Abstract
The discovery of a rich necropolis at Saida in 1887 marked a turning point in the career of Osman Hamdi Bey, then Director of the Imperial Ottoman Museum. In office since 1881, this artist-bureaucrat had worked to promote the visibility of his museum and the recognition of the Ottoman state's rights to the remains discovered on its territory. His Antiquities Regulations of 1884 had irritated the great powers with their draconian measures; the discoveries of 1887 enabled him to prove that his museum was not content merely to prohibit, but also to engage in the antiquities race. The prestige of the Sidonian discoveries, the excellent promotion Hamdi made of this windfall, and the recognition he received from a number of Western luminaries were responsible for the radical transformation of a modest museum into an institution of international stature, and the accession, at least symbolically, of the Ottoman Empire to the ranks of civilized powers.
