The Politics of Provenance Research: Reassessing the Appropriation of Finds from the Samarra Excavations
By: Vincent Engelhardt and Jakob Wigand
References
- Bahrani, Zainab, Zeynep Çelik, and Edhem Eldem, eds. Scramble for the Past: A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire 1753–1914. Salt, 2011.
- Baran, Mustafa Kemal, Nicola Crüsemann, Christine Howald, and Martin Maischberger. “Wie kamen die Objekte ins Museum?” Antike Welt, 2025.
- Bernhardson, Magnus Thorkell. Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and National Building in Modern Iraq. University of Texas Press, 2005. DOI: 10.7560/709478
- Çelik, Zeynep. About Antiquities: Politics of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire. University of Texas Press, 2016. DOI: 10.7560/310199
- Engelhardt, Vincent. “From Private Libraries in Late Ottoman Palestine to ‘Abandoned Property’: Reconstructing the Dajānī Family Manuscript Collections in the National Library of Israel.” Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 10, no. 2 (2025): 395–456. DOI: 10.1353/mns.2025.a974089
- Erbay, Cüneyd, and Konrad Hirschler.
“Writing Middle Eastern Agency into the History of the Qubbat Al-Khazna: The Late Ottoman State and Manuscripts as Historical Artefacts.” In The Damascus Fragments: Towards a History of the Qubbat al-Khazna Corpus of Manuscripts and Documents, edited by Arianna D’Ottone Rambach, Konrad Hirschler, and Ronny Vollandt. Ergon-Verlag, 2020. DOI: 10.5771/9783956507564-151 - Haase, Claus-Peter.
“Das Museum für Islamische Kunst und seine Sammler. Frühe Begegnungen mit der islamischen Kunst – das Bild des Orients und das Fremde.” In Zum Lob der Sammler. Die Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin und ihre Sammler, edited by Andrea Bärnreuther and Peter-Klaus Schuster. Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, 2009. - Herzfeld, Ernst. Erster vorläufiger Bericht über die Ausgrabungen von Samarra. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1912.
- Herzfeld, Ernst. Der Wandschmuck der Bauten von Samarra und seine Ornamentik. Die Ausgrabungen von Samarra, 1. Forschungen zur Islamischen Kunst, II. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1923.
- Janke, Stefanie. “Von Samarra nach Berlin: Die Wege der Stuckdekorationen von der Kalifenresidenz in Samarra zur Islamischen Abteilung der Königlichen Museen in Berlin.” Museum für Islamische Kunst – Sammlungsgeschichte, 10 April 2024.
https://islamic-art.smb.museum/story/from-samarra-to-berlin - Janke, Stefanie. “»von allen Gattungen ein gutes Specimen«: Mechanismen der Translokation von Objekten der Samarra-Ausgrabungen 1911–1913 an die Spree.” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 65 (2025): 185–210. DOI: 10.57894/jbm.2024.1.114353
- Koçak, Alev. The Ottoman Empire and Archaeological Excavations: Ottoman Policy from 1840–1906, Foreign Archaeologists, and the Formation of the Ottoman Museum. The Isis Press, 2011.
- Konrad, Christoph B.
“Die Funde der Grabung Ernst Herzfelds 1911–1913 aus Sāmarrā.” In Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie 1, edited by Herta Hafenrichter, Anja Heidenreich, and Daniel Redlinger. Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2008. DOI: 10.29091/9783954909520/006 - Kröger, Jens.
“Chronik Der Ausgrabungen von Samarra 1911–1913. Eine kulturhistorische Studie zur Forschungs- und Förderungsgeschichte der islamischen Archäologie Im 20. Jahrhundert.” In Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie 4, edited by Julia Gonella, Rania Abdellatif, and Simone Struth. Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2014. DOI: 10.29091/9783954906024/017 - Kröger, Jens.
“Die Ausgrabungen in Samarra 1911–1913.” In Islamische Kunst in Berliner Sammlungen. 100 Jahre Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin, edited by Jens Kröger, and Desirée Heiden. Parthas Verlag, 2004. - Kröger, Jens.
