kotsakis 2003, ideological aspects of contemporary archaeology in greece.pdf
TRANSCRIPT
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THE IMPACT OF
CLASSICAL GREECE
ON EUROPEAN
AND
NATIONAL
IDENTITIES
PROCEEDINGS
OF A N
INTERNATIONAL
COLLOQUIUM,
HELD AT
THE
NETH ERLA ND S INSTITUTE AT ATHENS,
2
4
OCTOBER 2
EDITED BY
M A R G R l E T H A A G S M A
PIM D E N B O E R
E R I C M . MOORMANN
J.C. G I E B E N , P U B L I S H E R
A M S T E R D A M 2003
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DEQL06ICA.L
ASPECTS
OF CONTEMPORARY
ARCHAEOLOGYINGREECE
Kostas Kotsakis
Thucydides. in
the
first paragraph
ofhis
famous History of
rhr
PeIopmrtesian
War
describes his
interest
in the events
of
that
war
in the follawf ng way:
'Far
this was the
greatest
movement
that had
ever a t i d he Hellenes, extending
also
to some
of the
Barbarians,
one
might
say
even
to
a
very
large
part
of
mankind .
Commentaries on
Thucydiks
generally seem to
agree on the
exaggeration involved
in the description
of the sweeping
consequencesof
the
event
(e.g.
Gsmme I945 89; ktwright
1997,
10;
Hornblower
1991,
6). From a slightly different point of view,
however, this particular
phrase
of Thucydides might
well
be
considered as revealing one
aspect of
his
historical
gaze
to h e pass:
a narrative based on a
sense
of community, a histmy
primarily
concerned
with
owselves.
Thucydides s
g ze
turns
towards
those
things close, while by contrast,
those things
distant or alien
m a i n
outside ~e historical narrative.
History
therefore kames
-
one
way or another our
history.
Compared
to this ancient
vision, archaeology,
at
least in its
contemporary, theonetical
sense,
seems to
move
in
the
complete
opposite direction. 'People without Histwy was
he
description of
a large
part
of the cultural past of humankind (Wolf
19821,
and
although
many past
cultures
have k e n elevated
to the
status of
'ancestors'
for
many
contempomy
societies,
especially
in
a
national Framework, archaeology still ultimately familiarizes us
with the idea
that
the unfamiliar other dms exist - even though
there might be
no
historical
records or historical evidenoe
in
the
strict m s e .
Fur
the vast bulk of cultures
and
material
remains
that
are not c h a r a d z e d - one way or anoher- as
'ancesml'
this
lack
of connectedness
with
the
present
is
a
rule. In this respect
mhaeology
in
its global gerspective
and
w i d e
nationalist
agendas
represents,
like
anthropology,
an
approach
to
the
cultural
and the temporally
distant.
And
unlike
history,
it
need
not
Ix our
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56
KOSTAS
KOTSAKIS
archaeology, nor
contribute
to the construction of a genealogy of
ancestors - a t
least
in the
sense reported
by Thucydides.
Ever
since
New
Archaeology assessed critically
the
relation of archaeology
with history, the link was never consi&red uncomplicated.
Indeed,
the significance of this relation is redefined today once more by
contemporary discussion on the dialectics of agency and structure
and in this view, history is to
a
large extent
understood
as the
analysis
of
concrete human agency.
Compared
to
the arguments
popular
in the
197Q's
with
their stress on
the anteredness
of
generalization and
on laws of
human behaviour this contemporary
discussion leaves
now much more space for
the
accommodation
of
the
contingent, and
is,
therefore,
much
more historically
informed.
Nevertheless historicist archaeology, in
as long as
it is consideted
an auxiliary to history,
looses
a significant part
of
intrinsic quality.
It
is
somewhat reduced
to an
illustrator, a provider of material
evidence that proves the accuracy of historic documents, while
the
past is primarily constructed
and
interpreted through the
perceptions of its
actors
presented and
recorded
in texts and
documents.
GREEK
RCHAEOLOGY
A N D
NATIONALISM
b k rchaeology consciously and
carefully kept
the
bond
with
ancient history
and
classics throughout the nineteenth century,
when
it played a central role in education and culture
and
in
the
ideological formation of th Greek nation. The exclusively
historicist outlook adopted was largely predictable, in view of the
general ideological
climate
prevalent
and
the
responsi
bili
tits felt
towards the construction of the nation-states of Europe of hat time.
