Kotsakis 2003, Ideological aspects of contemporary archaeology in Greece.pdf

8/10/2019 Kotsakis 2003, Ideological aspects of contemporary archaeology in Greece.pdf

1/17

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


2/17

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


3/17

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


4/17

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


5/17

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


6/17

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


7/17

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8/17

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.


9/17

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


10/17


11/17

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


12/17

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


13/17


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IDEOLOGICAL

ASPECTS

OFCONTEMPORARY

67

ARCHAEOXXK;YIN

GREECE

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.


15/17

KOSTAS KOTSAKIS

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M.,

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