在大约三千年的时间里，乌克什城都曾是一座胡里安城市。事实上，它是历史上最早出现的城市之一，在公元前4000年前后便已经存在了。

在这座城市被废弃了三千年后，三十年前开始的考古发掘使它重新焕发了新生。这次重生将乌克什城这座古城映射到了叙利亚现代历史的舞台之上。

战争风云急剧加速了这个重生过程。正当考古学成为被狂热攻击的对象时，遗址附近的人们在考古发掘过程中感知到了一个可见的、与祖先共享的过去，激发了他们对本地历史文化新生的归属感。

因此，乌克什城遗址的考古工作呈现了考古学一个显而易见的新面孔，即深入公众意识的考古学，这一点并没有受到考古学深入、专业的学术解读的影响，而是藉此得到了加强。我们这个考古项目的故事就是这样的。

从莫赞到乌克什城

像叙利亚-美索不达米亚地区众多其它土丘一样，莫赞土丘是一个蕴含文化堆积的小山丘，从外观看没有明显的突出特征。始于1984年的发掘很快就揭露了一座庙宇遗存，早到公元前2400年前后。相对较早的年代具有特别的重要性，因为这个庙宇正位于土丘的顶部，高出地面25米左右。遗址中有一座纪念性的石台阶保存完好，在此台阶底部露出了一个更早的、形制相似的台阶。在发掘工作能够开展的最后一个季度，即2010年，我们开始揭露一座早至公元前3500年的建筑遗迹，几乎可确定该建筑就是那座晚期庙宇的早期雏形。我们期望获得更多的关于这座城市最早的几个层位的信息，所以当发掘重启的时，完成在那里的工作将是非常紧迫的任务。

当这些石阶证实了胡里安宗教的上升趋势时，在距离石阶梯基底部不远的一个更早的地层里，我们发现了一个较深的竖穴坑（shaft），基本上可以认为是一个胡里安阿比（abi），这是一个能通过某种媒介召唤阴间神明和灵魂以预测未来的地方。这是胡里安宗教独一无二的文化特点，和美索不达米亚南部地区形成鲜明的对比，在后者的文化中，任何联系阴间世界的可能性尝试都被认作是带有恐怖和厌恶色彩的。

一座规模巨大的皇家宫殿为我们提供了一批印章的压印图像，根据印章的内容我们了解到这座古城的名字以及国王、王后的名字。乌克什城的艺术造型非常令人印象深刻，因为具有非常突出的写实主义特征。遗址还发现有粘土和石头制作的圆雕和浮雕，特别是其中有一件描绘了一段吉尔伽美什（Gilgamesh）史诗中的场景。吉尔伽美什史诗也是胡里安世界的产物，我们从经过翻译的后世文献中知道了这一点。

这些发现令人印象深刻，通常情况下其纪念性意义和精美的艺术场景的呈现都是清晰易懂的，但它们为了解公元前三千甚至四千纪、迄今仍属未知的胡里安文明世界打开了一扇窗户，而这远远超出了业已建立的古叙利亚-美索不达米亚编年史的范畴。这个发掘项目的重要意义不仅限于一座古代城市的发现，也是最早阶段的城市生活在一支重要文明中的新发现，而这支文明显著区别于同时期南部可与之匹敌的苏美尔文明。令人愉悦的不仅是发现了一个著名谜题的新线索，而是发现了一个全新的谜题，是在此之前游离于我们的学术视野之外的全新历史信息。

从乌克什城到莫赞

该遗址的现代环境和六千年以前的环境并没有太大区别。莫赞是古代城市脚下的一个小村庄，还有几个村庄点缀于城址所在的土丘周围。距离遗址不远有一个小的农业中心，在大约半小时车程的距离有一座大城市，后者拥有一座机场和非常重要的油田。当地的民间习俗丰富多彩、充满活力，但是与遥远的过去没有什么相似之处。支离破碎的历史碎片对于目睹我们这群考古学家的人们有没有什么实际意义？这样的意义不单单基于我们这些外国人在他们眼中或多或少像是外星人，会不会也是基于他们对某些不会对其自身造成明显影响的事情感兴趣？如果说莫赞已经给予了我们乌克什城古城，那我们怎样才能使古城重新深入莫赞村落和邻近居民的公共意识之中呢？抑或着这样的尝试是值得吗？

