Chair: Hansjörg THALER, Italy
To shine a new light of vision and imagination on the debate of last year’s discussion of “lost cities” is the aim of this section.
Fantasy, one’s own attitude and significant agendas in our archaeological interpretations are welcome here – yet clearly distinct.
There are many archaeological cities of which the chronological (chronos vs uchronos) or geographical (topos vs utopos) allocations are perhaps more than hypothetical.There are doubts about the significance or irrelevance of some interpretations bygone.
Market requirements, more and more funding shortfalls, outsourcing of research in projects, administrative structures, and the wide dimension of sites are demanding high-technological analysis. Large scale excavations are hardly realizable, the revise of past excavations with new technology is getting more and more important. The technical progress of drones, laser-scanner and other technologies plays into the claims of prospection equipment. Currently one can see a huge increase of assignments of these gears. Big price-cuttings and more not expensive offerings of these technologies lead to a collection of bigger and bigger data, but as well to a broad variety of interpretations and shared meanings often with indistinct contours and ambiguous definitions.
The noun “hypothesis” derives from the Greek verb “hyopithemi” and means “to presume something”, in the meaning of fundament and beginning.
In this sense one can deliberately try to show interpretation models, a basis or beginning to start from. Therefore models, based on hypothesis of “lost cities” can now be a fundament of further studies. But one has to make clear on how much of the different prospection and technology as well as current and past archaeological excavations the hypothetical interpretation is based on. If clearly marked also utopia and imagination have their place.
This Session invites all people working with archaeological excavations and projects, who want to combine hypothetical interpretation with technology as well as philosophy, vision, imagination and utopia.