It was first and foremost
an
expression
of
the
role and
the
obligations of archaeology
as
a discipline within the particular
swial context. Yet, to
some extent unexpectedly, it
was
very much
present
even
in the end of
the twentieth
century, when: it resurfaced
ten or
so years
ago
with the
ac~ca1le.d
Macedonian issue. The way
archaeology
was
at
that
time
once again called into arms o prove
history through
material
evidence
was
a
clear
sign
that
Greek
society never really abandoned a perception of the past
dominated
by this historicist discourse (Kotsakis 1998). Incidentally, it was
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WW)UX;ICAL
ASPECTS OF
CONTEMPORARY 57
ARCHAE)WGY IN
GREECE
the
only
time in
the history of
Modern
Greek
Macedonia
when
some recognizable state
interest
in archaeology was
expressed, but
this is
another story,
although obviously, not in the least
irrelevant.
The Uacedonian issue may be the last act of the drama, but the
political
role of
the past, especially
of
classicd antiquity,
is a
widely
recognized fact
and has
been debated
by a number of
scholars
in recent discussions
(e.g. Skopetea 1988; Kotsakis 1W1;
Moms 1994; Hamilakis and Yalouri 1996) where i t
is
placed
within the
context
of national politics.
Apart from this,
relatively
bivial angle, however, the Macedonian debate illustrates quite
vividly another significant
characteristic
of archaeology in Greax
its
international
dimensions,
i ts
direct
appeal
to
an
Emopean
audience,
generally
assumed to form an integral part
of
the agenda
through its inferred cultural
&scent
from Greek civilization
Moms
1994). There is
a
long aaditlon
of
faith in the
Greek
cultural a n c e s q of Europe (Herzfeld 1987) that goes
as
far
back
as
the eighteenth
cenhty
phi1he1
enism
(Chrysra 1996; Mmband
1996;
Kotsakia
1997). This unique and
fomfwl
international
dimension
of
k k ulture gives a particular character to the
relation
of
archaeology
with the
Greek
nation-state
and
with
its
past. Here the appeal to
a
non-domestic
audience becomes
essentially different from the
familiar
fixation
of
nationalism with
the
boundary
between its own enclosed existence and zhe outer
other. To some extent we have here
a
national
idiom
ideologically
constructed in an international context, through phi helEenisrn and
international
concern
with Greece.
Of course, all
through
the
history
of
archaeology in Greece
one of
the
most effective
mechanisms
for domestic
national integration was the
establishment
of
a
direct
link
with classical
Greece,
and
the
emblematic
use of
ancient
Greek
material culture.
This was the
domain of archaeology par excellence but
it
was practiced
by
Greek and foreign archaeoIogistsas
well, often
in
mutual
distrust,
mcasionally
in
collaboration
(Petrakos 1987;
Kalpaxis 1993;
KaFpaxis 1996; Kalpaxis 1990).
As
Friedman
so
aptly discusses
(1992). the constitution of Greek national identity cannot be
understmd
as a lmal
phenomenon
alone.
It
should
be
put
in
the
same
arena
as
the
development
of
a
Western
European
identity,
which
identified
Greece
as
her idealized ancestor. As this
identification
was transferred to
Greece through p l i
ical
concern
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and foreign pressing interest in archaeology, the identification
of
the populations
of
Greece with classical Greece
became
the
embodiment
of
European identity, the only way
to
separate
Greece
from
the
oriental
other
of
Europe.
A R C H A E O ~ ,
ISTORY
AND NATIONALISM: A
CLOSER
LOOK
Is
this
international concern with the idealized ancestor enough to
explain the, close tie with history
and classical Greece
in
Greek
archaeo1ogy?
We
have seen that recent
research
has
considered
this
persistent
relation
as
an
aspect
of
nationalism.
In
this
way
i t
is
aiming at
exploring the
details of
the participation
of archaeology
in a political context, which has ateacted a lot of interest
from
political scientists
as
an assimilation
process
(Wallerstein 1991;
Miller
1995), from
antlrropologists
as a
practice of collective
identity definition (Gellner 1987; Banks 1996). and lately, from
archaeologrsts
as
a structure of heritage manipulation (MeskelI
1998). Nationalism,
in
the strict sense
of the term, as
the ideology
of the nation-state, is perhaps a convenient category to contain
archaeology
in
a
post-mdern
world, especially
in a context
of
deconstmcting narmives and exploring the politics of h e
discipline (Kohl Fawcett
1995;
Dim-Andreu Champion
19 ). It is necessary to
keep n
mind, however, that the state,
as a
political mechanism of Romogenisation, is he end result of a long
process, which
is far
from simple
and straightfmard.
