From antiquarianism to urban archaeology :|transformation of research on ‘Old’ Istanbul throughout the nineteenth century

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of a nineteenth-century intellectual network gathered around the agency of ‘old’ Constantinople as an object of antiquarian knowledge. The actors of the network are intellectuals from different backgrounds and institutions who have extensively studied different features of the long-term history of Constantinople with a particular focus on its pre-Ottoman (Byzantine) past and its physical remnants. The study deciphers its actors in relation to the intensity of their relationship with these remnants, which materialize as hubs of the network. When it comes to the study of the material past of the Byzantine layer of Constantinople, these hubs are mostly occupied by Greek-Orthodox intellectuals and institutions which published books and conducted research projects thanks to their close engagement with the urban antiquarian history of Constantinople, such as Patriarch Kōnstantios I (1770-1859), Skarlatos Byzantios (1797-1878), Alexander G. Paspatēs (1814-1891) and the Greek Literary Society of Constantinople (the Syllogos). ‘Old’ Constantinople in this dissertation is an object of knowledge in itself that creates links between various actors that were one way or another engaged with that object. The representation of this object is formed through the accumulation of knowledge on the historical urban material context and its emergence in different solid forms, such as books, journals, maps, illustrations and the like. Through close scrutiny of these representations, and the network that surround them, the thesis investigates the transformation of the knowledge on the historical material context of Constantinople from ‘urban antiquarianism’ to ‘urban archaeology throughout the nineteenth century.