From Archive to Archival Practices. Rethinking the Preservation of Mamlūk Administrative Documents

Hirschler, Konrad

Abstract

This article proposes a new approach to the question why so few Arabic documents have survived in their original archival context. Taking the Mamluk period as a case study it argues that the category ‘archive’ itself needs to be reconfigured away from the idea of fixed archival spaces, or even a Mamluk State Archive, towards archival practices. These archival practices were spread across the Mamluk realms and involved numerous actors including the central bureaucracy in Cairo, individual secretaries and most importantly the small-scale administrations of officers. These archival practices emerge not from the normative and narrative texts, but primarily from a consideration of archival traces on surviving documents.

Citation

Hirschler, K. (2016). From Archive to Archival Practices. Rethinking the Preservation of Mamlūk Administrative Documents. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 136(1), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.1.1

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 13, 2016
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Oct 13, 2014
• Journal: Journal of the American Oriental Society
• Print ISSN: 0003-0279
• Electronic ISSN: 2169-2289
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 136
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-28
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.1.1