EXPLORING A SHARED PAST IN THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST
Neil Silberman
This symposium will bring together scholars from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, and Lebanon to discuss some of the most pressing challenges facing archaeologists in this region in the coming decades. After more than a half-century of open warfare and intellectual fragmentation between the State of Israel and its neighbors, certain cultural boundaries are falling, even if full political normalization of relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority remains to be achieved. The formal peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and Jordan offer a legal basis for cooperation in tourism and archaeological administration. In addition the large-scale reconstruction of central Beirut offers a model for urban salvage archaeology-and public interpretation-in coming decades. This symposium will concentrate on several basic themes shared by scholars and professionals in all nations of the region: * Public Administration of Archaeology
* Archaeology and Education
* New Research Methodologies and Strategies
* Presenting the Past to the Public
* Museums and National Consciousness
The program will be divided into two parts: a morning session with the presentation of short, formal papers and an afternoon workshop in which themes brought up by the speakers can be discussed and debated at greater length.
papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Amiry “The protection of cultural heritage in Palestine: The Revitalization of Ramallah old town”
Badre “Urban Archaeology in Beirut: Excavations, Problems and Solutions”
Bikai “Case Studies in the Conservation and Presentation of Archaeological Sites”
Killebrew “Presenting the Past to the Public in Israel: Unrepresented Peoples of the Past”
Malkin “Israel’s identity: between ‘hinterland antiquity’ and ‘Mediterranean reality’”
Marx Steps Toward a Middle Eastern Archaeology: the Case of Israel
Najjar “Departments of Antiquities in the Middle East: New Challenges in the Next Century, Jordan as a Study Case”
Reich The problem of excavating tombs in a multi-religious city”