oa Cities ‘Lost’ and ‘Found’: The Impact of Western Research on Ancient Sites in the Perception of their Urbanism

This special issue is concerned with how urban archaeology, political control, and colonialism were intertwined in Egypt and the Near East through specific case studies. By focusing on the work of Western scholars in the Near East and Egypt in the late Ottoman and the Mandate periods, we examine how their preferences (and biases) have shaped the field and have left persistent legacies that are still in need of untangling. What the articles share is a critical re-examination of archival sources (legacy data), both published and unpublished, which allows the authors to present nuanced narratives about the urban archaeology of the region, and to open up avenues for further research.