Archaeo-Oriental Studies: Filling A Gap in Knowledge and Research

Kamil Kuraszkiewicz and Zuzanna Augustyniak
University of Warsaw Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 00-927 Warsaw, Poland

Abstract

Obviously, the past of a culture has an impact on its current situation. Archaeo-Oriental Studies is a project aimed at understanding of thinking and behaviour in non-European societies intercultural dialogue with which – and between which – is difficult or even impossible: the reasons for this lie in tradition, preserved in signs and texts. The axis of the project is conceptualising power in ancient and contemporary non-European cultures. The ways of understanding power and its functions in selected African and Asian countries is studied in bi-directionally: up-down and down-up (authority – subjects and subjects – authority). The primary source are non-verbal signs (archaeological artifacts and other non-linguistic signs, both objects and human behaviour) and texts. The implementation of the project follows a two-track approach, in terms of the time of creation of the sources studied – ancient and contemporary. An interdisciplinary approach allows to understand the cultural determinants of the concept of power and its social expressions, as well as the continuity in certain forms of thought and culture. The implementation of both of these tasks is possible through collaborative interdisciplinary analysis of artefacts and texts. The research adopts a perspective which accounts for the rooting of contemporary power systems in cultural paradigms and explores the possibilities of applying the apparatus and theory of contemporary political science to the analysis of non-European cultures. Outstanding scholars at the University of Warsaw (representing as diverse fields of research as archeology, oriental studies, cognitive linguistics, history, art history, religious studies, sociology, political science, and non-verbal communication systems and neuroscience) work together with colleagues abroad, combining various methodologies along with field research supplemented by the use of new technologies.

Presentation