我们得到了非常轰动的积极答案，甚至是毋庸置疑的答案。换言之，我们并没有着手开展一个公众考古项目，因为我们想为这种特殊的工作方式做一个案例。通过一系列的常识性实验我们达到了这样的目的，这些实验仅仅来自于我们渴望向公众分享在历年发掘中获得的新知和价值。试想一下，如果这些人类历史信息能使来自于其它大陆的人感到兴奋，那么那些和古人脚踏同一片土地的当地居民怎会不因此而兴奋呢？人们和他们脚下的土地以及地下遗存确实存在着一种秘密的亲缘关系。这是一个具有深刻而真实敏感性的问题：是的，我们确实要向他们提供一个古代乌克什城，因为我们在这地下发现了它的踪迹；但是，通过一种奇妙的方式，他们也得向我们提供一个乌克什城，因为他们生于斯长于斯，与古人脚踏同一片土地。在历史上演的地方存在着一种对历史的忠诚感。这种忠诚感对我们而言，可能是以新来的考古学家的身份学习的；但对于当地居民来讲，他们拥有在当地成长的经历，耳濡目染地吸收了这种历史忠诚感。他们是利益相关者，因为这片土地及其历史真真切切地与他们利害相关。

伴随着这部分故事开始的迫在眉睫的保护工作不仅仅只针对雄伟的纪念性建筑，而且包括我们揭示的这座城市细微繁复的各个方面。这是一个“破碎”的城市，因为长达三千年的使用期已经将各种遗迹和遗物扰乱到了更早的地层中，形成了十分复杂的层位堆积，这也是非常典型的古美索不达米亚遗址的特征。发掘工作开展之后，我着手将所得遗物都妥善地从一个季度保存到下一个季度。特别值得一提的是，我发明了一个简易的土坯墙保存系统，由当地常见的用铁棚和麻布板搭建的庇护屋组成。简单朴素的优势之一是搭建棚屋所需的原材料在当地既丰富又便宜，但另一个更重要的优势是这个保护系统不需要先进的技术来维护。在战争期间，这一点被证明是具有基础性优势的：持续性得以维持的最基本模型就是极度便捷。于此同时，这个保护系统的优势不仅仅是技艺性的（原料和技术都来自本地），而且也是视觉上的：人们能够知道他们在保护什么，因为他们工作所产生的效果能够被即时感知。无论如何，这个系统都发挥了较好的效用：土坯砖保存着像三十年前刚发掘出来时的那种良好状态（有一小部分例外，我们已经对其做了详细记录，并将其与其他土坯砖隔离开了）。

我们这套工作方式的另一个支柱是教育。同样地，在这里进行教育的方法是因地制宜的，因为我们面对的观众对教室环境并不怎么熟悉。如果说教育不仅仅是信息交流，而是对于价值的分享，那我们这里的情况就恰如其分。我们的听众并没有自主选择来听讲：从某种角度讲，我们是从精神上和实质上都入侵了他们的领土。“（苏格拉底）对话法”这个词我一直牢记于心。如果我从地下发掘出的是一组永恒的人类价值，那么我现在的听众就会像校园或者会议厅里的听众那样做好了分享这些价值的准备。从每周面向考古工地工人（某些季度人数会多于150）的“讲座”，到数量众多、门类繁复的各项指示标识，再到汇聚了必要的研究成果的展览，所有这一切都为构建一个我之前已经提到的双向分享机制做出了贡献。之所以说是双向的，是因为在授课过程中引出的问题确实使我对一些非常实质的事情获得了全新、深入的洞察，而我会出于为己所用的目的将这些事情拼合起来。

理论维度

这个故事中还有一个影响考古学核心层面的意义。当然，这个故事并非我们遗址所独有的，但在这里有它有一个特殊的发生环境，因为作为其发生背景的战争，已经发展到了最新阶段。撕裂是如此的尖锐，以至于它揭露了非常重要的终极问题，那就是：这一切究竟是为什么。在这个项目的实践环节之外，即除了从侵略性的毁灭中努力保护文化遗产之外，我们一直近乎矛盾地反复思考着理论问题。实际上，理论思考贯穿着我们所有的努力。没错，我们着急着去抢救属于一段破碎历史的散落碎片，这样做的原因是我们对这些碎片记录的科学价值具有与生俱来的使命感。但在此过程中我们发现了更深层次的忠诚。这里要说的是我们对一份事业的研究兴趣，在一开始的时候可以仅仅被看作是一个救急操作：我们可以开始思考社区考的古理论了。在此请允许我表达一些有关这个理论的、起到指针作用的突出要点，并将其与我们在叙利亚的经历联系起来。

