There have been a few articles written about Turkey attempting to derive its current power legitimacy narrative by creating this story of an ancient civilization being founded within their borders. They have pointed out that this is a common trend among dictators that often stretched credulity to the limit (Sadam and Babylon, Mogabe and ancient southern Egypt, Mussolini and the Roman Empire etc) and many attempt to build up their propaganda with such connections.
Im curious how true that is, but there is a trend.
Another archeological propaganda technique is to omit from the history the people you don't like and/or who you don't want to have any claim to the territory. Without naming names, one country likes to skip back thousands of years.
The sites and their importance were known before the current issues in Turkey. Some of the publicity now may well be to encourage nationalism, but the reality is we probably would have been hearing about it 10-20 years earlier if the site hadn't been in a war zone.
And Zimbabwe was no where near the Egyptian Southern Kingdom, and Mussolini came ~1800 years after the height of the Roman Empire. There is no point other than attempting to create a narrative of ancient power & nationalism and aligning it with yourself. Propaganda doesn't operate with logic.
the 'point' is being able to say that turkey is the world-historical nexus of civilization, with the earliest urban civilization, which feeds nationalist narratives. every country likes to think they're special.
Im curious how true that is, but there is a trend.