Abstract: Focusing on the geographies of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, this article problematizes the 19th century expeditions of Western travelers and archaeologists (C. Fellows, T. A. B. Spratt, E. Forbes, E. T. Daniell, J. A. Schönborn and O. Benndorf). While traditionally framed as scientific progress and the preservation of universal heritage, these missions are analyzed through an epistemological and ontological perspective to expose their underlying extractive nature. The study examines the transition from romantic antiquarianism to multidisciplinary topographic archaeology, driven by cartography, visibility analyses, and epigraphic documentation. It argues that massive logistical extractions, such as the transfers of the Trysa Heroon to Vienna and the Nereid Monument to the British Museum, constituted ontological ruptures. These events necessitated a reconstruction of cultural property perception within the Ottoman Empire. Grounded in primary travelogues and unexplored documents from the Ottoman Archives (BOA), the research demonstrates how this evolved into a bureaucratic and legal reflex of sovereignty, culminating in the 1884 Antiquities Regulation (Âsâr-ı Atîka Nizamnâmesi) under Osman Hamdi Bey. Ultimately, the article exposes the historical conflict between metropolitan museums severing objects from their contexts and the emerging Ottoman ideal of in situ preservation, showing how Western exploration paradoxically catalyzed Ottoman cultural independence.