定义——说起来有些矛盾，我们可能会讲，并没有什么像公众或社区考古之类的东西。实际上，我们也不能找到合适它们的反义词，如私人或个人考古。但是就考古学的本质而言，它是公众的，也涉及到居民社区。因此，我们不能简单地把“公众”或“社区考古”定义为与考古学不同的东西。如果一个考古项目在不与公众或社区相联系的情况下开展，那它也会因为自身惯性联系起来的：它传达了这样的感觉，那就是过去的东西是不相干的。 拿叙利亚例子来讲：如果一个项目没有（与公众）的对话和互动，那实际上就相当于对公众宣布盗掘遗址是没有问题的。过去曾有过公众考古，它非常清晰地传达了价值的不存在的观点。这就是人们曾听见的声音。

一个系统的方法——与上述论调相反，我们必须取代承认公众是考古发掘从一开始进行就不可或缺的一部分，因此我们的发掘策略必须将公众考虑进来。这并不是说要将考古发掘交到一个外行人手中，由他来安排考古学家的工作。取这种外来观点而代之的是，我们必须属于公众维度的敏感性植入考古学的核心。甚至在我们开始发掘之前，考古就是公开的；从我们踏上某一片土地开始，当地的现住居民在我们眼中的分量就和古代居民是一样的。我们在莫赞土丘的经历被这些原则鼓舞着：在发掘第一铲的时候我们就关心对遗址的保护，也同样关心与当地居民分享我们对遗址的认识，即便这些尚认识处于考古发掘和科学解释过程中的初级阶段。例如，我们既关心对墙的保护，也同样关心（对公众）解释墙体在理解遗址历史的过程中扮演着什么样的角色。

鼓励学识——我们确实既会分享确定的结论，也分享不确定的。没理由为了吸引公众而一直装作什么都懂的样子。我们必须避免任何试图将复杂的考古世界扁平化对待的趋势。我们也并不是要追求口号。想一想公众考古的不恰当使用吧：高声展示所谓的伊斯兰国对古代遗迹的肆意破坏是公众考古的一种形式；还有那些殖民主义者，他们使用更为精巧的手段，试图抹杀一个民族有形或者无形的遗产，试图消除当地人对其土地的忠诚感，尽管这样的做法少一些暴力色彩，但这种做法的毁灭性并不比前者少。在所有的这些案例中，甚至一点都没有考虑到学术观点：公众考古只是简单地被操纵于政治宣传的手中。在我们的项目中，有一个恰当的例子是（当地人）相信乌克什城曾是一个库尔德城市。正因如此，它也变成了当地库尔德社区的一个号召点。我们不得不纠正这样的认识，与此同时也会向他们强调，就这个问题而言，就好比这个城市曾是库尔德人的，或者阿拉伯人的，亦或者美国人的，它属于这些人共享的土地。

诠释学——认识到理解本身存在若干个不同的层次是非常重要的。就像一支管弦乐队能够将书面的交响乐谱（只有少数人能看懂）转化为普通大众能够听得见、听得懂的乐曲；也像是管弦乐队的指挥，他需要把控乐队的整体效果，而非聚焦于单个乐手或观众。相似地，对考古遗址的解释也应该有多个不同的层面。涉及其中一个团体是学术团体：对他们而言，考古遗址应该被当作一种出版物的形式看待，这其中，出版物“publication”和公众考古“public archaeology”的共鸣不仅限于一种词源学上的相似。说考古学是公众的也是因为它有责任在遗址上（向公众）展示发掘工作和地层复原的全过程：诠释学仅仅构建于语法的基础上，意思是所有的记录都应该被以有实际意义的方式获取，其中包括可视化记录。在莫赞，将对遗址保护的关心与向来访考古学家展示原始数据的目的相结合的做法，极大地促进了我们对究竟什么是诠释学的鉴别和认识。

社区——因此“社区考古学”这个概念并没有为考古学的一个特殊类型提出定义。实际上，它是聚焦于单个或多重目标的。在很多情况下，与考古学相关的不同“社区”有时候是互有冲突的。作为考古学家的我们偶尔也会身处冲突之中。除了乌克什城并非库尔德城市之这个例子外，某些情况下我们拿不到考古工地的施工许可，或者必须移除已经存在的现代墓葬。我们的工作方法是与这样的事实有内在联系的，即我们会支持不受欢迎的选择，但同时会仔细地解释相关的原因。这样做的效果是促成了一种对于新价值的发现感，所以当这些价值干涉了即时利益的前景时，也能够为人们所接受。最后带来的是一个真正的对话，在这个对话中，包括我们考古学家在内的各种社群能够带着的对土地和历史深度的终极忠诚感进行互动和沟通。

