Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27.1 (2014) 79-100
ISSN (Print)
0952-7648
ISSN (Online) 1743-1700
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece
Hamish Forbes
Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
This study integrates the dominant archaeological discourse concerning use of the Classical past in defining
national identity in Greece with a strand of ethnographic research on Greece’s officially unacknowledged minorities that has not found its way into the archaeological literature on Greece. The first part discusses how the
Greek state has tried to deny the existence of ethnic alterities within its boundaries, often punishing those who
insist on advertising their non-Greek origins. One of the ways in which Hellenisation has been forced on these
groups is via an insistence that ‘true’ Greeks’ origins lie in a Classical past. Those whose origins lie elsewhere
have been effectively marginalised. The second part of the study focuses on the Greek-Albanian (Arvanitis)
minority. As a case study, two Arvanitic groups are compared, one Peloponnesian and one Boeotian. Boeotian
Arvanites have no monumental symbolic capital as a usable past employable within the wider national(istic)
discourse. In contrast, the Peloponnesian group has a monument linking them to an alternative (nonClassical) past which they use to advertise their right to be considered ‘proper’ Greek citizens.
Keywords: Arvanites, Classical past, cultural hegemonisation, ethnic alterities, Greece, heritage
Prologue: Babel in Greece — Disconnected
Acts in Four Scenes
Scene 1:
Place: Athens. The time: 2 February 2001.
A Greek citizen was sentenced to 15 months in
jail for ‘disseminating false information’ which
could ‘provoke public anxiety and give the
impression that there are minority problems in
Greece’. Sotiris Bletsas had distributed a leaflet
produced by an EU-linked body at an annual
gathering of Greek Vlachs, whose language is
related to Rumanian. It listed all the lesser-used
languages of Europe: in Greece, Arvanitika
(a form of Albanian), Aroumanian (Vlach),
Bulgarian (spoken by Moslem Pomaks), SlavMacedonian and Turkish. In effect the court
ruled that claiming that any minority languagegroups existed in Greece was a lie. The judge
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
stated that the court should not even be discussing the idea of the existence of non-Greek
languages in Greece (Baltsiotis and Embiricos
2001: 145-48).
Scene 2:
Place: Rodopi Criminal Court, Thrace, Northern Greece. The time: 26 January 1990.
Dr Ahmet Sadik, a former parliamentarian and
community leader, was sentenced to 18 months’
imprisonment for disrupting public peace,
because he had described the Turkish-speaking
Greek citizens of the region as Turkish rather
than Greek. The sentence was subsequently
upheld by the Court of Appeals and the Court
of Cassation (Areios Pagos) (European Court
of Human Rights 1996: especially section 11;
Human Rights Watch 1999: especially 11-14).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v27i1.79
80
Forbes
Twenty years later, a US State Department
document on human rights in Greece indicated
concerns about the human rights of this minority, including that Turkish-speaking Greeks were
still legally barred from self-identifying as Turkish, despite repeated European Court of Human
Rights decisions supporting their right to do so
(Wikileaks 2009: esp. paras. 1-3, 6).
Scene 3:
The place: Athens. The time: the summer of
1998.
An Athenian taxi-driver harangued me about a
scandal concerning the treatment of the Elgin
Marbles (ta Elyinia) by the British Museum. It
made me realise that in the many years I have
been visiting the Methana peninsula in the
northeastern Peloponnese (Figure 1), the issue
of the marbles has never been raised. Methanites
are Arvanites, a minority group belonging to
Figure 1. Methana: location map.
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
the Greek Orthodox faith which has existed in
Greece for many centuries, speaking a form of
the Albanian language but seeing themselves as
unimpeachably Greek citizens.
Scene 4:
The place: the small town of Kranidhi in the
Southern Argolid, part of the northeastern Peloponnese. The time: the mid-1980s.
While shopping for supplies for an archaeological project, I used a phrase in Arvanitika,
which was spoken in the area, although local
people never mentioned its existence to project
personnel. The response was enthusiastic, with
questions about how I knew any of the language
and how much I knew. In each successive shop
I entered I was greeted in Arvanitika: word had
spread rapidly! Once it was established that I
valued their minority identity, they were keen
to own it.
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece Introduction
This study is a contribution to the burgeoning
literature on the multivocality of ancient remains,
the contested discourses they engender, and the
ecologies of power which they constitute. Incorporated in the discussion are aspects of debates
in archaeology, history and anthropology over
identity within Europe, especially the Mediterranean lands, but also well beyond. The focus
is primarily identity’s entanglement with the
material record, in the context of current debates
over multiple, alternative, and often competing
narratives concerning the past (e.g. Karakasidou
1997; Rountree 2003; Colwell-Chanthaphonh
2009; Stroulia and Sutton 2009; Herzfeld
2010; Meier 2013; Niklasson and Meier 2013;
Bawaya 2014), the origins of which may be seen
in historical debates relating to Hobsbawm and
Ranger’s concept of invented traditions (1983),
and Anderson’s concept of imagined communities
(1991).
My explorations owe much to Herzfeld’s
engagement with issues of national identity and
marginality in the context of Greek anthropology and also more widely across the Mediterranean and Europe as presented in Anthropology
through the Looking Glass (Herzfeld 1987, esp.
