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Books by Yannis Hamilakis

Archaeology, Nation and Race: Confronting the Past, Decolonizing the Future in Greece and Israel, 2022

Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields... more Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields. It demonstrates how archaeology and concepts of antiquity have shaped, and have been shaped by, colonialism, race, and nationalism. Structured as a lucid and lively dialogue between two leading scholars, the volume compares modern Greece and modern Israeltwo prototypical and influential caseswhere archaeology sits at the very heart of the modern national imagination. Exchanging views on the foundational myths, moral economies, and racial prejudices in the field of archaeology and beyond, Raphael Greenberg and Yannis Hamilakis explore topics such as the colonial origins of national archaeologies, the crypto-colonization of the countries and their archaeologies, the role of archaeology as a process of purification, and the racialization and "whitening" of Greece and Israel and their archaeological and material heritage. They conclude with a call for decolonization and the need to forge alliances with subjugated communities and new political movements.

Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields... more Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields. It demonstrates how archaeology and concepts of antiquity have shaped, and have been shaped by colonialism, race, and nationalism. Structured as a lucid and lively dialogue between two leading scholars, the volume compares modern Greece and modern Israel – two prototypical and influential cases – where archaeology sits at the very heart of the modern national imagination. Exchanging views on the foundational myths, moral economies, and racial prejudices in the field of archaeology and beyond, Hamilakis and Greenberg explore topics such as the colonial origins of national archaeologies, the crypto-colonization of the countries and their archaeologies, the role of archaeology as a process of purification, and the racialization and 'whitening' of Greece and Israel and their archaeological and material heritage. They conclude with a call for decolonization and the need to forge alliances with subjugated communities and new political movements.

Compares two nation states and phenomena, Greece and Israel, showing how nation and race and their entanglement with archaeology and coloniality follow certain common patterns, demonstrating at the same time the historical differences
Based on sustained and systematic decades long research by two world-class researchers, the book shows readers why decolonization of archaeology and society is essential and urgent today
Structured as lively dialogue between two leading scholars, this book clarifies matters for readers in a way that is not possible in conventional monographs
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Reviews & endorsements
‘This is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking archaeology books that I have read in a long time. It is truly a meeting of two deep-thinking minds – Yannis Hamilakis musing on Greece and Rafael Greenberg musing on Israel. Universally regarded as two of the most thoughtful, intellectual, and politically active archaeologists working today, both with impeccable credentials, one couldn’t ask for two more devoted and opinionated (in a good way) scholars, who don’t fear to speak their minds and advocate for the causes that they hold dear.’ Eric Cline, George Washington University

‘We get to eavesdrop on two accomplished archeologists as they discuss the high stakes of the interplay of nationalism with notions of antiquity. This comparison of the Israeli and Greek instances is ultimately about the meaning of archeology itself, as a discipline that is no less concerned with the present than it is with the past.’ Katherine Fleming, New York University

‘National archeology stands out as a field in which politics is both uniquely dominant and entirely suppressed. Two top experts offer a frank discussion of archeology’s role in the history of nationalism in their respective countries and of its costs. They uncover the various manners in which archeology functions as both a means and an end in struggles of liberation and conquest, which are often driven by spatial imagination and fantasies no less than by material aspirations. A must-read for anyone interested in archeology, in ancient and modern Israel and Greece, and in critical thinking about nationalism. This is a uniquely original contribution to the ever-urgent question: who owns the past.’ Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Tel Aviv University

‘These two scholars provide fascinating insight into how and why archaeology has been a critical tool in building two very different nations - Greece and Israel. Using conversation rather than dry exposition, Greenberg and Hamilakis also show that science, no matter how entangled with religion and nationalism, can upset our narrow ideas about history. An essential book for anyone curious about the way we create our past to control the present-and future.’ Andrew Lawler, author of Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City

‘Archaeology, Nation and Race is a serious pleasure-a smart, wide-ranging, and spirited conversation, not just between two highly knowledgeable and thoughtful interlocutors, but between the Hellenic and Hebraic, local and global, seen and unseen, dead and living. Greenberg and Hamilakis each come steeped in the particulars of the national archaeologies to which they’ve devoted their lives; both are also deeply open, and committed to challenging themselves and the cultural and political assumptions that surround them. This book has a refreshing urgency about it.’ Adina Hoffman, Yale University, author of Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City

