“La Turquie, le Paradis préservé”. Still from the tourism advertisement archived by INA.
An archived advertisement from Turkey’s tourism office presents clear water, sunlit beaches and ancient ruins as parts of the same inviting landscape. Its promise is condensed into a short phrase: “heaven preserved”. The visitor is offered a country in which the past remains available for admiration alongside the comforts of a modern holiday.
The phrase does considerable work. It makes preservation appear to be an accomplished condition, something the traveller can expect to find on arrival. Ruins become evidence of a country’s historical wealth and attractive settings for leisure. Modern infrastructure helps make them accessible, while hospitality reassures visitors that this different world will welcome them.
I am interested in what this arrangement makes visible. The advertisement brings cultural heritage and natural beauty together in a landscape that seems to have been kept for the visitor. Its appeal depends on the ease with which these places can be encountered, enjoyed and photographed.
Preservation takes a different form in my research on archaeology and transformed landscapes in Turkey. Places become heritage through decisions about what to excavate, conserve, name and display. Those decisions give some histories a durable public form while leaving other relationships to the same places much harder to recognise.
A ruined building can therefore tell different stories. Presented as an ancient monument, it invites admiration for craftsmanship and the passage of time. Read alongside the history of its inhabitants, it may also raise questions about departure, dispossession and the loss of a community. Tourism’s image of a preserved landscape offers little room for these interruptions.
The advertisement interests me because of that gap. Its images join a visible past to a welcoming present, creating a smooth setting for the visitor’s arrival. My research asks how such settings were made and what happened to the people and histories that fall outside their boundaries.
These questions connect with Submerged, my book project on archaeological rescue and historical erasure in eastern Turkey. They also extend beyond dams to the coastal ruins and heritage landscapes through which Turkey has so often been introduced to foreign visitors.