For
example, there is
vcry
little critical analysis of the ways or the
degree that the assumed dominant ideological discourseof the
state
was
actually
endorsed
by
its
subjects
as
popular
perceptions
of
the
past (Alexandri 2002). The development of a particular perception
of
cultural heritage
and of national identity should not be
considered
as
a simple, uncompPicated
case of
enforcement
of state
ideology anymore, directed at an undifferentiated people . After
all, people include g~groups vety different among themselves,
which
have
conflicting interests and resist unconditional surrender
to state ideology, or even, use
it
often as part of their social
strategies.
After the initial
discussions, where calling attention to
the political relation of archaeology
and
nationalism was central,
we should now be in a considerably better position
to
have a clearer
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IDEOLOGICAL ASPECTS
OF CONTEMPURARY 59
ARCHAEOLOGY IN GREECE
understanding of the different shadesof
the
process.
In
this sense it
will
not te sufficient anymore
to
continue subsuming everything
under
the
generic
argument
of
national
politics
of
identity and
see
archaeologists as 'high priests' of nationalism (e.g. Hamilahs
1999, 711, yet addressing
a congregation that remains largely
unspecified.
Apart
from
anything else,
participation
in state
ideology
and
nationalism developed in very different ways and
pace
in
Northwest and Southeast
Europe,Tziovas,
for example, points out
that rather
than
a feeling
of superiority and
might, the fluidity and
the instability of institutions and structures in Greece and the
resulting
deep
feeling
of
insecurity
has
enforced
a
quest
for
a
distinct
-
and enduring
Greek national identity
(Tziovas
1989;
1997).Mwzel is (1978)discusses
the
differences between
historical
contexts where integration was gradual through economic and
administmtive institutions,
prirnari ly
in
North-western
European
nation-states,
and
contexts
where nationalism developed as an
ideology before the constitution
of the
state. So although
nationalism is
an obvious starting
poiat,
one gradusllFy
realizes
that
a
much
closer
finition of
its
constituting
parts
is
necessary
for
a
deeper analysisof
the
placeof archaeology
in
the particular modem
Greek social reality. And,
needless to say, the experience of orher
social
contexts
should
be
imported in Greece critically, assessing
the actual historical
background
of each
country.
From this point of
view
the
persistence of classical tradition and
the
historicist outlook
were
both
particularly
characteristic and & sm e close analysis.
However, this is
not
the
place
to discuss
the
complicated
issue
of
the
formation of Hellenic identity. or to conclude whether
the
process
was
one
of
continuity
or
invention
pace
Andwson
(1991).
As an
mchaeologist,
I am more
c o n e d with
the use of
material
culture in
the
process
of d e f i n i n g
a new identity,
suitable for the
purposes of
the new emerging
neeHellenic state.
So, let us have
a better
look at this close
tie
with history.
Its all-
pervasive presence is apparent in many aspects of contemporary
Greek satiety. t has been already argued that its prototype is found
in the nineteenth century, in
the
monumental work History of
the
k k
ation'
by
Konstan
tinos
Paparrigopovlos
(Kotsakis
1998).
This major work of
synthesis,
in
its
clear-cut primordialism,
exercised a profound influence on social and historical
thought
in
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WEQLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CONTEMPORARY 61
ARCHAEOIBGY IN
GREE(SE
on Greek
archaeology remains minimal (Kotsakis 1991). By
contrast,
archeological discussions that
are
closer
to the
old
culture-historical
paradigm
were
more
easily
absorbed
and
still
remain powerful (Kotsakis
1998, 55-58).
Particularly informative
in this respect is the position
of prehistoric
archaeology in Greece.
It
is well
known that
Greek
nationalism
never had
much
use
of
prehistoric
studies, except for
those
domains
where
prehistory
could somehow 6e related to the Greek world, directly, as in the
case
of Mycenaean civilization,
or
indirectly through myths and
legends,
as
in the
case
of Minoan Crete
(Kotsahs
1991).
The
very
meagre
record
of
Neolithic
studies,
and the even slighter, almost
non-existent
of
pre-Neolithic
is,
in
this
sense,
very
informative.
D.R. heocharis, for instance, in his effort
to
establish the
study
of
the
Neolithic
as a legitimate field
of
study had
to establish a
connection with
the
historical
periods:
'This continuous march
of
man on
the
Greek land
through
millennia, from the first settlements of the Stone
Age
up to the
present
day, is followed by the history of the Greek Nation.
It
presents
the dwurnented continuity of the Greek World, its
cultural unity
and
the
internal
integrity
of
Greek
culture..