Chapter 1) and further developed, for example,
in Herzfeld 2002a. Particularly relevant here
is his observation that the nation-state is an
‘imagined community’ whose identity as promulgated by elites may not be shared by other citizens (Herzfeld 2002b: 140). His expositions on
the complexities of competing claims to historical and material cultural ‘heritage’ demonstrate
the potential to use entangled themes of identity
and material culture to categorise not only those
who are considered to ‘belong’ but also to marginalise those who do not (e.g. Herzfeld 1991;
2009, esp. 227-28, 301-302) .
In an age of global interactions, ‘heritage’ is
particularly entangled with a variety of contestations over appropriations of the past and the
way traditions are invented, especially if tourist
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
81
cash is involved (Herzfeld 1991, esp. 57-58,
144-47, 191-93, 226-28; 2009, esp. 227-33,
304-305, 310-11; Hodder 2003: 56). For example, a fictitious Maya past created on a Honduran island brings in $50 million annually, but
devalues the pasts of the disadvantaged ethnic
minority original inhabitants (Bawaya 2014).
Another locus of a variety of contestations associated with tourism is Malta: Sant Cassia (1999)
presents the multivocality of the town of Mdina
and its entanglement in contestation by elite
and other groups and organisations—including the state—over ownership of its past in the
context of an economically dominating tourist industry. A different aspect of contestation
over the Maltese past can be seen in Rountree’s
(2003) discussion of mother-goddess tourism in
the islands’ Neolithic temples.
Background
Greeks’ use of their ancient past for political
purposes and as cultural capital has been the
subject of numerous publications in archaeology and anthropology over the last two decades
(e.g. Hamilakis and Yalouri 1996; Sutton 1998:
173-78; Stewart 2003; Hamilakis 2007). Arguing
that feelings of national identity need material
traces from the past, with archaeology as western modernity’s official device for producing a
nation’s materiality of the past, Hamilakis (2007:
vii) asks: ‘How do different social actors (from
the nation-state, to intellectuals, to diverse social
groups, including “others” of the nation) deploy
antiquity in general and material antiquities in
particular, in constructing their own versions of
national imagination and in pursuing various
agendas at the same time?’ Here ‘antiquities’ and
‘antiquity’ are almost entirely the Classical past
of Greece (Hamilakis 2007: 7), used by governmental and other Greek elites as a hegemonising
rhetoric. While the presence of Minoan imagery
in the procession at the start of the Athens
Olympics (Hamilakis 2007: 3-5) might be
considered a counterbalance to this view, the
82
Forbes
‘official’ line in heavily prescribed history books
in Greek schools mostly favours the rise of Hellenism: for the Bronze Age the primary focus
seems to be on Mycenaeans as the first Hellenes
(Hamilakis 2003) rather than the non-Greek
Minoans.
The ‘others’ of the nation in the quotation
above are political ‘others’—communists and leftists, for example—who have striven to establish
themselves as an alternative hegemonising elite,
thus also employing the Classical past as symbolic
capital (Hamilakis 2007: 291). The first part of
this article, however, explores the existence of
other ‘others’, whose ‘otherness’ the Greek state
officially denies (e.g. Scenes 1 and 2 above),
despite their existence in their present locations
for centuries before the formation of the modern
Greek state, and despite their relationship to the
Greek past. The term which I use for these others
is ‘ethnic minorities’. According to the United
Nations, the term ‘minority’, as used in its
human rights system, ‘usually refers to national
or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities,
pursuant to the United Nations Minorities
Declaration’. Further, ‘[a]ll States have one or
more minority groups within their national
territories, characterised by their own national,
ethnic, linguistic or religious identity, which
differs from that of the majority population’
(United Nations 2010: 2). The UN has defined
a minority as:
[a] group numerically inferior to the rest of
the population of a State, in a non-dominant
position, whose members—being nationals of the State—possess ethnic, religious or
linguistic characteristics differing from those
of the rest of the population and show, if
only implicitly, a sense of solidarity, directed
towards preserving their culture, traditions,
religion or language.
(Capotorti and United Nations 1979: para.
568, quoted in United Nations 2010: 2)
This definition states clearly that members of
such minority groups, including ethnic minorities, have the same nationality or national
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
identity as that of the majority, despite ‘nonstandard’ origins. The modern Greek word
ethnos, however, has significantly different connotations indicating, in a formal sense, ‘nation’
and nationality. My experience has been that
many Greeks who meet the English term ‘ethnic
minority’ assume that it automatically indicates
groups who claim a nationality or national identity other than Greek. They therefore consider
the discussion of indigenous ethnic minorities
in Greece to be highly contentious. GefouMadianou (1999: 413), for example, describing
one such group, deliberately does not define
them as an ethnic minority, repeatedly using
the terms ‘marginal’ and ‘marginalised’ instead.
While these minorities, or parts of them, are
often marginalised, this term is not particularly
appropriate in the present context. Despite the
potential for mixed messages, therefore, I shall
use the phrase ‘ethnic minority’ in this article,
since I cannot think of a better English alternative—but with the understanding that it does
not signify any alternative national identity (see
e.g. Magliveras 2013: 152-53).
For the purposes of this study of ethnic
alterity, contestation and the identification of
alternative significant pasts, Gefou-Madianou’s
(1999) discussion is particularly relevant. She
notes that identity among these minority communities ‘should be understood not as an object
that can be defined outright, but rather as an
ongoing process whereby relations of power,
authority, and authenticity are negotiated and
formulated within particular social and political
contexts’ (Gefou-Madianou 1999: 414). Using
this approach, I shall discuss how the use of a
particular monument as validation of a community’s social worth is part of the group’s dialogical process of negotiating its identity with what
it views as a culturally and politically dominant
Other, which in turn views members of the
community as culturally, ethnically and morally
inferior Others.
