Riva & Vella/Debating Orientalization, 3. Approaching Ancient Orientalization

This chapter attempts to highlight the extent to which modern, western identity as a whole is anchored in the images and material remains of remote times and places. A central theme of this chapter is that as a requirement of modernity the institution of kingship had to be pushed to the margins of historical consciousness and rendered exotic, and anomalous. This resulted in the creation of a new European past rooted exclusively in an idealized image of classical antiquity and led to the construction of new and remote spaces of the imagination such as ‘the Orient'.