..Just
as
t h y
the
annexation
of the Creto-Mycenaean
World
to
GreekHistory
i s
considered n a t m l ,
so
tomorrow everyone will
accept the truth which is already visible, that the basic roots of
the
Greek Nation and
the main
components of the b k
pirit
are laid in Prehistory' (Christopoulos et
al.
1970.9)
Whatever our m (or
should
one
say
post-modem )eactions
to this essentialist
n m t i v e , TSleocharis'sstrategy
was simply
to
evoke the familiar concept of origins and extend i t
to
Rehistory.
He
did
so
in
the
knowledge that the
lure
of
the
concept for Mcdem
Gneek swiety
was significant. This Is no wonder: the obsession
with origins and genealogy is
in
many
ways
central in
ethnic
~Iassification
and
identity politics. It
is equally central to
archaeology as a particular attitude towards the
reconstruction
of
the past, where
the
reconstructionof origins is closely connected to
two
compIementary
concepts, that
of continuity and that of
boundedness of culture. We need to have a closer look at
these
complementary
concepts
now,
n order
to
gain
some
nsight
in the
contribution of
mtiondist discourse
in
the
shaping of archaeology
as a discipline and practice in contemporaryGreece.
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62 KOSTAS KOTSAKlS
CONTINUITY
ND BOUNDEDNESS IN CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
In
certain
ways
there is
no
meaning
in
stressing origin, unless
some form
of
continuity is assumed. In nationalist discourse,
continuity is a
particular
manipulation
of time
that leads to a form
of legitimisation of the present. In reality, continuity is a question
of
temporal
classification, which creates
a pseudo-historical
narrative: one has
simply
to define a
start
(the past) and an end of
the trajectery (the present) and in some miraculous manner
aH
hat
goes
in between is
insignificant
('hkkas 1994). The trick,
f
I may
use
the
term s a simple perception of
cause and
effect similar to
magic:
an
observation
that looks
like
a
cause
and
an
observation
that could look like
an
effect are linked in one continuous, but
mythical, process. T o use the well-known expression of Anderson's
(1991)
this
is
another 'imagined community', this time a
community with the past. So
this
'imagined' continuity f o m s one
of
the
basic ingmhents of national history. But as Miller wonders
in
discussing
national identity (1995,
35-47),
does the realization
that national history contains many elements of myth
sometimes
too
many
necessarily
mean
that
it
represents
an
entirely
false
or
distorted view, as if
there
was
an
ultimate truth
or a
'real'
history,
residing somewhere
and
waiting to be discovered by impartial
research? h s
t mean
that
every history of continuity
is
entirely
fictitious and contains no truth? Can we, for instance, d a im that the
descent of M rn
k k
anguage from Ancient
Greek and
the
resulting
sense
of continuity are entirely mythical and imagined?
What
it means, in
my
view,
is
that
there
is
a
need for
a shift
in
emphasis from the sweeping perspective of continuity h a t takes
too much
for
granted,
to
a
closer
scrutiny of
the
details that
constitute che phenomenon. It also
means
an interest in the ways
and prwesses in which people select,
mansform
and give meaning
to particular cultural traits,
as elements of their
identity.
One
of
Anderson's
(1991)
principal underlying
themes is that the issue is
not so much that colleczive identities are spurious inventions, but
rather that identities depend for
their
existence on collective
acts
of
meaning.
Once
again, the recent 'Mactcedonian issue' has
been
particularly
revealing
in
this
respect,
since
the
basic
archaeological
argument
was selectively built mound the tombs of Philip, the
capital
of
the Macedonian kingdom and the Greekmaterial culture
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KOSTAS KOTS
AKIS
characteristics
that
identify
a
group,
but
the
maintenance of
boundaries
against the
other
groups. This
remark opens
up
the
discussion
about
an
archaeology
of
frontiers
and
bundmies ,
but
so
far, to
my
knowledge, no attempt
has
been made to discuss
this
issue
in
the
context
of classical archaeology
(Stark
1998).
Contrary to the primordialist and essentialist mandates of
nationalism, which create images
of
cultural
perfection and
stillnass, archaeology has to realize that the process in which
an
ethnic identity is
created
breaks and
rearranges
an otherwise
integral
social
and historical
space into
segments.
It is a
process of
empowerment and hegemony, in which one social
group
claims
and
exerts
power
on
a
welldefined
part,
either simply cultural,
or
politically concrete and
spatially
tangible,
in
those particular cases
when
the identity becomes
part of a state
and
evolves into
nationalism. The almost exclusive interest
in classical
antiquity in
k k rchaeology can thus
be
seen
from yet
another
angle that
builds o n its readability
r e f e d
to
above:
in
order to hegemonize it
is imperative
that
identity
i s immediately recognizab le by
others.
