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Abstract

(online conference)

Central Asia was not a focus of the ‘Württemberg Association for Commercial Geography’ founded in Stuttgart in 1882 with its chairman Count von Linden, from which the later Linden-Museum emerged.

Only a few objects from Central Asia were in stock when collection and documentation efforts were intensified from the 1960s onwards. The majority of the Central Asian collections were acquired in or via Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s. With the exception of the collection of the Stuttgart Badakhshan expedition, there are considerable problems in assigning the materials to specific provenances. This is mainly due to the fact that the collections were mainly acquired via the art market.

In retrospect, it is possible to identify the emergence of different perspectives on these collections and on exhibitions organised based on them. In this context, the internationally renowned exhibition ‘Heirs of the Silk Road - Uzbekistan’ (1995) has to be mentioned. These perspectives emerged at different times, and in order to evaluate and consider them, individual interests, political developments and the changing field of museum work must be taken into account.