Excavating the transimperial imaginary: roman ruins, colonial unconscious, and archaeological discourses in (post)colonial Libya

This essay examines how discourses and representations of Roman ruins in Libya have been instrumentalised within Western imperial imaginaries as archetypal symbols of civilization, continuity, and dominance before, during, and even after the Italian colonial presence. Drawing critically on Carl Jung’s notion of archetypes and the collective unconscious, this essay argues that archaeological remains operated as recurring symbolic figures within transimperial imaginaries, material traces through which Western societies repeatedly rearticulated myths of origin, civilization, and historical legitimacy. Employing a transimperial approach, the essay analyses a wide range of written and visual sources – from nineteenth-century travelogues and colonial reports to Fascist visual propaganda, and postwar archaeological narratives – to trace the shifting symbolic functions of ruins across empires and epochs. The essay contends that ruins operate not only as aesthetic objects but as discursive structures through which Western powers continue to negotiate colonial loss and project Eurocentric fantasies in the aftermath of decolonisation. By critically engaging with psychoanalysis and postcolonial/decolonial theory, it reveals the unconscious attachments embedded in heritage practices and calls for a critical reframing of archaeological preservation, one that addresses both institutional legacies and the deeper cultural investments that sustain them.