Abstract
Syria became a sovereign nation in 1946 after a long period of colonization by the Ottoman Empire and France. Europe carved up the former Ottoman Empire by imposing new and relatively arbitrary national borders (through the Sykes–Picot agreement crafted by France) that largely ignored the region’s myriad ethnic groups and complex political landscape. This had a lasting legacy. Modern Syria encompasses members of diverse political, ethnic, and religious affiliations who share common ground, but not the same cultural background.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the members of the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums for graciously answering my many questions. I also thank the Tell es-Sweyhat Archaeological Project, which provided me with my first introduction to Syria and continued research opportunities. Readers of this chapter offered invaluable constructive comments, and any remaining errors are my own.
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Zobler, K.A. (2011). Syrian National Museums: Regional Politics and the Imagined Community. In: Silverman, H. (eds) Contested Cultural Heritage. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7305-4_8
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