In 2022, the Centre for Advanced Studies 2615 hosted an international online workshop on “Oriental Societies and Societal Self-Assertion. Associations, Funds and Societies for the Archaeological Exploration of the ‘Ancient Near East’”. It brought together historians and archaeologists, along with representatives of other disciplines from different European countries, to engage in interdisciplinary discourse. In 2024, the Proceedings of that workshop have been published within the Investigatio Orientis Series.
The organizers already decided when drafting the foreword for the publication that another conference should follow. They asked a former contributor, Hana Navratilova, to join the organisational team, in order to launch another call for papers, for even more profound research into the overall theme of societal engagement in Near Eastern Archaeology and its entanglement with national and international politics. In addition to that, however, the extended format shall also address
private-public partnerships, alternative modes of state- or individually funded archaeological endeavours.