考古学和一个年轻的未来

战争并没有削弱我们在莫赞土丘所实行的公众或社区考古的基础，反而加强了我们的决心，为新的前进指明了方向。最能使人感兴趣的就是目睹这个迄今为止已经取得内在生命力的项目是如何超越那些新的和难以预料的艰难险阻的。相互间紧密关联的目标的实现，为（各社群）客观存在的距离搭建了桥梁。项目实施过程中产生的技术问题，是促使新的解决方案被发明的一个原因。这些新发明基于对交互替换的交流系统的共享，而这些交流系统会在不同的时间段对我们开放。我们的方法从一开始的特点就是简易朴素并且依赖当地资源，这也使得我们能够保持实用性的特色，为一种有效的操作模式打好基础。我们在工作中不做任何无意义的忙碌：在每一步，我们都能针对工作所需制定有针对性的解决方案。

在这里我只举一个成功互动的例子，这个互动与莫赞地区公众考古的一个重大问题有关。这个例子说明了我们能够在问题出现后的短短数周内成功解决问题：那就是在遗址附近建立生态考古公园的概念，其目标是保护遗址附近的景观。保护范围涉及二十多个村庄，但在当时的条件下不可能为这个概念的实施制定一个合理合法的执行框架。通过研究分析我们制定了预期目标，那就是保护古代乌克什城最大的都市区块的景观，反过来，这个区域在未来能够为当地居民发展旅游产业。然后我们决定在每个村落都开展一系列演讲，我们会向民众清楚地解释这个保护项目，也回答了民众提出的问题。为了增加更多人对这个潜在公园的归属感，我们组织了巴士旅游，去参观我们为周临城市的人群所制作的展览。我们还在每个村子都修建了小型图书馆，它们不仅会成为当地人，也会成为未来遗址公园游客的参观物。此外，我们还设立了奖学金，支持当地的青年男女到大学学习。当我说“我们”的时候，它的准确意思是，我们这些从远方而来的考古学家与当地的同事是如此的亲近，以至于大家都能十分和睦地为一个清楚的共同目标而携手努力。

为上海考古论坛选择的这个题目，“为一个年轻的未来而考古：乌克什城古城在叙利亚的新生”，意在呈现乌克什城项目所蕴含的丰富潜力的全部意义。我们经常会说起死亡城市、死亡语言和死亡文明。乌克什城可以说是占尽了这几个方面。但更确切地说，它不属它们中的任何一种。我们之所以说这个项目是新生命和新行动的跳板，不是因为它激发了一个幻想，而是因为从一个坚实的考古学角度讲，这个项目植根于生活在这片土地上的公众的意识之中，从遗址和公园的狭小范围眼神到整个叙利亚的广阔空间。事实的确是这样的，一个古老的胡里安城市焕发了它的叙利亚新生。古城的“年轻”未来植根于此：说它年轻是因为和我们一起工作的工人确实很年轻，但它的年轻更是因为其享有一种奋斗所带来的全部活力，这种奋斗就是对一种恪守共享观念的生活的追求。在战争的阴云下，同时也在与迷信武力的斗争中，作为理想的一个小支点，乌克什城项目就像个小光点一样出现了。公众考古在这里处于它最好的状态。

For some three millennia, Urkesh was a Hurrian city. It was, in fact, one of the earliest cities in history, having come into existence around 4000 B.C. It then lay abandoned for another three millennia until excavations began, three decades ago, to bring it back to life, a life that projected it onto the stage of modern Syrian history.

The winds of war have dramatically accelerated this process. The awareness of a visible shared past has served as a trampoline to give people near the site a new sense of belonging, precisely at a time when archaeology had become the target of perverse fanatic attacks. Thus the archaeology of Urkesh presents a new face of Archaeology writ large: an archaeology that is embedded in public awareness, not in spite of, but rather in virtue of precisely its deeper scholarly claims. Such is the story of our project.