‘Archaeology, Nation, and Race explores the political dimensions of archeology through a historical and sociological-anthropological analysis. It is structured as a vivid dialogue between two scholars that explores the ways in which archaeology was employed by both Hellenic and Zionist nationalism. Even more radically, this book explores how archaeology has been shaped by crypto-colonization, colonialism and race. Greenberg and Hamilakis have written a transformative account of utmost importance that should be read by every archaeologist.’ Rina Talgam, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

‘Two leading scholars have a fascinating conversation comparing the contribution of archaeology to the mythical constitution, racialization, and crypto-colonialism of Israel and Greece. Shedding new light on the Eurocentric models of Hebraism and Hellenism, they conduct a masterful critique of purification and idealization, and invite us to envision a decolonizing scholarship that forges activist alliances.’ Vassilis Lambropoulos, University of Michigan

It may seem paradoxical that it should be archaeologists who unravel the ideological underpinnings of global modernity, but Greenberg and Hamilakis are uniquely qualified to perform this long-overdue task of conceptual excavation. Taking the twin cases of Greek and Israeli nationalism – and emphasizing their sometimes unexpected and even shocking commonalities – they deploy a disarmingly dialogical format to expose the intersections of race, antiquity, territoriality, and cultural hegemony in a formulation that the world has, for far too long, largely taken as the natural order of things.’ ---Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University, author of Subversive Archaism: Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage

It can be suggested that today we live in a new nomadic age, an age of global movement and migrat... more It can be suggested that today we live in a new nomadic age, an age of global movement and migration. For the majority of people on earth, however, especially from the global south, crossing national borders and moving from the global south to the global north is risky, perilous, often lethal. Many are forced or compelled to migrate due to war, persecution, or the structural violence of poverty and deprivation. The phenomenon of forced and undocumented migration is one of the defining features of our era. And while the topic is at the centre of attention and study in many scholarly fields, the materiality of the phenomenon and its sensorial and mnemonic dimensions are barely understood and analysed. In this regard, contemporary archaeology can make an immense contribution. This book, the first archaeological anthology on the topic, takes up the challenge and explores the diverse intellectual, methodological, ethical, and political frameworks for an archaeology of forced and undocumented migration in the present. Matters of historical depth, theory, method, ethics and politics as well as heritage value and public representation are investigated and analysed, adopting a variety of perspectives. The book contains both short reflections and more substantive treatments and case studies from around the world, from the Mexico-USA border to Australia, and utilizes a diversity of narrative formats, including several photographic essays.

Crítica de la razón arqueológica: arqueología de contrato y capitalismo, 2017

Compiladores L a arqueología de contrato —es decir, la arqueología pagada por las em-presas por m... more Compiladores L a arqueología de contrato —es decir, la arqueología pagada por las em-presas por medio de contratos de servicio para cumplir con las exigen-cias de las leyes ambientales— es un fenómeno relativamente reciente que ha tenido un tremendo impacto global, tanto así que un porcentaje mayoritario de quienes hacen arqueología en el mundo trabaja para ese mercado crecien-te. La arqueología de contrato ha dado lugar a profundas transformaciones curri culares: han surgido programas de pregrado de corta duración (no más de tres años) y énfasis técnico para producir en masa arqueólogos que satisfa-gan las exigencias de una agresiva expansión capitalista en varios campos (la infraestructura para transporte y la minería son los más salientes, pero no los únicos). En el proceso, los vínculos entre la arqueología y la antropología, ya débiles, han sido prácticamente cortados. Los efectos colaterales de la entrega de la arqueo logía al mercado de contrato han sido varios: se ha cancelado una actitud crítica hacia el orden global, se ha profundizado la conversión del pa-sado y el patrimonio en mercancía y, asimismo, ha disminuido la posibilidad de que la dis ciplina deje atrás su orden jerárquico y colonial. La relación mani-fiesta de la arqueología de contrato con el desarrollo, el descendiente contem-poráneo de la teleología del tiempo occidental, profundiza la larga relación de la disciplina con la modernidad. No la traiciona. De hecho, las críticas que ha recibido la arqueología de contrato están dentro de los límites de la práctica disciplinaria, es decir, se mide y se juzga por lo que es (o no es) desde una pers-pectiva disciplinaria, incluso profesional, por lo general vinculada a la retórica de la ciencia. Rara vez es medida y juzgada desde un punto de vista contextual, como hacen los artículos reunidos en este libro, cuyos autores buscan posicio-narse ante una práctica que creen perjudicial para la arqueología, por no decir para la vida de mucha gente y el destino de la naturaleza. Por eso no ofrecen una visión balanceada de la arqueología de contrato sino la perspectiva posi-cionada que mejor sirve a una reflexión crítica y transformadora.

