Archaeologies of the Greek Past Landscape, Monuments, and Memories [Paperback]

This 2002 book explores social memory in the ancient Greek world using the evidence of landscapes and monuments.Social, or collective, memory has recently become a much debated subject, both in academic disciplines and in the popular media. People in antiquity surely possessed similar shared memories, but - except for the limited accounts of elite authors--they are notoriously difficult to recover. This book explores how material culture, in particular the evidence of landscape and of monuments, can reveal commemorative practices and collective amnesias in past societies. Three case studies are considered: Greece in the early Roman period, Hellenistic and Roman Crete, and Messenia from Archaic to Hellenistic times.Social, or collective, memory has recently become a much debated subject, both in academic disciplines and in the popular media. People in antiquity surely possessed similar shared memories, but - except for the limited accounts of elite authors--they are notoriously difficult to recover. This book explores how material culture, in particular the evidence of landscape and of monuments, can reveal commemorative practices and collective amnesias in past societies. Three case studies are considered: Greece in the early Roman period, Hellenistic and Roman Crete, and Messenia from Archaic to Hellenistic times.Social or collective memory has recently become a much debated subject in academic disciplines and in the popular media. People in antiquity surely possessed similar shared memories, but except for the limited accounts of elite authors--they are notoriously difficult to recover. This book explores how material culture, in particular the evidence of landscape and of monuments, can reveal commemorative practices and collective amnesias in past societies. Three case studies are considered--Greece in the early Roman period, Hellenistic and Roman Crete, and Messenia from Archaic to Hellenistic times.1. Archaeologies of memory; 2. Old Greece within the Empire; 3l#§