
The central theme of the book is international development and social engineering policies and their impact on cultural heritage, whether it is in upper Egypt in the 1960s or Aegean Turkey in the 2000s. Diligently discussed case studies specify how archaeological fieldwork and archaeological assets themselves are compromised by development, whether that development is infrastructure projects, mining and quarrying, simple mechanised agriculture or something as innocent and environmentally-friendly-sounding as organic olive growing in the Aegean region of western Turkey. Comprehensive field surveys of the ‘Archaeological Settlements of Turkey’ project, and satellite analyses of the ‘Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa’ project have demonstrated that agricultural activities are among the most common causes of destruction of archaeological remains in the Middle East.
Just like the archaeological sites themselves, the book has many layers, ranging from the development politics of the Cold War era to the current struggles to protect the cultural and natural heritage of the country from the large-scale mining and quarrying schemes of international corporations. Luke states that, in many cases, the failure to preserve cultural heritage is not intentional, yet preservation is never a priority because of extremely complex national and international policies. The book describes a web of multi-faceted relationships involving world leaders such as Presidents F.D. Roosevelt and J. F. Kennedy, national and international politicians, diplomats, archaeologists, corporate executives and local people. President Kennedy, for example, played a major role in providing funding to save the temples at Abu Simbel under the leadership of UNESCO.
Turkey's decision to ally itself to the USA, and preference for a capitalist rather than socialist economy after the Second World War, influenced its international and domestic politics and policies profoundly. These included industrial agriculture and irrigation in which the U.S. preference for individual sovereignty and the privatisation of land altered the destiny of the landscape in the Gediz Valley, and everything in (and under) it. Christina Luke's book examines this area of fertile land in Aegean Turkey, with its abundant remains of ancient civilisations, through the lenses of diplomatic history, development and heritage management in meticulous detail and with careful documentation. This small area of land yields important lessons.
As Luke points outs, the American economic assistance put into place to improve underdeveloped areas of the world following the Second World War had both economic and political goals. People in Turkey, especially older generations, are familiar with the Marshall plan—officially the European Recovery Plan passed in 1948 to rebuild Western European economies—and the subsequent decision to send Turkish troops to Korea in 1950. In return, Turkey was accepted into NATO in 1952. These measures, together with the desire for Americana created by the American army's PX (post exchange) stores and ‘the American bazaar’ shops, whose stock consisted of goods trickling out from various American facilities or aid packages, meant that the American presence affected the lives of the ordinary people. A lesser-known programme was the Tennessee Valley Authority Act (TVA), a development model used by the USA for major infrastructure projects such as dams and irrigation-works. It was a form of public and private partnership, which integrated significant social components into its major infrastructure programmes. From 1933, President Roosevelt's TVA initiative influenced important minds such as that of British biologist Sir Julian Sorrel Huxley who later became the Director General of UNESCO. Also influenced by the TVA were two former Turkish prime ministers, Adnan Menderes and Süleyman Demirel, who from 1950 onwards shaped the destiny of the country for nearly 40 years. Critical institutions of the coming decades such as the World Bank, the IMF and the UNDP were also affected by the TVA.
As well as being supported by meticulous archival research in Turkey and in the USA, and an extensive literature review that ranges from diplomatic history to heritage studies to agriculture, the book builds upon Christina Luke's own experiences and observations as an archaeologist working, and sometimes also living, in the environs of Manisa and the province of İzmir. Carefully chosen historical and contemporary images illustrate the points made in the text and contribute to the ease of reading. If I have one reservation, it is that the individual chapters, while excellent, cover very disparate fields. Although Luke unites these chapters in a clear and well-organised narrative, the whole does not present a readily cohesive body of work.
This book appears at a time when Turkey is being targeted by new gold mining schemes at Mount Ida (Kaz Dağları) in the North Aegean and the collection of water is beginning at the Ilısu Dam on the Tigris River in the east. Both schemes have met with strong public opposition resulting, in the case of the former, in the temporary halting of the project. In the latter case, years of opposition were to no avail despite the fact that the reservoir will flood hundreds of archaeological sites and numerous villages. This excellent and scholarly book sets a high standard in research and presentation. It will be of use and interest to all those interested in the cultural history of the Middle East.
