Silk Road on the eve of 20th century

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This critical heritage project will explore how archaeology and politics intersected in, and informed, the works of two prominent Silk Road explorer-archaeologists at the turn of the 20th century, Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin. This original investigation will look beyond the established 'explorer-adventurer-conservationist' narratives to the complex factors of colonial knowledge-making - transnational influences, colonial authorities, scientific competition, and personal motivations. The project aims to reappraise our understanding of the colonial explorer by adopting a biographical methodology. It will build a crucial network of personal, official and public archival evidence to reveal long-term political impacts of archaeological work - including excavation of sites and curation of collections - within heritage studies. With an interdisciplinary approach, it will add perspective to our current understanding of critical heritage and conflict archaeology of the Silk Road and beyond.