A substantial literature on diverse ethnic and
regional Others in Greece has appeared over the
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece last two decades (e.g. Pollis 1992; Karakasidou
1993; Stavros 1995; Sasse 1998; Brunnbauer
1999; Gefou-Madianou 1999; Hart 1999; Kretsi
2002; Bintliff 2003; Herzfeld 2003; Demetriou
2004; Livanios 2006; Magliveras 2009; Lawrence
2011; also several in Tsitselikis 2008: 29 n. 2). In
several discussions, Herzfeld touches en passant
on the existence of officially unacknowledged
minorities in Greece (e.g. Herzfeld 1987: 33,
208; 2002a: 906), noting in particular that the
official line emphasises the lack of any diversity:
the Italian state, by contrast, is able to accommodate a rich array of minority cultural life, including some minority-language media (Herzfeld
2003: 286). He has not, however, substantially
developed this issue in the context of contested
pasts.
The aim of this study, therefore, is to examine
the issue, arguing that the use of the Classical past
as a major element in contemporary mainstream
Greek identity has effectively marginalised communities whose ethnic origins link them to other
pasts. The second part of the article is therefore
a case-study examining the relationships of two
communities of the Arvanitic minority to their
local pasts. One of these communities prefers to
avoid linking itself to archaeological sites from
its recent past, for fear of arousing prejudice
from the ‘mainstream’ population. The other
links itself to non-Classical alternative monumentalities1 to self-identify members as worthy
citizens, while simultaneously maintaining their
distinctive identity and engaging in apparent
small symbolic acts of contestation against the
hegemonising centre.
It is widely acknowledged that the Western
idealisation of modern Greeks’ origins in Classical antiquity has been central to the modern
Greek state since its foundation, being rapidly
indigenised by Greeks themselves (e.g. McNeal
1991; Hamilakis 2007: vii, 287-301). Regularly
used in designs on postage stamps and currency
(Gounaris 2003), and used repeatedly by the
dictator Metaxas in the 1930s (Carabott 2003;
Hamilakis 2007: 169-204), it was used again in
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
83
campaigns to support Greece during World War
II (Hamilakis and Yalouri 1996: 119), and is the
primary focus of Greece’s school history-books
(Hamilakis 2003). It has likewise been central
to the campaign for the return of the Elgin (or
Parthenon) marbles to Greece (Scene 3 above).
Scholars have noted the ubiquitous use of the
Classical past in everyday life, in the negotiation
of power among different social groups, and in
the attempts of authorities to legitimise their
existence (e.g. Hamilakis and Yalouri 1996;
Sutton 1998; Hamilakis 2007). Stewart (2003:
485) recounts numerous Greek comments on his
own country’s lack of history, and the memorable
statement: ‘when we were developing mathematics, the English were still hanging off trees’.
Sutton (1998: 173) records a comparable statement. The exclusionary potential inherent in
this thinking was demonstrated quite recently
in a statement by the leader of a right-wing
nationalist political party reported by the newspaper Kathimerini (25 January 2010), concerning a government initiative to grant citizenship
to Greek-born children of recent immigrants:
‘Greece is saying “no” to this bill because it
does not want Hellenism to be diluted. Greece
belongs to its history: we were building the Parthenon when they were still living in trees’. This
sort of privileged ownership of the Classical past
also allows those at the centres of power to differentiate ‘proper’ Greeks from Others (ethnic,
regional, political, etc.) in the Greek nation (e.g.
Hamilakis 2007: 205-42).
Less frequently discussed, however, is the reality that the idea of a direct unbroken connection
between present-day Greeks and their ancient
past is an invented tradition (Hobsbawm 1983:
264; Gefou-Madianou 1999: 418; Anderson
2006: 42) originating not directly from Western
imposition, but in the rhetoric of high-status
Greeks in the 18th century, most of whom
were based outside of Greece. At a time when
Greece was still part of the Ottoman Empire,
the message that they presented to the West was
that the ancient Hellenic spirit and culture had
84
Forbes
continued unbroken from antiquity to their
own time and were desperate for liberation
from Turkish oppression. This invention was
to play a major role in the intellectual revival
of Greece both before and after Independence.
As part of their campaign, this group claimed
principal ownership of the Classical past, and at
the same time a symbolic superiority over other
Europeans (Gefou-Madianou 1999: 417-18;
Hamilakis 2007: 75-77). The corollary to the
last sentence—that ownership of the Classical
past automatically defines non-owners, within or
beyond Greece’s borders, as inherently inferior—
lies at the heart of this study.
In keeping with its origins, the emphasis on
ownership of the Classical and Hellenistic past,
particularly its literary and material manifestations, as the entry key to modern Greek identity has meant that access to that knowledge
has been the privilege only of a well-educated
minority. Furthermore, the increasing emphasis
by the new state on use of the Greek language
also reflects at least as much an Ottoman elite
preference, rather than a Western classicising
one, since before Independence Greek was
the language of the educated and commercial
elite throughout the Balkans. The designation
‘Greek’ was sometimes used as a marker of an
elite class rather than of ethnicity: peasants
spoke a variety of other languages (Livanios
2006: 45-46, 58). The discourse of Greek identity has thus suited more privileged members
of Greek society, but effectively marginalised
regional and ethnic alterities.