How can we find alternative, sensorially rich and affective ways of engaging with the material pa... more How can we find alternative, sensorially rich and affective ways of engaging with the material past in the present?

How can photography play a central role in archaeological narratives, beyond representation and documentation?

This photo-book engages with these questions, not through conventional academic discourse but through evocative creative practice. The book is, at the same time, a site guide of sorts: a photographic guide to the archaeological site of the Sanctuary of Poseidon in Kalaureia, on the island of Poros, in Greece.

Ancient and not-so-ancient stones, pine trees that were “wounded” for their resin, people who lived amongst the classical ruins, and the tensions and the clashes with the archaeological apparatus and its regulations, all become palpable, affectively close and immediate.

Furthermore, the book constitutes an indirect but concrete proposal for the adoption of archaeological photo-ethnography as a research as well as public communication tool for critical heritage studies, today.

While written sources on the history of Greece have been studied extensively, no systematic attem... more While written sources on the history of Greece have been studied extensively, no systematic attempt has been made to examine photography as an important cultural and material process. This is surprising, given that Modern Greece and photography are almost peers: both are cultural products of the 1830s, and both actively converse with modernity. Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities fills this lacuna. It is the first inter-disciplinary volume to examine critically and in a theorised manner the entanglement of Greece with photography. The book argues that photographs and the photographic process as a whole have been instrumental in the reproduction of national imagination, in the consolidation of the nation-building process, and in the generation and dissemination of state propaganda. At the same time, it is argued that the photographic field constitutes a site of memory and counter-memory, where various social actors intervene actively and stake their discursive, material, and practical claims. As such, the volume will be of relevance to scholars and photographers, worldwide.

The book is divided into four, tightly integrated parts. The first, ‘Imag(in)ing Greece’, shows that the consolidation of Greek national identity constituted a material-cum-representational process, the projection of an imagery, although some photographic production sits uneasily within the national canon, and may even undermine it. The second part, ‘Photographic narratives, alternative histories’, demonstrates the narrative function of photographs in diary-keeping and in photobooks. It also examines the constitution of spectatorship through the combination of text and image, and the role of photography as a process of materializing counter-hegemonic discourses and practices. The third part, ‘Photographic matter-realities’, foregrounds the role of photography in materializing state propaganda, national memory, and war. The final part, ‘Photographic ethnographies’, has an overtly anthropological focus and theorises the contexts of photographs’ inception and dissemination, discussing at the same time vernacular and popular readings and deployments of photography, and the ways through which it inscribes itself in collective memory.

This book is an exciting new look at how archaeology has dealt with the bodily senses and offers ... more This book is an exciting new look at how archaeology has dealt with the bodily senses and offers an argument for how the discipline can offer a richer glimpse into the human sensory experience. Yannis Hamilakis shows how, despite its intensely physical engagement with the material traces of the past, archaeology has mostly neglected multi-sensory experience, instead prioritising isolated vision and relying on the Western hierarchy of the five senses. In place of this limited view of experience, Hamilakis proposes a sensorial archaeology that can unearth the lost, suppressed, and forgotten sensory and affective modalities of humans. Using Bronze Age Crete as a case study, Hamilakis shows how sensorial memory can help us rethink questions ranging from the production of ancestral heritage to large-scale social change, and the cultural significance of monuments. Hamilakis points the way to reconstituting archaeology as a sensorial and affective multi-temporal practice.