From Mozan to Urkesh

Tell Mozan was a tell like many others in Syro-Mesopotamia: a cultural hill, with no visible distinguishing features. Excavations started in 1984 and brought immediately to light the rests of a Temple dated to about 2400 B.C: the early date was especially significant because the Temple stood at the very top of the tell, some 25 meters above the plain level. A monumental stone staircase was particularly well preserved, and showed at the bottom the remains of a much earlier similar stairway, and during the last season when excavations were possible, in 2010, we began to uncover the traces of a structure dating to 3500 B.C. that was almost certainly the much earlier antecedent of the later Temple. It will be an urgent task when excavations resume, to complete the work here, in the expectation to of obtaining  much more information on these most ancient levels of the city.

While the staircase gave evidence of an ascensional trend in Hurrian religion, at a lower level not far from the base of the staircase we found a deep shaft that could safely be interpreted as a Hurrian abi, a place where the deities and spirits of the Netherworld could be summoned to foretell the future by means of a medium. This was an exclusive trait of Hurrian religion, in marked contrast with southern Mesopotamia, where any attempt at possibly contacting the world below were seen with fear and abhorrence.

A large royal palace gave us a quantity of inscribed seal impressions, from which we learned the name of the ancient city and those of its kings and queens. The figurative art of Urkesh is particularly impressive because  of the great realism with which it renders its subjects. There are also figures in the round and in relief, in clay and stone: one, in particular, describes an episode of the epic of Gilgamesh, which had come to be at home also in the Hurrian world, where we know from later texts that it had also been translated.

These were impressive results, generally transparent in their monumentality and fine artistic sense, but especially because they opened a window onto the heretofore unknown world of Hurrian civilization in the third and possibly even the fourth millennium, something that was well beyond the established horizons of the historiography about ancient Syro-Mesopotamia. It was not just the discovery of an ancient city. It was also the discovery of the earliest stages of urban life as represented by a civilization quite distinct from that of its main southern counterpart, the Sumerians. There was the exhilarating sense of uncovering not just new pieces of a well known puzzle, but in fact a whole new puzzle, new layers of history that had escaped our scholarly attention until then.

From Urkesh to Mozan

The modern setting of the site is not much different from what it was six millennia ago. Mozan is a small village at the foot  of the ancient city;  several other villages dot the landscape around the tell. Nearby there is a small agricultural center, and at about half an hour distance a larger city, with an airport and important oil fields in its general area. Folk traditions are rich and animated, but there is no familiarity with a past so remote in time. Could these pieces of a broken past come to have any real meaning for the people who saw us, the archaeologists, as more or less aliens, not only because foreigners, but also because interested in something of no apparent consequence to any of them? If Mozan had given us ancient Urkesh, how could we re-embed Urkesh in the public awareness of the Mozan villagers and their neighbors? Or – was it even worth trying?

We came to a resoundingly positive answer without ever really even posing the question. In other words, we did not embark on a project of public archaeology because we wanted to make a case for this particular approach. We came to it through a series of common sense experiments that simply arose from our desire to share the values we were gradually coming across, over the years. If it was exciting in terms of human history for people of other continents, how could it not be exciting for the people who have their feet today solidly on the same ground where the ancients trod? There is indeed a secret kinship between people and their soil and subsoil. It is not just a poetic metaphor. It is a matter of deep and real sensitivities: yes, we had to offer them ancient Urkesh as we found its traces in the ground, but, in some mysterious way, they also had to offer us Urkesh as they lived it by treading that same ground. There is a loyalty of history to the territory where it has unfolded, a loyalty which we may learn as archaeological newcomers, but which the local inhabitants have absorbed by growing up there. They are stakeholders because they truly have a stake in the territory and its history.

This part of our story began with the urge to preserve not only the monuments,  but also the more minute and more modest aspects of the city we were bringing back to light. It was a “broken” city because the three millennia occupation had brought about all sorts of intrusions into earlier levels, producing a most complex stratigraphy so typical of Mesopotamian sites. I set out, then, to conserve from one season to the next everything that we had been excavating, and in particular I developed a simple system of protection for the mud brick walls, consisting of localized shelters made of iron trellises and burlap panels. One advantage of simplicity was that local resources were plentiful and inexpensive, but another was that the system could be maintained with no need of advanced technologies. This proved to be fundamental during the war: it was, at its simplest, the most basic model of sustainability. And this not only technically (resources and skills were entirely local). But also perceptually: people could identify with what they were conserving because the result of their work was immediately perceivable. They could also suggest improvements that fit perfectly well with their skills and sensitivities. In any case, it worked: mud brick walls are in as good a state of preservation today as they were when first excavated some thirty years ago (with a few exceptions, which we have well documented and for which we have isolated the causes).