In
this pmess, there is
no
doubt+ as
already
discussed, the
i n m a t i o n a l
concern
twk
an
active
part
(e.g.
HertzfeId
19871
but
we should not underestimate the indigenous
power
of
the
emerging
nationalism in Greece for the
dominance
of
classical archaeology.
In
many
respects
this emphasis
had
a recognizablepolitical
content,
j u x t a p i n g a constructed otientalism to the h k ulture,
demmracy,
science
and
philosophy that
gms
back to the
construction
of the
ideological universe
of Greek Enlightenment
(Kitromilides 1996) and represents
a specific
program of
modernization a d d r e d at a domestic audience. Although these
political
objectives remained
largely unfulfilled, they had
extremely
serious
consequences for everything non classical, which
was
by definition considered either
the
result of oriental despotism,
and had
to be
purged
or
a pre-hellenic development that was
irrelevant.
The denigration of
the
Byzantine
perid ,
typical
of
the
nineteenth
century,
resulted in
large
scale
destruction
and neglect
of the relevant monuments (Kokkou 1977). Even when Byzantium
,
was rest
as part
of
the
national
narrative, late in the
nineteenth
century,
he selective
'rectification'
of
the
past
survived
in
the
early
twentieth,
when monuments
had to
be
restored
to
their assumed
original integrity, espeGially the Byzantine
monuments
used as
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1DEOLXX;ICALASPECTS
OF
CONTEMPORARY 65
ARCHAEOLQGY
IN GREECE
mosques (Theocharidou
Tsioumi 1985).
It still survives
indirectly
in the marginalization
of
prehistoric monuments,
which,
by being
asmibed to
a
'pre-hellenic' universe, never had
the
chance
to
participate in
the official narrative
of
collective identity or
forge
their
place in the national imagery.
The
close relation of classical
archaeology with history
of
art
is
another
point of interest
in
discussing the concepts and collective
meanings constituting Greek Archaeology. One has to
examine
the
reasons
for the
remarkable
absence
of concern
for
anything other
than
arr
and
literar~rsowces that
were
canonized by cfassical
scholarship, especially in Germany (Marchand 1996) and France
Gran-Aymetich
1998). One
could
mention,
for
example,
rural
settlements
and hamlets, the
archaeology
of
the
landscape
or
regional analysis
beyond
historical topography,
aspects which
in
other parts of rhe world
already
form
an integral
component of
archaeological reseasch. There are many different factors we
have
to take into consideration
regatding
this issue,
and
this is certainly
not
the
place
to do it.
The academic
affiliations, for instance., of
powerful
figures
of Greek archaeology are a very significant point.
Marchand
(1996,
341-3521
describes
in
detail
how
classicists in
Germany reacted
to
the impeding
dominance of nationalist
'Germanic' prehistory in
Nazi
Germany and the dwindling of their
academic position by reverting back
to
the universal aesthetic
values
of
classical arc
It i s indeed conceivable
that for
Greek
archaeologists like Christos Karouzos (Pettaka
lW5),
with their
close
intellectual
relations with Geman academics, classical art
was a
domain of self-evident universaliay,
much
less amenable to
political use than history.
Theseremarks offer
ust
a
glimpse
of the
many
components
hat
this
issue
bas,
and
demonstrate
the
need
for
serious
research on the history of she discipline in Greece. In any
case,
the long tradition
of histmy
of art
has
kept the discipline,
up
to the present day, away from contact with anthropological
discussion and has developed an approach which is so
self-
contained that
it gives the
impression of
being
predominantly
empiricist and largely atheoretical and apolitical (Shanks 1996;
Mark 1994).
Byzantine archaeology falls very much in
the same
category,
and
t
has
still
to
evolve
from
a
history
of
Christian
religious
mt into a medieval archaeology. This reality is
responsible
to a
great extent
for
the relative conservatism of
Greek
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IDEOLOGICAL
ASPECTS
OFCONTEMPORARY
67
ARCHAEOXXK;YIN
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discussion
and we
have to
start exploring
it.
I believe that
it
could
be a
viable program for the
next
phase of research,
which
will
follow the
initial
descriptive
stage.
We
only
need
to
move
away
from verifyrng
a
unilateral v e s s towards
exploring
its actual
details. In
this way, the
ideologicalaspects
of
the discipline
will be
illuminated
from various angles.
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KOSTAS KOTSAKIS
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