Protecting Antiquities: Ottoman Legal, Museological, and Literary Responses to the Neglect, Looting and Preservation of Ancient Works and Fine Arts

This thesis critically reassesses the protection of antiquities in the late Ottoman Empire by shifting focus from the dominant emphasis on classical Graeco-Roman antiquities to the legal, institutional, and discursive protection of Islamic antiquities. It challenges the prevailing assumption that Islamic-era monuments and objects were unprotected prior to the twentieth century, arguing instead that their preservation was embedded in broader strategies of sovereignty, reform, and identity. Drawing on Ottoman Turkish legal texts, illustrated periodicals, and travelogues, it demonstrates how internal political fragmentation, rising nationalisms, and the colonial ambitions of foreign powers – particularly those exporting antiquities to enrich museums abroad – shaped the empire’s responses. Several controversial exports are considered, from the excavations of John Turtle Wood in Ephesus and Luigi Palma di Cesnola in Cyprus – who targeted classical sites yet challenged Ottoman authority and Islamic spaces – to specific Islamic sites, including Qasr Mshatta and the Beyhekim Mosque. Structured chronologically across the Tanzimat (1839–1876), Hamidian (1876–1909), and Young Turk (1909–1918) periods, the thesis re-evaluates key legislation – including the Penal Code and Land Law of 1858, and the Antiquities Laws of 1869, 1874, 1884, and 1906 – alongside legal exchanges with foreign powers. Central to many of these efforts was the Imperial Museum in Constantinople, whose directors – Philipp Anton Dethier, Osman Hamdi, and Halil Edhem, each serving during the respective periods discussed in this thesis – expanded its remit with the Ministry of Education. The museum’s provincial branches, located on the grounds of high schools and supported by the 1889 Internal Affairs of the Imperial Museum Law, further embedded preservation within pedagogical and surveillance structures. Particular attention is given to Halil Edhem’s articles in the Ottoman press and wider intellectual interventions that sought to educate the public on the looting, neglect, and need for protection of the empire’s “national” Islamic antiquities, even after the 1912 Protection of Monuments Law came into effect. The thesis concludes by focusing on the Regulations of the Islamic Foundations Museum of 1914 and the gradual shift in national discourses from Ottomanism to Turkism.