The dominant archaeological discourse characterising the identity of the Greek nation as
based on imported Western ideals of ancient
Hellenic origins is thus too simplistic, failing to
consider the position of various ethnic and other
minorities within the Greek state. Two ‘minority’ groups, Moslems and Jews, are officially
recognised, but the existence of any minority groups based on alternative ethnicity has
been denied (Herzfeld 2002a: 906)—as clearly
evidenced by Scenes 1 and 2 above. This situa© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
tion continues Ottoman practice at the time of
Greek Independence, which acknowledged only
three separate ‘peoples’ (millets), based entirely
upon religion: Moslems, Jews and Christians.
‘Nationality’ based on modern concepts of ethnicity, associated with separate languages and
cultures, was not recognised (Vucinich 1962:
605; Abu Jaber 1967: 214; Goffman 2002: 9).
The Greek state’s poor record in the context of
the rights of ethnic and religious alterities, and
its emphasis on the Greek language (with its
implied ancient roots), thus derives not primarily from imported Western values, but from
Greece’s previous history of isolation from the
West, latterly in a relatively privileged position
within the millet system of the Ottoman Empire
and formerly within the Byzantine Empire (Pollis 1992: 171-73, 182; Livanios 2006: 53-54;
Tsitselikis 2008: 28).
E Pluribus Unum?
In 1829, with the modern Greek state emerging from the ruins of its War of Independence
from Ottoman Turkey, Prince Klemens Wenzel
von Metternich received a letter from Austria’s
ambassador in London, which asked: ‘What do
we mean by the Greeks?’ Should they be defined
as an identifiable people, or as inhabitants of a
country or as co-religionists—i.e. members of
the Greek Orthodox Church? The geographical area which was approximately the area of
ancient Greece was part of the Middle Eastern
ethnic mosaic after centuries of Venetian and
Ottoman rule: heterogeneous, polyglot, multiethnic and with three separate major religions:
Moslem, Jewish and Christian, with Christians being divided into an Orthodox majority
and a small but significant Catholic minority
(Livanios 2006: 43). Its peoples spoke many
languages: Italian (in some of the islands), Albanian (throughout parts of the mainland and
in some of the islands), Vlach, Bulgarian and
Slavo-Macedonian (particularly in what is now
northern Greece), Turkish and many different
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece Greek dialects (Sasse 1998: 41; Livanios 2006;
Tsitselikis 2008: 28). This linguistic mix was
satirised in Dimitrios Byzantios’s Babylonia,
a play produced in 1836 (Byzantios 2003;
Frankiskos 2008: 33). With a cast of linguistically diverse ‘Greek’ characters, including an
Albanian (Alvanos), it depicts the misunderstandings between these characters resulting
from their highly divergent forms of the Greek
language. As a result of this heterogeneity, the
‘popular’ Greek language (dhimotiki) which
emerged after Independence was itself a deliberate creation out of various contemporary forms
(Sasse 1998: 50).
It has been claimed that Greeks themselves
answered Metternich’s question by emphasising
their roots as ‘Hellenes’ rather than as ‘Romans’
(Romii), the latter term emphasising historical
links with Constantinople and the medieval
Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire. Thus, it
is suggested, they laid a primary stress on a
supposedly shared Greek language (McNeal
1991; Livanios 2006: 58). That this can also
be understood as a power-grab by an already
Greek-speaking educated and mercantile elite
(Livanios 2006: 58) is generally ignored.
While archaeologists have regularly noted
the contribution of Greeks’ ancient past to the
development of their national identity over the
last 180 years or so, an even greater emphasis
was placed on a nation unified by Greek as
the only recognised language (Livanios 2006:
58-59, 61). Even today, those citizens who
wish to valorise other languages in addition
to Greek are treated with severe intolerance
(Scenes 1 and 2 above; also below). The insistence on legitimising only Greek also places a
strong secondary emphasis on membership of
the Greek Orthodox Church, since the church’s
liturgy remains entirely in the linguistic form
of its origin in later antiquity and the medieval
period—though Livanios (2006) would see this
relationship the other way around, with Greek
Orthodoxy being the primary element. Those
of other faiths, which do not use Greek as their
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
85
primary liturgical language—especially Roman
Catholics, Jews and Moslems—have likewise
been treated as second-class citizens (e.g. Stavros
1995; Hart 1999; Kretsi 2002; Tsitselikis 2008).
Yet despite sometimes heavy-handed action
by the Greek state, and considerable levels of
discrimination by Greeks who consider themselves ‘superior’ (see e.g. Whitman 1990: 17-21),
non-Greek language groups still exist in Greece.
Certain monoglot Greek out-groups—e.g.
Sarakatsani and Cretan villagers (Herzfeld 1987:
57-58; 1988: xi-xv, 34-38; 2003)—also prefer to
adopt alternative and/or parallel regional and/or
quasi-ethnic identities. Thus, local Cretan elites
have often ignored or downplayed a Classical
and particularly an Athenian Classical past, preferentially focusing on Minoan and Byzantine
pasts (Herzfeld 1988: 34-36).
The Classical Past and Greek Identity: A
Recent Development?
