Incoming Fellow Dr Ozan Hüseyin (SOAS, UoL) will focus on publishing key findings from his research on how the Ottoman Empire responded to the growing demands for antiquities among foreign museums and the international art market.
Ozan is a British legal, socio-political, and art historian specialising in antiquities laws, museology and the art market of the late Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. He received his PhD from SOAS, University of London, with a thesis entitled “Protecting Antiquities: Ottoman Legal, Museological, and Literary Responses to the Neglect, Looting and Preservation of Ancient Works and Fine Arts,” in which he critically reassessed 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. In doing so, Ozan challenged 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.
During his fellowship, he will build on this research by tracing controversial antiquities exports and reassessing established accounts of their collection and removal. Combining Ottoman legal sources (especially the Antiquities Laws of 1869, 1874, 1884 and 1906; the Internal Regulations of the Imperial Museum of 1889; the Protection of Monuments Law of 1912; and the Regulations of the Islamic Foundations Museum of 1914) with Ottoman periodicals, catalogues, photographs and paintings, he will examine the different ways in which the Ottoman Empire responded to growing demands from foreign museums and the international art market. This research will lead to several articles. One will reassess the protection of Islamic antiquities before the Antiquities Law of 1906, challenging the widespread assumption that this legislation first provided legal protection. This will also raise broader questions about protecting material beyond Graeco-Roman antiquities, including post-Classical, Christian, and Jewish works. Another article will examine how the Imperial Museum director Halil Edhem responded to the continued removal of antiquities by collecting for the Imperial Museum in Constantinople and its provincial branches. In doing so, it will shed further light on Ottoman museological responses to the international competition for antiquities.
This postdoctoral fellowship was first established in 2024 as a joint initiative between the BIAA and Bilkent University to support a UK Higher Education Institution-affiliated postdoctoral scholar to undertake 12 months’ research on any topic within the arts, humanities, and social sciences that aligns with the BIAA’s Strategic Research Initiatives and focuses on Türkiye and/or the Black Sea region. The fellowship is based at the BIAA’s research centre in Ankara and the relevant department within Bilkent University.