Η νεότερη Ελλάδα καταλαμβάνει ιδιάζουσα θέση στο δυτικό φαντασιακό, τοποθετούμενη στο κέντρο του,... more Η νεότερη Ελλάδα καταλαμβάνει ιδιάζουσα θέση στο δυτικό φαντασιακό, τοποθετούμενη στο κέντρο του, ως άμεσος κληρονόμος του κλασικού παρελθόντος, και ταυτόχρονα στην περιφέρειά του, ως ένα σύγχρονο κράτος με μικρή επιρροή στην τρέχουσα παγκόσμια σκηνή. Ο Γιάννης Χαμηλάκης διερευνά μια παραμελημένη πτυχή αυτού του φαινομένου: την αμοιβαία και αδιάλειπτη συγκρότηση των υλικών εκφάνσεων της αρχαιότητας, της αρχαιολογικής πρακτικής και του εθνικού φαντασιακού. Επίκαιρο όσο ποτέ στη σημερινή συγκυρία, το Έθνος και τα ερείπιά του εστιάζει στη δύναμη και την επίδραση της υλικότητας και πραγματεύεται θέματα όπως ο ρόλος των αρχαιοτήτων και της αρχαιολογίας στη διαμόρφωση του ελληνικού έθνους και την ίδρυση του ελληνικού εθνικού κράτους· οι δεσμοί μεταξύ αποικιοκρατικού και εθνικού φαντασιακού· η αρχαιολογική κατασκευή μνημειοποιημένων τοπίων όπως η Ακρόπολη ο καίριος ρόλος σημαντικών εθνικών αρχαιολόγων, όπως του ανασκαφέα του λεγόμενου τάφου του Φιλίππου Β' της Μακεδονίας, Μανόλη Ανδρόνικου· ο ρόλος τον οποίο διαδραμάτισε η αρχαιολογία στη δικτατορία του Ιωάννη Μεταξά· η χρησιμοποίηση της κλασικής αρχαιότητας στο αναμορφωτικό εγχείρημα της Μακρονήσου· και η διαμάχη για τα μάρμαρα του Παρθενώνα.

"Δεν χωράει αμφιβολία ότι το Έθνος και τα ερείπιά του θα καταστεί απαραίτητο ανάγνωσμα για όσους ενδιαφέρονται για τις βαθύτερες κοινωνικοπολιτικές διαστάσεις της ιστορίας της αρχαιολογίας [...] Ο Χαμηλάκης μας δίνει την πλέον οξυδερκή και διεισδυτική ανάλυση του νεωτερικού κοινωνικού πλαισίου της ελληνικής αρχαιολογίας απ' όσες έχουν γραφτεί μέχρι σήμερα, παρέχοντας συγχρόνως ένα πολύτιμο υπόδειγμα για όσους σκοπεύουν να επιδοθούν σε ανάλογες έρευνες οπουδήποτε αλλού σιον κόσμο" (Niel Silberman, American Anthropologist)
"[...] Ο Χαμηλάκης επιχειρεί να μας κάνει να δούμε μέσα από νέο πρίσμα το έθνος, τα ερείπιά του, και τη μεταξύ τους σχέση, και το κατορθώνει με εντυπωσιακό τρόπο" (Roderick Beaton, Times Literary Supplement)

Το Έθνος και τα ερείπιά του έχει τιμηθεί με το Βραβείο Edmund (2009) και είχε συμπεριληφθεί στη βραχεία λίστα (8 τίτλοι) του Βραβείου Runciman 2008. (Από την παρουσίαση στο οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου)

Archaeology, Nation and Race: Confronting the Past, Decolonizing the Future in Greece and Israel, 2022

Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields... more Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields. It demonstrates how archaeology and concepts of antiquity have shaped, and have been shaped by colonialism, race, and nationalism. Structured as a lucid and lively dialogue between two leading scholars, the volume compares modern Greece and modern Israel – two prototypical and influential cases – where archaeology sits at the very heart of the modern national imagination. Exchanging views on the foundational myths, moral economies, and racial prejudices in the field of archaeology and beyond, Hamilakis and Greenberg explore topics such as the colonial origins of national archaeologies, the crypto-colonization of the countries and their archaeologies, the role of archaeology as a process of purification, and the racialization and 'whitening' of Greece and Israel and their archaeological and material heritage. They conclude with a call for decolonization and the need to forge alliances with subjugated communities and new political movements.

