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Orientalism is (amongst other things) a system of ideas, attitudes, truisms and concepts that relate to a certain "European", or "Western" way of imagining the "East". It is a system based on everything from artwork to science, litterature, plays and music, later movies and cartoons and so on. Part of the European Orientalism has been the creation of an "Other", an "exotic Easterner". This "O
ther" functions as a mirror for a certain European identity and conceptualisation too, thus creating a sort of false dichotomy between "The East" and "The West", or the Orient and the Occident, which still affects anything from popular culture to politics to this day.

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The concept of "the East" is still very much alive today, less so in academia than it used to be, but depending on the branch of academia it's still alive and well, and even more so in popular culture there seems to be a consistent representation of "The East". You would be hard pressed to find someone on the streets of Denmark or the US who could explain Abbasid or Ottoman influences on the European "renaissance", Mesopotamian influences on ancient Hellenistic city-state etc., and it would be easy to find someone with opinions about the limited democratic capabilities of Syrians and so on.

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The idea that "Greece" and Rome as the cradles of civilisation is very much still taught in for example Danish primary schools and high schools. Actually, the name "Greece" itself sort of comes from what you could call a Roman exotification of the Hellenistic city-states, the name "Graecia" is the Roman name for one specific Greek city on the East coast of the Italian Peninsula, and "Graecia" came to be a Roman description of ALL city states "like it".

Anyways, it seems to be the task of Near Eastern Archaeologists to increase the complexity of the views of the past that are taught to us as European citizens, because right now they're clearly more part of a political project of citizen-making than an actual education in the past.

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Orientalism is defined as the european and westeren infuence in the middle east due to the colonial past of the west, as well as the westeren fascination of the cultural past of the ME.

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Orientalism is intellectuals serving imperial interest for business and self-promotion. It is a political posture toward empire, and way of framing the middle east and its people in a way that justifies imperial domination of the region. It has been a part of western identity since the Greco-Persian wars, and it has been crucial in the self-determination and justification of western culture.

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It is the concept of the Western European view and presentation of the "East"/ "Orient" as a uniform and inferior region of the world, which is often seen as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous, in contrast to western societies. It also encompasses the Western scholarly discipline of the 18th and 19th centuries that entailed the studies of the languages, literatures, religions, philosophies, histories, art, and laws of Asian societies, especially ancient ones.

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orientalism is the study/interest in the Near East from a Western point of view. with all the baggage that includes

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Because the last 19 years of conflict and western imperialism in the region creates a chasm between “them and us”, that is very similar to colonial era racism, and since the archaeologist has been a key part of the construction of “the middle east” and the orientalism views, we should know, accept and stride to be better.

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The archaeologist should be aware of the past mistakes, and learn to be better.

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We should be aware of the concept, because what it entails has caused a great deal of misunderstandings and prejudices between cultures. It has created a notion of us/them, which today has facilitated a fear of the unknown and for some people a need to reject it, as well as an either direct or indirect feeling of superiority towards the unfamiliar culture, just because it is different from the west.

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We can learn to be more humble and objective when working with past cultures from this region, which was once idealised as the Orient and imperialised by Western societies. We need to interpret the past cultures with an open-mind and without any prejudice or Eurocentric feelings of superiority. Also, we need to be able to work in these areas alongside the local people - it is their history and their material culture, and we need to treat it with respect

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It is important to know the history of the research in out fields and how we alot of literature is influenced by colonialism.

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it still happens to this day, and it is our history

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we should always reflect on what we are doing and why we are doing it.