From Pan-Arabism to Saddam Hussein's cult of personality
This article explores the nationalist ideologies in Iraq from the end of the Ottoman era to the fall of the Ba'ath regime in 2003, with emphasis on how Iraq's past, especially ancient Mesopotamia, was used by various Iraqi regimes to promote their political agendas. The article particularly focuses on the developments of Pan-Arabism in Iraq and the formation of an Iraqi nationalist ideology under the Republic and the Ba'ath regime. It also considers the cult of personality that developed around Saddam Hussein by selecting elements from the ancient past and projecting a whimsical image of Saddam Hussein as the latest manifestation of a great line of Mesopotamian leader-heroes. The article explores how archaeology and archaeological discoveries fit into these broader social, cultural, political, and ideological developments.
Military occupation of heritage sites: Orientalism, archaeology, and the Iraq war
This study examined if the construction of coalition military bases on Iraqi archaeological sites were driven by Orientalist biases during the 2003 Iraq War. The findings highlighted that a lack of pre-deployment training for troops was mainly responsible, this study has thus provided a series of recommendations to rectify this issue in the future.
The study of history in post‐revolutionary Iran: nostalgia, illusion, or historical awareness?
Khaqani's opening verse in his famous qa$ida of Ivan-i Mada'in has a recognizable resonance in the works of many Persian writers, poets, and historians of pre-modern times who tried to make sense of the events and upheavals of the past.1 For them 'ibrat, which in this context may loosely be translated as a grievous sense of historical consciousness, was the essence of the past.2 It made them see in the ruins of the once mighty ernpire, or the records of kings of bygone times, the never-ending cycle of the rise and fall of worldly powers. The Sassanian arch of the palace of Ctesiphon in the above verse was a powerful metaphor for the believer and the skeptic alike.3