Crítica de la razón arqueológica: arqueología de contrato y capitalismo, 2017

How can photography play a central role in archaeological narratives, beyond representation and documentation?

What does it mean to teach and work in a corporate university with colonial roots, today? The on-... more What does it mean to teach and work in a corporate university with colonial roots, today? The on-going events in Palestine – what have been described by many specialists and international organizations as a genocidal campaign – have brought to the surface the historical undercurrents, the tensions and the contradictions of such an institution as a nested sensorial assemblage of actors, memories, affects and interests. Starting from the events that happened in the context of teaching an archaeology course on social justice while a student encampment was in place on campus, in the spring of 2024, I reflect on the materiality of protest, on teaching as a transgressive undertaking and on the retooling of colonial and decolonial structures to advance emancipation. In the midst of a rather dark moment, this is ultimately a hopeful reflection.

Journal of the Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, 2024

Our response to the Forum dedicated to our book, "Archaeology, Nation, and Race: Confronting the ... more Our response to the Forum dedicated to our book, "Archaeology, Nation, and Race: Confronting the Past, Decolonizing the Future in Greece and Israel".

Greenberg, R. and Hamilakis, Y. (eds) with contributions by Koch, I., Lalaki, D., Mickel, A., Reilly, M., Robbins, B., Swartz Dodd, L., and Tamur, E. 2023. Archaeology, Nation, and Race: Critical Responses. Forum Kritische Archäologie 12: 106-153.

Discursos del Sur, 2023

In this article, I first explore the use of discursive and iconographic tropes from antiquity by ... more In this article, I first explore the use of discursive and iconographic tropes from antiquity by neo-fascist
and white supremacist groups, primarily in Greece but also in other, western contexts. These rely on
specific, historically and empirically problematic constructions of ancient Sparta, and on other cultural formations and events such as the Greek-Persian wars, ancient Macedonia, and figures such as Alexander
the Great. Militarization, the notions of sacrifice at war, racist and orientalist hierarchies, and the cult of
the leader give the tone. Paradoxically, modern archaeo-genetic research is at times deployed by these
groups to claim scientific proof of genetic continuity, reminding us of the dangers of the biologization
of identity. In the second part of the paper, I suggest that archaeologists should counter such neo-fascist
deployments by critiquing teleological and progressivist time, decolonizing the sensorial and affective
regimes of racial and capitalist modernity, and confronting the ontology grounded on an individualized
and autonomous self. I illustrate some of these thoughts by briefly presenting my work on the archaeology
of contemporary migration and border crossing in the Aegean, based on fieldwork on the island of
Lesvos. Such work constitutes an archaeological intervention in one of the most crucial issues of our
time, and one that is often exploited by racist and neo-fascist discourses and practices. At the same time, it
challenges the very foundations of modernist archaeology foregrounding multi-temporality, and inviting
us to revisit our conceptions of the archaeological, of monuments, and of heritage.

In mid-May 1939 an unusual excavation was being carried out by the General Director of Greek Anti... more In mid-May 1939 an unusual excavation was being carried out by the General Director of Greek Antiquities, Spyridon Marinatos. The excavation, which was reported extensively in the domestic as well as the foreign press,1 took place at the site of Thermopylai in central Greece, and its aim was to locate the spot of the famous battle between the invading Persian army and the defending ancient Greek soldiers. The battle, which was narrated in detail by Herodotus (VII.213-217), is known in the modern Greek national narrative and imagination as the episode when Leonidas, the Spartan leader, sacriWced himself together with 300 remaining Spartan Wghters. The Greek soldiers were managing to successfully resist the invaders but were overcome by them only due to treason by Ephialtes, whose name forever since has been synonymous with shameful national treachery. Marinatos, the excavator, decided to undertake this task after he secured funds provided by an American woman by the name of Elisabeth Hamlin-Hunt (Marinatos 1955: 3). Marinatos narrates the experience in a guidebook, published years afterwards: Mrs Hunt personally assisted in the whole excavation, despite the heavy work. The marshy district was mosquito-ridden. The investigation lasted on into the hottest season, July, which roughly corresponds with the time of the 1 The international press followed almost daily the progress of the excavation and published short dispatches from Athens presenting the Wnds and results; for examples

