In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Eastern Mediterranean was a hub of international archaeological activity. European and U.S. American diplomats, explorers, and scholars acquired and excavated antiquities in the scramble for prestigious collections and scientific hegemony, thereby significantly shaping modern archaeological practices and paradigms. The period was marked by competition and collaboration among these archaeologists and their Western imperial nations, and by responses from local authorities and indigenous populations. Given these historical circumstances but also current restitution debates, the history of archaeology has been increasingly interested in the broader contextualization of its subject. Therefore, our interdisciplinary panel will examine archaeology’s political and colonial dimensions in the past and their repercussions today. It also invites to compare and connect regions usually studied separately: Egypt, the Ottoman and post-Ottoman Middle East, and the Balkans. Respectively based on sources from the regions themselves as well as the foreign archaeologists’ countries, the papers explore archaeological politics, actors, institutions, and legislation before and after the political/territorial upheavals brought about in the Eastern Mediterranean by the First World War. The interests underlying archaeological pursuits are analysed from foreign and indigenous perspectives; at imperial, national, and local levels; and regarding their success or failure. Special attention is paid to voices from the Eastern Mediterranean, which traditionally have been underrepresented in the history, and among historians, of archaeology. However, archaeology depends on objects found in certain places, which is why, as the panel will illustrate, the discipline is inextricably entangled with the people who live(d) there.