Ömür Harmanşah publishes “The futurity of rock reliefs: materiality and temporality of remains”
This new article is published in the peer reviewed journal World Art (Vol 16/2, 2026)
Professor Ömür Harmanşah published a new article in the journal World Art, titled "The futurity of rock reliefs: materiality and temporality of remains." The article appeared in the guest edited Special Issue "Artiplaces: Ecological & Ontological Entanglements of Ancient Artworks" edited by edited by Benjamin Alberti & Christopher Watts.
Abstract
What is the temporal, material, and representational status of what (selectively) reaches us from deep antiquity? In this paper, I explore the deep temporality of the altered rock, i.e. rock-carved images and inscriptions as durable and stubborn remains of the past, hailing for us from the temporal depths of history and the weathered surfaces of geology. Rather than accepting their durability as an accident of history, I invite readers to consider the politics of carving the rock as a site-specific and future-oriented, gesture, a creative one, with a sense of reaching posterity and a desire to claim legacy. Thinking through the perspective of the futurity of archaeological things and applying them to rock-cut images and inscriptions, I consider, in this essay, how one would make sense of an image or inscription carved on the surface of a living rock. Thinking beyond the visual content of the image and/or the inscription (which is often the case with art historical and philological studies of rock monuments without sufficient consideration of their landscape context), I ask a question more in tune with the archaeological imagination of these monuments: how does one articulate the creative and materially enduring, tectonic act of embedding an image onto a geological surface? And how is this site-specific act made meaningful within the very particular yet long-term history and politics of the local ecology or landscape? Here, I interrogate the rock-carved monuments through three aspects of engaging with the geology of the place: temporality, materiality, and coloniality. I argue that these three aspects of monument-making are fundamental to understanding the nature of this gesture of carving. Finally, I will turn to a few examples of architectural interventions in Bronze and Iron Age Anatolia where a special mimetic engagement with the mineral world is well documented.
Keywords:
Rock relief, landscape, futurity, Iron Age, materiality, temporality, coloniality, Turkey