Unearthed and Dispersed: Reconstructing Antioch's Heritage through a Postcolonial Reading of the 1930s Excavations and the Recent Earthquakes

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Numerous objects from Antioch and its vicinity are held in North American museums --many neglected, uncatalogued, and left unexamined since their arrival. This situation presents a major challenge for all of us involved in researching the heritage of Antioch and its vicinity. Moreover, said circumstances prompt critical questions: How can Western-led archaeological missions under colonial mandates be analyzed through a postcolonial lens? What epistemic insights can be learned from the incredibly fragmented dispersal of Antioch's heritage? My lecture focuses on the "House of the Boat of Psyches," excavated in Daphne in 1934, as one case study of my dissertation. I will discuss the knowledge-generating potential of these mosaics, focusing on how their dispersal embodies shifting power relations and colonial epistemologies that continue to shape contemporary museum practices. While intersections between archaeology, postcolonial theory, and social theory have been explored for decades, Antioch studies remain underdeveloped as far as the interdisciplinarity of our field is concerned. Therefore, my talk proposes a transdisciplinary approach to discuss new perspectives on Antakya's heritage and the contemporary realities of its people. Ezgi Erol is an artist, curator, and researcher with a background in sociology and fine arts. She is a PhD researcher in Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her dissertation explores the intersections of Western aesthetics, intersectionality, and epistemic violence as reflected in the biographies of people and objects. Since 2022, Ezgi has been a University Assistant in the Department of Transcultural Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she teaches artistic research, as well as decolonial and feminist research methodologies.

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