As noted above, educated Greeks use Greece’s
ancient past as a rhetorical resource, particularly in facing the non-Greek world, and most
especially in situations of self-presentation, contestation and debate. My ethnographic experience in the early 1970s, however, talking to
a wide cross-section of working-class Greeks
with a limited education who visited the spa
on Methana, was otherwise. Many at that time
were uncomfortable with the idea of connecting themselves with non-Christian (heathen,
polytheistic) roots, preferring to connect themselves to the greatness of the Christian Byzantine Empire, stretching from Anatolia through
Greece northwards into the Balkans (see e.g.
Livanios 2006: 56-57).
Not all scholars believe that the present level
of emphasis on a Classical past as a crucial part
of Greek national identity has a particularly
long historical time depth. Gotsi (2000) suggests that the special use of the Classical past
in national identity has been particularly precipitated by Greece’s accession to the European
86
Forbes
Union in 1981. That new position within a
union of states with very different cultures and
histories created a cultural anxiety over the possible effacement of Greece’s distinctive culture
and history by a very different European homogeneity (Gotsi 2000: 92-93). One way of presenting/performing Greeks’ specialness to/over
other Europeans, therefore, has been to focus
attention particularly on their Classical heritage. It is almost certainly no coincidence that
the campaign to return the Elgin/Parthenon
marbles—the ultimate emphasiser of Greece’s
unique and dominant cultural position within
Europe—started just two years after Greece
joined the EU.2 Thus, while a relatively small
and well-educated sector of the population has
emphasised its roots in the Classical past since
the 19th century, the more widespread acceptance of those roots has resulted from a combination of a more assertive performance of Greek
specialness by government and a wider recognition of Greece’s place within Europe.
Ethnic Alterity in Greece: Two Examples
Boeotia
With little room for ethnic alterity in the present Greek state, how can some citizens engage
with an ancient Greek monumental past most
obviously located in Athens—on the Acropolis,
and in other high-profile monuments in the
centre3—when their ethnic and/or regional
identities have little to connect them with that
past? Two linked publications exemplify the way
in which discussions of Greek identity have so
far failed to recognise the existence of ‘others’
whose identities do not focus directly on the
Classical Greek past.
Pantazatos (2010) discusses the case of Arvanites in Boeotia. Bintliff (2003) had previously
discussed his ethical dilemma as an archaeologist in approaching the past of this ethnic group, whose communities are widespread
where he conducted fieldwork. While Bintliff
wished to publicise archaeological evidence of
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
their ethnically differentiated past, the local
inhabitants themselves did not wish to have
it revealed: publicising it would invite more
of the abuse and discrimination that they had
previously suffered as minority group members (Bintliff 2003: 138-41; Pantazatos 2010:
99). As a philosopher discussing the ethics of
this situation, Pantazatos argues that, from his
viewpoint of ‘stewardship’, part of the special
relationship of the Arvanitis community with
its historical heritage is its right not to have it
revealed (Pantazatos 2010: 99). Surprisingly, he
ignores the ethical ramifications of the reason
why they must deny their own identity and
their past, which might otherwise have been
valorised: the abuse and discrimination, both as
official policy and unofficial behaviour, suffered
by generations of Arvanites.
Instead, Pantazatos (2010: 97-98) characterises Arvanites as a ‘diaspora community’,
although Bintliff himself never defines them
as such. This definition, Silverstein (2005:
364-66) argues, problematises them as an
‘immigrant community’, racialising and exoticising them. It implicitly suggests an element
of rootlessness, ignoring the fact that Arvanitic
communities were already established in the
area in the late medieval period, many centuries before the foundation of the Greek state
(Bintliff 2003: 132-33), and instead implicitly
equates them with the late-20th-century Albanian diaspora. In reality, they are better seen
as an indigenous population, as defined by the
International Labour Organization Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples Convention (International
Labour Organization 1989; see also Watkins
2005: 430). Watkins (2005: 441) highlights
the ethical problem of indigenous groups who,
for various reasons, prefer not to draw attention to themselves by relating themselves to
their archaeology. He suggests that their silence
may not reflect lack of interest in their past(s),
but past lack of concern by those at the powercentres of the archaeological establishment for
engaging with these groups’ alterities.
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece Brown and Hamilakis (2003a: 9) are more
sympathetic to the complexities of the Boeotian situation. They emphasise the exclusion of
Arvanites from the dominant national narrative
based on Classical antiquity, the impact of xenophobic and racist attacks on recent immigrants
from post-communist Albania, and the need of
Arvanites to distinguish themselves from the
recent immigrant community. Bintliff, however,
also focuses on the resilience of Arvanitic ethnic
identity in the face of over a century of sustained
policies of total Hellenisation, including the
deliberate ethnic cleansing of their toponymic
landscapes, replacing indigenous toponyms with
sometimes highly inappropriate Greek names
(Bintliff 2003: 138-39). By contrast, Brown
and Hamilakis dwell primarily on the impact
of recent (illegal) immigration from Albania,
aligning themselves with the centralist line by
suggesting that as a foreign researcher Bintliff
was imposing his own ‘ethnic’ or ‘minority’ label
onto the Boeotian Arvanitis situation (Brown
and Hamilakis 2003a: 9). In fact, the exogenous
foreigner probably brings less cultural baggage
to the situation than Greek archaeologists who
have grown up within the dominant discourse
on the relationship of ‘proper’ Greeks to their
past. As Livanios (2006: 65-68) notes, these
‘ethnic’ labels were imposed in the later 19th
century by local political and religious elites who
strove to differentiate ‘Greeks’, ‘Bulgarians’, etc.
