This book is part of an exciting scholarly trend highlighting diverse voices and perspectives on classical culture, both literary and material (e.g. Z. Bahrani et al. [edd.], Scramble for the Past. A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, 1753–1914 [2014]). U. sets out to demonstrate that the Ottomans were far more interested in classical heritage, including Homer and Troy, than has been recognised hitherto. She argues that European engagement with classical culture was no less of an appropriation than Ottoman Turkish engagements. This is a book written from the heart and tells a fresh story that needs to be told.
Though billed as a broader study, Schliemann and his dealings with the Ottoman authorities really emerge as the focus of the book. Chapter 1 describes this relationship in the 1870s, and Chapters 3 and 5 take up the story in the 1880s and beyond, briefly covering Dörpfeld's activities after Schliemann's death in 1890. Sandwiched between these chapters is a broad-brush account of the political and intellectual climate in the Ottoman empire in this period (Chapter 2) and a review of the presence of Homer in Ottoman Turkish literature (Chapter 4). The use of unpublished material from the Ottoman State Archives as well as the Imperial Museum Archives and Library in Istanbul is a particular strength, and indeed there would have been scope for further quotation and detailed analysis of the material.
U. is very effective in conveying the pluralist nature of Ottoman society that engaged with Classical culture. She outlines the kaleidoscopic configurations of language, script, religion, education and geographical origin (p. 99) that created a variety of communities and outlooks. Instead of seeing Greek literature that emerged from the Phanariote community in Istanbul as the precursor of the literature of the modern Greek independent state, she shows it as part of the rich multi-lingual production of the late Ottoman empire.
Schliemann's activities are embedded in a confident narrative of broad political and cultural developments. This is not only an important backdrop: it allows U. to argue that diplomatic pressures from Germany and Western diplomatic savoir faire more generally were crucial factors in the granting of excavation permits to Schliemann even after his credibility had been dented by the illegal removal of ‘Priam's treasure’. She interprets Ottoman obstruction of Schliemann's activities as protection of cultural patrimony (p. 117) and argues more broadly that the political and economic weakness of the empire rather than disinterest in classical heritage led to the mismanagement of excavations and in particular to the failure to keep antiquities in the Ottoman empire. This is a valuable corrective to traditional narratives of Schliemann saving classical heritage from Ottoman ‘barbarians’ (p. 86), though the terminology of ‘collaborators’ (e.g. p. 124) for those who helped Schliemann to take antiquities out of the Ottoman empire sits uncomfortably with the pluralist message of the book. But the insistence that the loss of Trojan antiquities was not due to a lack of interest in classical heritage seems to underlie U.’s failure to address the reasons for the apparent absence of Ottoman Turkish experts to conduct excavations themselves (Ihtifalci Mehmed Ziya [1866–1930], an ‘expert on antiquities’, is only mentioned at the very end of the book, p. 183). The assertion that it was impossible to implement the stricter antiquities legislation of 1884 (p. 132) without explanation also seems to skate over realities on the ground.
A more substantive criticism of the book is that it does not go deep enough in its pursuit of Ottoman perspectives. Though positioned as cultural history, the book is remarkably inarticulate about the cultural meanings of the antiquities and texts mentioned. For example, there is little detail about what antiquities were found in the excavations studied, and no discussion of how they might have been interpreted by Schliemann or indeed by Ottoman Turkish viewers. This is despite the fact that the division of antiquities between Schliemann and the Ottoman authorities features heavily in the book. Such in-depth analysis and interpretation would entail knowledge of the major trends and contentious issues of the discipline of archaeology at the time, and would give a far richer understanding of educated Ottoman perspectives on classical material culture. Similarly, the definition of ‘antiquities’ in the new legislation of 1884 is offered at p. 131 without discussion of what was included (for example corpses) and what was not, and without offering an assessment of Ottoman perceptions of what constituted an antiquity.
A lack of in-depth analysis also applies to the section on Ottoman literature related to Homer, which is little more than a descriptive list of texts. This section is both tantalising and useful for future researchers; but there is no substantive detailed analysis that would shed light on Ottoman approaches. The closest U. gets to this is to pinpoint mythology as an impediment to Ottoman Turkish interest in Homer (p. 149). I sense a reluctance to tread in this territory; but an exploration of what Homer and the gods might have looked like through Ottoman Turkish Muslim eyes in the nineteenth century would be a valuable broadening of the voices in Classical reception.
U. is not a Classicist; but as she herself acknowledges, archaeology at Troy stimulated Ottoman interest in Homer, and Ottoman Turkish perspectives on Homer are a key part of her enquiry (p. 138 n. 3). Therefore, an understanding of nineteenth-century Western Homeric scholarship, such as an emerging historicist approach, is not immaterial to the subject. The absence of F.A. Wolf, Prolegomena (1795), from the bibliography, and the mention only of M. Wood, P.H. Young, M.L. West and J. Latacz on the reception of Homer does not inspire confidence (p. 138 n. 3 and p. 162 n. 114).
More fundamentally, the book strikes me as an opportunity missed to tell a very different story to the traditional accounts of nineteenth-century Homeric archaeology. This is instantiated by the (perhaps surprising) conclusion that the impetus for Ottoman engagement both with antiquities and with Homer came from the West: ‘the Ottoman drive to claim classical civilization was largely a response to the European desire to appropriate antiquities from Ottoman lands’ (pp. 118–19), and that Ottoman interest in Homer was channelled through French perceptions of classical authors (p. 145). This is a top-down model that does not leave space for creative and locally-inflected – let alone independent – Ottoman Turkish discourses.
The traditional nature of this study is also instantiated in its exclusive focus on elites. In terms of gender, women appear a couple of times in the entire book (as mother and wife of male protagonists, p. 101 and p. 180); while there may be legitimate reasons for this focus, what is less justifiable is the failure to even address the issue of gender imbalance. Are we to believe that women did not feature at all as viewers of classical material culture in the Imperial Museum and as readers of Ottoman literature related to Homer? This matters in a variety of ways; not least because the exclusion of women from visual or literary classical heritage would have given that heritage a specific cultural inflection, for example, as a battleground between men. Similarly the perspectives of people of low social status do not feature, despite the importance of workers and overseers in the excavations at Hisarlık. There is no discussion of such perspectives although U. clearly has evidence at her fingertips (e.g. photographs of local workers at sites in the photograph albums of Sultan Abdülhamid II, p. 107, and Schliemann's comments on Ottoman Turkish workers, p. 115). The exploration of non-elite perspectives would have contributed to a more diverse and richer understanding of Ottoman engagements with Classical heritage (such as S. Quirke, Hidden Hands. Egyptian Workforce in Petrie Excavation Archives 1880–1924 [2010]). Despite these criticisms and missed opportunities, the book is to be welcomed as a valuable contribution to the diversity of voices responding to classical culture.