Χαμηλάκης, Γ., Παπαγιαννόπουλος, Η., Λαμπρόπουλος, Β., και Γαζή, Ε. 2023. Αρχαιολογία, Έθνος και Φυλή. Χάρτης, 52 (Απρίλιος, 2023)

Critique d'Art, 2022

A review article on the "Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow, with special focus on tempor... more A review article on the "Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow, with special focus on temporality and the critique of anthropocentrism.

Critique d’art, 2022

A review article on "The Dawn of Everything". The Dawn of Everything,1 the fruit of a long-term ... more A review article on "The Dawn of Everything".

The Dawn of Everything,1 the fruit of a long-term dialogue between the anthropologist David Graeber—who, sadly, died shortly before this book came out—and the archaeologist David Wengrow, barely one year after its launch is already a publishing phenomenon: besides its commercial success and not only in the English-speaking world, I cannot recall another occasion in the recent and not so recent past when a book, written mostly for the general public, has generated so much debate within the scholarly community.

Hyperallergic, 2022

An op-ed on the deal between the Met Museum and the Greek government on the Stern collection of C... more An op-ed on the deal between the Met Museum and the Greek government on the Stern collection of Cycladic figurines.

It is the silence that I recall most from that day in early October 2020, when I visited the ruin... more It is the silence that I recall most from that day in early October 2020, when I visited the ruins of Moria. The uncanny and strange silence of the place that I remembered so alive and so full of buzz. January 2020 it was, when I was here last. The soundscape then was very different. I recall the winter sun; I still hear the sound of an ax falling on olive trees. It was a rare sunny interval in the midst of the winter, and people were out chopping firewood. Children were out, too, playing, their voices still in my ears. I recall how stunned I was then, when I realized the extent of the Moria settlement (Hamilakis 2022). It had covered not only the "Olive Grove" or "Jungle" areas to the east of the walled compound but all the hills around it, to its north and west, extending way back from the main road and entrance, and high up the hill. It had even nearly reached the area where asylum seekers from central Africa, Christians, used to find refuge, their own Mount of Olives, to perform their ceremonies, to send to the skies their chanting. It was a peaceful place up there, back in 2017. Not so in late 2019 and 2020. Now, instead of chopped firewood and children's voices, mostly silence. Silence that was, however, punctuated by strange noises: dog noises, cat noises. I then remembered that the settlement of 20,000 people had attracted many stray cats and dogs, and I recalled that they were

American Anthropologist, 2022

World Archaeology, 2022

Based on long term archaeological ethnography on the border island of Lesvos situated on Europe's... more Based on long term archaeological ethnography on the border island of Lesvos situated on Europe's margins, this article explores the regimes of eating and the role of food practices in the refugee camp/processing centre of Moria. Starting from the double liminality of eating and border-crossing, it outlines and juxtaposes two regimes of corporeal life. The first is the biopolitical arena of official food provision as produced by the border apparatus and the logic of humanitarian governmentality. This regulates border-crosser's time and daily routines and renders them 'people of concern', tress-passers or victimized individuals with no agency. The second is the affective, trans-corporeal, multisensorial field of cooking, eating, making kin, making community. It is produced through the agency of border-crossers themselves, when they take charge of their own eating. In doing so, they constitute eating in these liminal conditions as affirmative biopolitics, as the affirmative politics of life and hope.

Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών, 2021

Είναι σημαντικό ότι γίνεται μια συστηματική προσπάθεια να ενταχθεί η ελληνική περίπτωση στα επανα... more Είναι σημαντικό ότι γίνεται μια συστηματική προσπάθεια να ενταχθεί η ελληνική περίπτωση στα επαναστατικά κινήματα της εποχής ανά τον κόσμο.

