The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece

by Yannis Hamilakis

Overview

This innovative, extensively illustrated study examines how classical antiquities and archaeology contributed significantly to the production of the modern Greek nation and its national imagination. It also shows how, in return, national imagination has created and shaped classical antiquities and archaeological practice from the nineteenth century to the present. Yannis Hamilakis covers a diverse range of topics, including the role of antiquities in the foundation of the Greek state in the nineteenth century, the Elgin marbles controversy, the role of archaeology under dictatorial regimes, the use of antiquities in the detention camps of the Greek civil war, and the discovery of the so-called tomb of Philip of Macedonia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191528125
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	08/02/2007
Series:	Classical Presences
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Yannis Hamilakis is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Southampton.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgements xi

List of Figures xvii

Note on Transliteration xxi

1 Memories Cast in Marble: Introduction 1

2 The 'Soldiers', the 'Priests', and the 'Hospitals for Contagious Diseases': the Producers of Archaeological Matter-realities 35

3 From Western to Indigenous Hellenism: Antiquity, Archaeology, and the Invention of Modern Greece 57

4 The Archaeologist as Shaman: the Sensory National Archaeology of Manolis Andronikos 125

5 Spartan Visions: Antiquity and the Metaxas Dictatorship 169

6 The Other Parthenon: Antiquity and National Memory at the Concentration Camp 205

7 Nostalgia for the Whole: the Parthenon (or Elgin) Marbles 243

8 The Nation in Ruins? Conclusions 287

References 303

Index 339

Editorial Reviews

"Hamilakis gives a fascinating and sympathetic...account of Greek attitudes."—John Boardman, Common Knowledge

From the Publisher