This ultimately resulted in the Second Balkan
War of 1913 and subsequently a tendency to
define intolerable ‘ethnic’ groups who spoke languages other than the nationally approved one.
The Northeastern Peloponnese
The inhabitants of the village of Kiladha, close
to Kranidhi (Scene 4 above), do not consider
the ancient past of their most famous archaeological site—the Franchthi Cave, just across the
bay—to be important. Instead, they reminisce
about the cave in its recent past as a goatherd’s
dwelling, and a location for parties and for
gathering a range of commodities (Stroulia and
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
87
Sutton 2009: 124-25). Stroulia and Sutton
(2009: 126-27) link Kiladhiotes’ amnesia of the
ancient world with the situation further north
in the eastern Peloponnese. The local inhabitants near the famous ancient religious complex
of Nemea are largely indifferent to its remains:
while archaeologists value an archaeological past,
the local community prefers a much more recent
past of agricultural expansion (Stroulia and Sutton 2009: 131). When the American excavators
of the ancient site first initiated re-enactments
of the ancient games there, there was very little local participation. Significantly, in light of
the contention that Greeks’ ancient heritage has
been appropriated primarily by more privileged
sectors of society, most of the contestants came
from Athens or the USA (Stroulia and Sutton
2009: 134).
It is suggested that this landscape dissonance,
in which local inhabitants and archaeologists
see sites and their vicinities in completely different ways, is primarily the result of the ways
in which archaeologists—especially, though not
exclusively, non-Greeks—behave when excavating, and also when presenting and preserving
ancient sites (Stroulia and Sutton 2009: 12733). Not once, however, do the authors consider
the possible impact of both these communities’
Albanian-speaking pasts (the original Albanian
names of both local villages have been expunged
in favour of Greek-sounding replacements) on
their relationship with ancient sites. This is not
surprising, since, as a result of their recent histories, members of these communities, although
valuing their origins, would not readily identify
themselves as part of an ‘improper Greek’ minority to an exogenous observer (Scene 4 above). As
noted below, Arvanites tend to take on multiple
identities, often identifying as Greek when interacting with outsiders, but asserting an Arvanitic
identity at a local level. In yet another Arvanitic
community not far from Nemea, ethnic alterity status is a significant complicating factor in
its relationship to another important Classical
site (Deltsou 2009). Once again, therefore, it
88
Forbes
is important to recognise the officially unrecognised ‘otherness’ of such Greeks and their local
pasts when discussing their relationships with
their archaeological landscapes.
Residents in the area around Nemea prefer to
place a high value on a local cave instead of the
archaeological site. Although it is linked in local
belief to the mythical Nemean lion killed by
Hercules (Stroulia and Sutton 2009: 126-27),
this is a natural feature. While the associated
myth might be ancient, it does not make the
cave a Classical or Hellenistic site. Myths take
place outside of time, or rather in a homogenised past completely divorced from the ‘real’
gradated time of historians and archaeologists,
and of archaeological remains (Forbes 2007:
207-12, 401; 2009: 101). For this reason, especially when associated with natural features,
themselves also outside of archaeologists’ ‘real’
time, they can be accommodated into local
identity whereas archaeological sites cannot.
Significantly, the Franchthi Cave also has
a mythical past, as its name i Kyklopa (the
Cyclops) attests (Stroulia and Sutton 2009:
125). When I excavated there, it was clear that
the myth of the Cyclops had real meaning
for the local workmen in a way that the finds
themselves did not. The situation is also similar
to that on Methana: Methanites largely ignore
the remains of the Classical and Hellenistic city,
preferring to focus on a large cave discovered in
1973 and the highest peak, Khelona. The latter
feature is associated with a myth involving a
queen and an Egyptian king (Forbes 2007: 20810). The local inhabitants in these three areas,
therefore, focus not on archaeological remains,
but on natural features which have been given
added significance via their linkage to mythical
events divorced from archaeologists’ time.
Arvanites: A Case Study in Ethnic Alterity
A Contradictory Identity
I turn now to a more in-depth consideration
of the Arvanites. As a group they have mostly
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
merged well with the mainstream Greek-speaking population (e.g. Gefou-Madianou 1999:
413, 415-16; Bintliff 2003: 139-41; Magliveras
2013: 152-54). As Greek Orthodox Christians
they do not obviously differ from most other
Greeks. At the time of the Greek Revolution,
Greek-Albanian society was multi-stranded.
Arvanitika was spoken side-by-side with Greek
by upper-class inhabitants, as well as by ordinary
farmers and sailors, and it was in the process of
becoming a literary, rather than a purely spoken,
language (Sasse 1998: 49).
A criticism of an earlier draft of this study
was that I seemed to consider Arvanites all to be
poorly educated peasants. Although my detailed
ethnographic analysis below relates to a rural
area, my ethnographic research has brought me
into contact with a range of Arvanitis professionals, especially but by no means exclusively
Methanites, and I have academic colleagues who
also claim an Arvanitic background. Arvanites
in many walks of life are happy to admit to that
identity when they feel safe to do so, one such
example being the parliamentarian Theodoros
Pangalos (Eleftherotypia 2002). Gefou-Madianou, whose work is crucial here, notes that
the Arvanitic group that she met in Attica was
composed of university students and professionals. Younger people in particular were coming
together, playing and singing Arvanitic songs,
and dancing to them—acts which they acknowledged would have worried older residents who
were opposed to any expression of Arvanitic
culture (Gefou-Madianou 1999: 416). In fact, as
she makes abundantly clear (1999: 412-13), the
ideology of Arvanites as exclusively peasants is
that of Greece’s elite (a term she uses repeatedly),
and is very much at odds with reality.