Απαγορεύεται οποιασδήποτε μορφής αντιγραφή ή αναπαραγωγή μέρους ή όλου του βιβλίου χωρίς την έγγρ... more Απαγορεύεται οποιασδήποτε μορφής αντιγραφή ή αναπαραγωγή μέρους ή όλου του βιβλίου χωρίς την έγγραφη άδεια των επιμελητών, των συγγραφέων και του εκδότη.

Η Περιφέρεια του Μυκηναϊκού Κόσμου / The Periphery of the Mycenaean World/3rd International, Interdisciplinary Colloquium (επιμ. Ε. Καράντζαλη), 145–156. Αθήνα: Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού & Αθλητισμού., 2021

Koutroulou Magoula is a tell site with primarily neolithic occupation (dated to the first two cen... more Koutroulou Magoula is a tell site with primarily neolithic occupation (dated to the first two centuries of the 6th millennium BC, based on AmS dating), situated in the vicinity of the village of Vardali and 2,5 km south of the town of Neo Monastiri, in northern Fthiotida. In the years 2011-2012, a Late Bronze Age (“Mycenaean”) small tholos tomb was located on the top of the tell and next to Neolithic buildings, and it was fully excavated as part of the Koutroulou Magoula Archaeology and Archaeological ethnography project. It was found looted, possibly in antiquity. The diameter of its chamber was 2.56m, and its wall was preserved up to 0,70m. The length of the dromos was 3.70m and its width 0.75 to 1.10m. The lower part of the circular wall of the tomb and of its dromos are well preserved but its tholos was mostly destroyed. The pottery that was found in the contexts in and around the tomb is small in quantity and of poor preservation, but it allowed its dating to LH IIA-LH IIIB. it is possible that the tomb was built and first used early in LH IIB or even in LH IIA, while its use lasted until LH IIIA1-LH IIIA2, according to the latest sherd in the chamber, or until LH IIIA2-IIIB, according to the latest LH pottery that was collected around it. The tholos tomb would have been visible from some distance, and the choice of the location indicates a desire on the part of its builders to establish mnemonic links with the locality and its material history.

Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2004

Summary. The archaeology of animal sacrifice has attracted considerable attention, although discu... more Summary. The archaeology of animal sacrifice has attracted considerable attention, although discussions on the meanings and social effects of the practice in different contexts are rather under-developed. In the Aegean, classical antiquity has provided abundant literary, ...

Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2004

The current economic and social crisis in Greece and Europe in general has become the subject of ... more The current economic and social crisis in Greece and Europe in general has become the subject of intense, local, and international debate, yet the discussion has been dominated by economists, political scientists, and some historians. At the same time, it is evident that in both domestic and foreign invocations and pronouncements, the classical heritage and the material past more broadly loom large. I will claim that, far from being simply a colourful backdrop to the political discourse or a frivolous distraction from the serious matters at hand, such invocations bring forth crucial issues, hardly touched upon by scholarly research to date: the deeper roots of the dominant perceptions and stereotypes that structure the current political discourses, in Greece, in the rest of Europe, and beyond; the salient continuities between the crypto-colony of the 19th century and the debt colony of the present; and the fundamental role that the classical material heritage, and the materiality of the past in general, have played in the shaping of contemporary perceptions and discursive regimes. In this talk, I will elaborate on this argument, examining in particular notions of debt and indebtedness as cultural phenomena which produce specific regimes of subjectivity and morality. I will also explore how specific archaeological stories that became prominent media phenomena and public obsessions, are intricately linked with the contemporary crisis. Such cases often become stories of “national treasure-hunting,” or better, examples of what anthropologists have described as an “occult economy.”