The other pillar of our approach was education. And here, too, the method developed organically, for we were not facing an audience similar to that of a classroom environment. If education is never just communication of information, but rather a sharing of values, it was all more so in our case, when our audience had not chosen to come to us: we were in some ways invading their territory, mentally as well as physically. Maieutics was the word that kept coming to mind. If what I perceived in the ground was a set of abiding human values, then my current audience was as ready to share them as any other on a campus or a conference hall. I only had to be loyal to my perception of values. From weekly “lectures” to our workmen (in some seasons numbering more than one hundred and fifty), to extensive and diversified signage (with the equivalent of more than two hundred pages scattered throughout the site), to exhibits that brought together the essential results of the our research – all of this contributed to establishing a two way street for the sharing I mentioned. Two way: because indeed the questioning that was being elicited gave me ever fresh insights into the very substance of the narrative I was piecing together for my own use.

The Theoretical Dimension

There is, in this story, a deeper significance that affects archaeology at the core. The story is certainly not unique to our site, but it finds here a special setting because of the context of war in which it has developed in its latest stage. The laceration has been so sharp that it has laid bare more dramatically the ultimate question as to the why of it all. Beyond the very practical aspects of a project struggling to preserve cultural heritage in the midst of aggressive destruction, we have been led to reflect, almost paradoxically, on the theoretical dimension that in fact pervades the effort. Yes, we were rushing to salvage the scattered pieces of an already broken past, doing so because of an innate sense of the value of these documents. But in so doing we discovered deeper loyalties and allegiances. Here lies the research interest of an enterprise that could, at first blush, be viewed as merely a rescue operation: we can begin to think of a theory of community archaeology. Let me articulate a few salient points that may serve as pointers, relating them to our experience in Syria.

Definition. – Paradoxically, we may say that there is no such thing as public or community archaeology. We cannot in fact properly see it in contrast with something like private or individual archaeology. By its very nature, archaeology is public and it involves the community. Hence we cannot define “public” or “community archaeology” as something different from archaeology tout court. If a project does not undertake to relate to the public and to the community, it relates anyway by its very inertia: it conveys the sense that the past is irrelevant. – Take the Syrian example: where no conservation  and interpretation program was in place, this amounted in effect to a public statement, one that said that it was OK to loot. There was public archaeology, one that communicated very clearly the non-existence of values. And this was the voice that was heard.

A systemic approach. –  We must instead acknowledge that the public dimension of archaeology is part and parcel of the effort from the very first moment of excavation, that it must therefore be inscribed in the strategy of excavation. It is not a matter of turning it over, at best, to an outside professional who will choreograph what the archaeologists have exposed. Instead of such an extrinsic view, we must embed the sensitivity for the public dimension at the very core of archaeology. Archaeology is public before we even start to dig: as soon as we set foot on a given territory, the inhabitants of that territory are as much part of our horizon as those who inhabited  this territory ages ago. – Our experience at Tell Mozan was very much inspired by these principles: we cared for conservation from the very first marks that our tools made in the ground, we cared for sharing our understanding even as this understanding was still in the making during the gradual progress of excavation and interpretation. Hence the concern, for instance, to preserve sections as well as walls, and to explain the fundamental role they play towards the understanding of the site’s history.

Upholding scholarship. – We were sharing, indeed, uncertainties as well as firm conclusions. There is no reason, in an effort to engage the public, to pretend full clarity on all issues and at all times. We must indeed eschew any tendency towards flattening the complexity of the archaeological universe. We are not looking for slogans and sound bites. Think of the perverse  uses of public archaeology: the loud display of wanton destruction by the so-called Islamic State was a form of public archaeology; but so was, and is, the more subtle colonialist attempt to eradicate the tangible and intangible heritage of a people, to eradicate their loyalty to their territory,  through less violent, but no less destructive means. In all of these cases there is not even a hint of consideration for scholarly arguments: public archaeology is simply placed in the hands of political propaganda. –  A case in point from our project was the belief that Urkesh was an ancient Kurdish city. As such it had become a rallying point for local Kurdish communities. We had to disabuse them of this belief, while at the same time stressing that it was as if the city had been Kurdish, or Arabic, or Armenian, for that matter. It belonged to their shared territory.