“Ernst Herzfeld and Friedrich Sarre.” In Ernst Herzfeld and the Development of Near Eastern Studies 1900–1950, edited by Ann Gunter, and Stefan Hauser. Brill, 2005. DOI: 10.1163/9789047406587_006 - Kröger, Jens.
“Friedrich Sarre und die islamische Archäologie.” In Das große Spiel: Archäologie und Politik zur Zeit des Kolonialismus (1860–1940), edited by Charlotte Trümpler. DuMont, 2008. - Leisten, Thomas. Excavations of Samarra. Architecture. Final Report of the First Campaign 1910–1912. Vol. 1. Baghdader Forschungen 20. Philipp von Zabern, 2003.
- Lindsey, Rebecca M.
“Ernst Emil Herzfeld (1879–1948) in Samarra.” New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, May 2016.https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/herz/hd_herz.htm - Marchand, Suzanne L. German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race and Scholarship. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- Northedge, Alastair.
“Ernst Herzfeld, Samarra, and Islamic Archaeology.” In Ernst Herzfeld and the Development of Near Eastern Studies 1900–1950, edited by Ann Gunter, and Stefan Hauser. Brill, 2005. DOI: 10.1163/9789047406587_017 - Papatheodorou, Artemis.
“Ottoman Policy-Making in An Age of Reforms: Unearthing Ottoman Archaeology in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries.” PhD thesis, University of Oxford, 2017.https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:28bd820a-de71-4d38-a582-fa2c99ab8e6a - Penny, H. Glenn. In Humboldt’s Shadow: A Tragic History of German Ethnology. Princeton University Press, 2021. DOI: 10.23943/princeton/9780691211145.001.0001
- Phillip, Filiz Çakır.
“Ernst Herzfeld and the Excavations at Samarra.” In Scramble for the Past. A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire 1753–1914, edited by Zainab Bahrani, Zeynep Çelik, and Edhem Eldem. Salt, 2011. - Struth, Simone.
“Nur Dekor? Die abbasidischen Stuckarbeiten von Samarra. Vergleichende transregionale, material- und medienübergreifende Analyse.” PhD thesis, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 2024. - Terzi, Arzu.
“Samarra Excavations in Ottoman Bureaucracy.” In Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie 4, edited by Julia Gonella, Rania Abdellatif, and Simone Struth. Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2014. DOI: 10.29091/9783954906024/002 - Trümpler, Charlotte, ed. Das große Spiel: Archäologie und Politik zur Zeit des Kolonialismus (1860–1940). DuMont, 2010.
- Uslu, Günay.
“Homer, Troy and the Turks: Heritage and Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1870–1915.” PhD thesis, Amsterdam University, 2017. DOI: 10.1515/9789048532735 - Wigand, Jakob. “Unearthed, Smuggled and Decontextualized: Carl Schmidt and the Provenance of Hamburg’s Papyrus Bilinguis 1.” Philological Encounters 9, no. 3–4 (2024): 224–260. DOI: 10.1163/24519197-bja10055
- Willert, Sebastian. Kulturbesitz: Konflikte um archäologische Objekte in der deutsch-osmanischen Politik 1898–1918. Wallstein Verlag, 2024. DOI: 10.46500/83535500
- Willert, Sebastian. “The Invention of ‘National Antiquities’ in the Late Ottoman Empire. Archaeological Interrelations between Discourses of Appropriation, Preservation and Heritage Construction.” Diyâr 2 (2021). DOI: 10.5771/2625-9842-2021-2
- Yücel, İdris. “Between Science and Empire: The Diplomatic Struggle over Mesopotamian Antiquities in Lisbon (1914–1926).” Mediterranean Historical Review 31, no. 2 (2016): 165–180. DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2016.1234105
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bha-751 | Journal eISSN: 2047-6930
Language: English
Page range: 4 - 4
Submitted on: Nov 17, 2025
Accepted on: May 22, 2026
Published on: Aug 27, 2026
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
© 2026 Vincent Engelhardt, Jakob Wigand, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.