The photograph on the front page of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn’s website last week was a collage... more The photograph on the front page of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn’s website last week was a collage by the photographer Nelly’s, produced as propaganda for the Metaxas regime and displayed in the Greek Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. There’s a ruined temple in the background, and in the foreground the ancient bronze statue known as the Artemision Zeus or Poseidon, next to an elderly modern Greek shepherd who looks remarkably like the classical god. The message of racial continuity between ancient and modern Greeks that the regime was keen to project, alongside its tourism campaign, could not have been more obvious.
The Golden Dawn headline above the picture claims that ‘the 4000-year racial continuity of the Greeks has been proved’. The article is based on a study published in Nature, ‘Genetic origins of Minoans and Mycenaeans’, by Iosif Laziridis et al. It was reported in the international as well as the Greek press, and the emphasis in most headlines was on the genetic continuity between people in the Bronze Age Aegean and contemporary Greeks: ‘Minos, our grandfather’, for example.
The scientific paper takes ‘Minoans’ and ‘Mycenaeans’ as truthful ethnic categories, representing coherent groups of people who identified themselves as such, but they are in fact archeological constructs originating in the late 19th and early 20th century, coined by the likes of Heinrich Schliemann, Arthur Evans and their predecessors. This is the ‘pots equal people’ approach which most archeologists have left behind, aware of the complexities and intricacies of social and cultural identity. (There’s also old-fashioned talk of ‘the rise of civilisation’.)
The researchers say they ‘generated genome-wide data from 19 ancient individuals’, classed as ‘Minoan’ or ‘Mycenaean’ depending on their dates and whether they came from Crete or mainland Greece. (Why 19? They don’t say. ‘No statistical methods were used to predetermine sample size.’) Other data were used for the purposes of analysis, including DNA from 30 ‘Modern Greek’ individuals, from mainland Greece, Cyprus and Crete.
One of the questions the researchers set out to answer was: ‘Do the labels “Minoan” and “Mycenaean” correspond to genetically coherent populations or do they obscure a more complex structure of the peoples who inhabited Crete and mainland Greece at this time?’ But they’d already answered it in the affirmative by their choice of categories, by the labels they attached to the sampled skeletons.
‘Modern Greeks resemble the Mycenaeans,’ they conclude, ‘but with some additional dilution of the Early Neolithic ancestry.’ The results of the study ‘support the idea of continuity but not isolation in the history of populations of the Aegean, before and after the time of its earliest civilisations’. But it’s hardly surprising that a few modern individuals living in the Eastern Mediterranean should share genetic material with a few individuals who lived in the same region in the Bronze Age; it’s a big jump from there to the neo-Nazi fantasy of 4000 years of ‘racial continuity’.
In a press interview following the publication of the study, one of the main authors claimed that ‘there is no doubt that our findings reflect historical events in the Greek lands’: ‘the picture of historical continuity is crystal clear, as is very clear the fact that through the centuries Greeks evolved receiving genetic influences from other populations.’ The category of ‘Greekness’ here appears more or less given and stable, despite the ‘influences’, from the Early Bronze Age to the present. It sounds like a version of the 19th-century national narrative of the power of eternal Hellenism to absorb external influences.
The researchers stray beyond genetics for some shaky supportive evidence. The article mentions ‘the distribution of shared toponyms in Crete, mainland Greece and Anatolia’, supported by a single bibliographic reference dating to 1896. ‘The appearance of the Bronze Age people of the Aegean has been preserved in colourful frescos and pottery,’ the researchers say, ‘depicting people with mostly dark hair and eyes.’ They ‘infer that the appearance of our ancient samples matched the visual representations … suggesting that art of this period reproduced phenotypes naturalistically.’ But there were well-known non-naturalistic artistic conventions in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean, such as the depiction of men and women with red and white skin respectively.
The idea that facial features denote ethnic types takes us back to the interwar years, and even to the late 19th century. The choice of photograph on the Golden Dawn website may not have been so inappropriate after all. Whatever its authors’ intentions, this single study, with its small sample, out-dated rationale and circular logic, is being consumed as a rehearsal of 19th and early 20th-century racial discourse, updated with a modern and seemingly authoritative toolkit.

Cooney, K., B. Fagan, A. González, Y. Hamilakis, C. Holtorf, M. Johnson, L. López Luján, and C. Renfrew, “Responses to the Archaeology for the People Questionnaire”, Archaeology for the People, Oxford, Oxbow, 2015, pp. 145-161. VISIT: http://www.mesoweb.com/es/articulos/sub/Responses.pdf

Contexts: The Annual Review of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, 2018

Contexts is the annual report of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, edited by Kevin P. Smit... more Contexts is the annual report of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, edited by Kevin P. Smith. Its pages give an abbreviated overview of research, events, programs, changes, exhibitions, and teaching done with, in, and through the museum over the course of the academic year, both within its walls and beyond.