Albanian speakers may have settled in some
parts of Greece as early as the 9th century ad:
their presence is well documented in the 13th
and 14th centuries (Magliveras 2009: 15). By
the time of the Greek Revolution their communities were widespread on the Greek mainland
and some of the islands (Sasse 1998: 44-46).
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece Because of their large numbers in the Peloponnese, both in the mountains and in the coastal
islands of Hydra, Spetses and Poros with their
very substantial fleets, it has been argued that
they provided the main military muscle which
realised the nationalist dreams of the Ottoman
Greek merchant class in the Revolution (Lawrence 2011: 37). A late 19th-century Turkish
writer identified two main ‘cinsiyet’—a term
with a more limited meaning than ‘nation’—in
Greece: Albanian and Greek (Boyar 2007: 50).
Despite their long history and positive contribution to the Greek nation, since the middle of the 19th century Arvanitic populations
have been stigmatised by a predominantly
Athenian elite which sees itself as the ‘purest
representatives’ of the Greek national identity constructed in that century and which
has traditionally viewed Arvanites as culturally
degenerate, uncivilised, and marginal—a characterisation still accepted by the Athenian population at large (Gefou-Madianou 1999: 412-13
n. 2). Under Greece’s long-standing Hellenisation policy towards unacknowledged linguistic
(‘ethnic’) alterities, Arvanites were considered
particularly problematic in the later 19th and
early 20th centuries. In the mid- and later 19th
century, the Greek state’s response to emerging
Albanian nationalism and the eventual formation of the Albanian state in 1913, and to claims
that Albanians had largely replaced the original
Greek population in late antiquity, was an
intensive campaign of linguistic Hellenisation
and assimilation (Sasse 1998: 51-52; GefouMadianou 1999: 420). The use of Arvanitika
was particularly oppressively discouraged under
the Metaxas dictatorship (1936–40). In the
post-war period, further active and forcible
imposition of Greek occurred, especially under
the military junta (1967–74) (Sasse 1998: 55;
Gefou-Madianou 1999: 420-21). Nevertheless
Sasse (1998: 41) estimates that there are still
over 300 communities in Greece of identifiable
Arvanitic descent; Bintliff (personal communication) considers this an underestimate.
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
89
Official Greek rhetoric clearly differentiating Arvanites from modern Albanians (Alvani)
(e.g. Bintliff 2003: 139; Forbes 2009: 102)
only developed in the later 19th century as an
artefact of the state’s Hellenisation policy. Previously, Arvanites and their language were simply
considered Albanian (Greek Helsinki Monitor
Minority Rights Group n.d.). In contrast to
official differentiation between Arvanites and
Albanian nationals, recent ethnographic studies
describe Albanian migrants being recognised
and accepted by Arvanitika-speaking villagers
as culturally related (Athanassopoulou 2005;
Magliveras 2009; 2013). I have observed elderly
inhabitants on the Methana peninsula conversing with Albanian migrants using Arvanitika in
preference to Greek.
When I started conducting ethnographic studies and they knew I was sympathetic, Methanites
soon made me aware of their Arvanitic identity,
emphasising that they were better Greeks than
those from some other parts of Greece, whom
they considered uncivilised, badly-behaved and
violent. In Attica, while Arvanites highly value
their distinctive language, culture and origins,
directly challenging the dominant national discourse on ‘true’ Greek identity, they prefer to
hide it from non-Arvanites because of hostile
reactions (e.g. Gefou-Madianou 1999: 416).
Boeotian Arvanites whom Bintliff (2003) met
were also reticent about publicly disclosing and
monumentalising their alterity. Some Boeotian
communities, however, seem prepared to advertise their Arvanitic heritage. A widely advertised
reconstruction of an Arvanitic wedding was
performed in the village of Mavrommati in June
2013, although the emphasis was on traditional
music and dances, not material remains.4 Nevertheless, when I visited this village for the first
time in August 2013, those whom I met were
not interested in discussing their Arvanitic heritage with an unknown foreigner.
It is evident from these examples and the
substantial ethnographic and ethnolinguistic
literature on Greece’s Arvanites that there is
90
Forbes
considerable variability in the readiness of people
in different Arvanitic communities to identify
themselves, which may sometimes be affected
by very short-term political considerations (e.g.
Gefou-Madianou 1999: 416). Thus, in one
Arvanitis mountain community in the Peloponnese, some of the younger men present their
Arvanitis identity very publically as a means of
aggressively breaching cultural norms (Lawrence
2011: 40-41). Sasse (1998: 56-57), however,
notes very mixed attitudes towards the speaking of Arvanitika within Arvanitis populations,
especially in villages in Attica and Boeotia.
Gefou-Madianou (1999: 414) describes Arvanitic identity in Attica as Greek in a national
context, but Arvanitic in more localised contexts. Thus there is considerable variability in
Arvanites’ readiness to self-identify, and they
can take on multiple identities. These depend
heavily on contingent factors, the specific social
contexts of encounters, the structural position of
the person being addressed, the speaker’s values
and the overall context, conversational and social
(Tsitsipis 2009; Magliveras 2013; see Scene 4
above, and also below).