Hermeneutics. – It is important to recognize that there are several ranges of understanding. Just as an orchestra translates the written score of a symphony (understandable to few) into the audible perception for the broad public, and just as the orchestra conductor has a different ear for the whole ensemble than the individual players or the audience, in a similar way the hermeneutic effort at an archaeological site ranges through several different levels. One of the communities involved is the scholarly community: the site should be seen as a form of publication for them as well, where “publication” echoes the notion of “public” archaeology in more than an etymological sense. Archaeology is public also because it has the duty to present at the site itself the full process of excavation and stratigraphic recovery: hermeneutics builds only on grammar, meaning that the full documentary dimension, including the visible record at the site, ought to be made meaningfully available. – In Mozan, blending the concern for conservation with an intent to show the original data to visiting archaeologists contributed greatly to our appreciation of what hermeneutics ultimately is.

Communities. – Thus the notion of “community archaeology” does not propose a definition of a special type of archaeology. It focuses rather on a target, or, in fact, on a multiplicity of targets. There are in fact, in most cases, different “communities” that archaeology addresses, at times even in conflict with each other. – We, the archaeologists, were the ones who were at times in conflict. Besides the notion of Urkesh not being an ancient Kurdish city, there were the cases where we could not recommend approval of building permits, or had to remove existing modern cemeteries. Our approach was coherent in that we upheld unpopular choices but carefully explaining at the same time the reasons. What developed was a sense of discovery of new values, which could be accepted even when they interfered with the prospect of immediate gain. What came into existence was a real dialog where the various communities, including our own as archaeologists, could interact with an ultimate sense of loyalty to the territory and the depth of its history.

Archaeology for a Young Future

Instead of sapping away the foundations of this kind of public or community archaeology as we carried it out at Tell Mozan, the war has strengthened our resolve and pointed in the direction of new developments. It was most interesting to see how the project had by now achieved an inner life of its own that transcended the new and unexpected obstacles. The physical distance was bridged by a firm realization of the even greater closeness of intents. The technical problems that emerged in relation to the implementation of our program were a cause of inventive new solutions that emerged from the sharing of alternatives over one or the other of the communication systems that were open to us from one time to the next. The simplicity and reliance on local resources that had characterized our approach since the beginning allowed us to remain realistically grounded in an effective operational mode. No sense of fatigue or impotence ever developed: at each step of the way, there was the sense we cold together work towards a solution.

I will adduce here only one example of a successful interaction regarding a larger issue of public archaeology at Mozan, one that presented problems that we were able to work out in these very last few weeks: the notion of an eco-archaeological Park around the site. The goal is to protect the landscape around the site over a large area that includes more than twenty villages, but at the moment it is impossible to set up the proper legal framework for the effective implementation of the idea. In studying how to obtain our intended goal of protecting the landscape of what would have been the larger metropolitan area of Urkesh in antiquity, which in turn would make it possible to develop a niche tourism in the future, we have decided to promote a series of lectures in each of the villages, where the project would be explained and questions answered; we would also help enhance the sense of belonging to the potential Park area by organizing bus tours to the exhibits that we plan for the neighboring city; establishing small libraries in each of the villages, which will eventually become points of reference not only for the local residents but also for visitors to the Park; and creating a fund to offer scholarships to young men and women from the villages to attend the University. When I say “we” I mean precisely that we the archaeologists from afar are so closely interacting with our colleagues on the ground that we know we are acting in full concord in the service of a clearly stated common goal.

The title chosen for the Shanghai Archaeological Forum, “Archaeology for a Young Future,” intends to convey the full sense of the rich potential that is enshrined in the Urkesh project. We speak at times of dead cities, dead languages, dead civilizations. Urkesh is all of this. And yet it is, more truly, none of this. It is a springboard of life and action not because it inspires a fantasy, but precisely because it is rooted, in a solid archaeological perspective, in the awareness of the people who live in its territory, from the narrow confines of the site and the Park to the wider ones of Syria. It is, truly, an ancient Hurrian city that lives a new Syrian life. Here are the roots of its ” young” future: it is young because so many of our co-workers are indeed young in age. But it is, even more importantly, young because it has all the vigor of an endeavor that lives a life of commitment to a shared ideal. Under the dark clouds of war, and against the violence of fanaticism, the Urkesh project has emerged as a small point of light, as a small fulcrum of ideals. Public community archaeology at its best.