Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 24 (2018) 467-532 brill.com/acss The Patrimonial Project of Dzhankent Constructing a National Symbol in the longue durée Irina Arzhantseva* Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences
[email protected] Svetlana Gorshenina** Collège de France, Chaire d’Histoire et cultures de l’Asie centrale préislamique
[email protected] Abstract The archaeological site of Dzhankent, in addition to its geographical position and the wealth of finds from there, occupies a special place for several other reasons, too. It was the first site in Central Asia to be excavated (1740-1741) and photographed (1858), and it has recently become one of the national symbols of independent Kazakhstan (since 1991). Over the period of more than 270 years during which it has been stud- ied, Dzhankent has been approached by generations of explorers, excavators and researchers from different theoretical positions and with different aims which have corresponded more or less to political or geopolitical programmes. The aim of this contribution is, on the one hand, to show how the various actors who worked at this site related to one another and to the various types of power (local, Tsarist, Soviet), and on the other hand, to analyze the changes in the theoretical approaches of these actors. At the same time, it is important to trace the transformation of Dzhankent, in its pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial contexts, into a memorial supposedly linked to imperial or national identities which, in turn, had been forged around a con- structed past. * Leninsky Prospekt 32A, 119991, Moscow.