The desire for an articulate Arvanitis voice
led to the foundation of a number of national
and regional Arvanitis associations. Founded in
1981, the primary aim of the Arvanitis League of
Greece, according to its former website (which
was on-line in August 2012, but is currently
unavailable; the site has come and gone over
the years), was to research the contribution of
Arvanites to Greece’s history and to preserve
their language and traditional songs. Significantly, while the website made no reference
to ancient physical or monumental evidence
of their origins, there was an emphasis on
the primeval origins of Arvanites’ civilisation.
This seems to refer to a line of 20th-century
scholarship accepted by some Arvanites—and
also by a number of Albanian nationalists—
that the original ancestors of Albanians and of
Greece’s Arvanites were the Pelasgians, a mythical race that the ancient Greeks believed inhab© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
ited Greece before they arrived (Sasse 1998: 48,
55; de Rapper 2009). While those at the centres
of power have emphasised their millennia-long
ancestry from the Hellenes of ancient Greece
(Gefou-Madianou 1999: 419-20), Albanians are
now attempting to trump their cards historically
by linking themselves to the prestigious ‘original’
inhabitants of Greece, older even than the Classical ‘ancestors’, who subsequently transferred
their civilisation to the Greeks, who are thus
represented as merely parvenu inhabitants of the
land (de Rapper 2009: 58-61).
Nevertheless, because of the stigma of their
non-Hellenic identity, Arvanites could not publicly own their historical roots. The recent major
influx of ethnic Albanians following the collapse
of communism in 1991 has given Arvanites
further reasons not to acknowledge those roots
(Gefou-Madianou 1999: 416; Bintliff 2003:
138). Of all the migrant groups in Greece in the
1990s and early 2000s at least, ethnic Albanians
were the most visible, most reviled and most
particularly associated with criminality in Greek
social consciousness (Rougheri 1997; Vidali
1999; Baldwin-Edwards 2004: 58-61).
Alterity and Alternative Monuments: Methana
In the face of the sorts of marginalisation discussed here, what sorts of material past(s) do
Methanites, as Arvanites, use to identify themselves as ‘proper’ Greeks? To most Methanites,
the impressive remains of the ancient city of
Methana were less important parts of their
cognitive maps of the landscape than the local
cave, the highest peak or the most recent volcano
(Forbes 2009: 101). Methanites’ lack of interest
in Classical antiquities is broadly paralleled by
the situation in the Arvanitic village of Vasiliko
near Corinth, located on the site of the ancient
Greek city of Sikyon. Deltsou (2009: 181, 183)
notes that the issue of how or even whether
Vasilikariotes connect themselves to the ancient
Classical past on which their village stands is
complex. Villagers repeatedly stated that they,
or ‘the village’, had no interest in antiquities
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece (Deltsou 2009: 181, 187), yet they did not ignore
them. As incomes from agriculture declined, they
became aware of the need to develop the tourism
which might be connected with their ancient
site (see above on connections with tourism).
However, the local museum which, it was hoped,
would attract tourists and their cash, was closed
after earthquake damage and remained so for
two decades. Many also noted that the Greek
Archaeological Service was currently not working
on ‘their’ site, whereas it was actively developing
nearby sites. Their viewpoint was technically correct, but ignored the existence of non-excavation
survey projects on the site in which the Archaeological Service was not the prime mover (e.g.
Lolos et al. 2007; Sarris et al. 2008; Lolos 2011).
Some Vasilikariotes used these concerns over the
lack of clear direct involvement in their site by
central governmental authorities to construct an
anti-hegemonic discourse based on feelings of
inferiority (Deltsou 2009: 181-84, 187).
Methanites connected themselves neither with
the glories of ancient monuments in Athens nor
with the ancient sites on their peninsula. Yet
they have considered themselves to be every bit
as Greek as all other Greek citizens, and much
better than some badly-behaved sections of the
nation. Their most significant heritage site connecting themselves to unimpeachable Greekness has been the fortifications constructed by
the French philhellene Charles Fabvier on the
peninsula’s isthmus during the War of Independence (Mee et al. 1997: 165-67). He considered
Methana an ideal defensive location in which to
train his force of international volunteers after it
had recently received a severe mauling in action
against Ottoman forces (St Clair 1972: 291-92).
Few buildings are easily visible now, but the main
fortification remains readily identifiable (Figure
2). This structure is evidently the focus of considerable nationalistic pride. A large painting of
the Greek national flag was placed there many
Figure 2. The Kastro Favierou: Charles Fabvier’s Revolutionary War fortification on the Methana isthmus.
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
91
92
Forbes
Figure 3. Two Greek national flags prominently displayed on the Kastro Favierou.
years ago: the specific design was superseded in
1978. A second, slightly smaller version painted
nearby is evidently later, since it uses the current
design (Figure 3) (Army General Staff 2003;
Breschi n.d.). Another, much smaller, painting
of the Greek flag—yet another design—has been
painted inside a gun-slit (Figure 4).
Over the years that I have spent on their
peninsula, Methanites have regularly emphasised the importance of the Kastro Favierou (as
it is known), as a monument and a statement
of their community’s contribution to modern Greece’s foundation. During the Methana
Archaeological Survey the main fortification
was initially thought to be Venetian. Methanites
were very disappointed when I mentioned this
possibility: for them it was specifically as a War
of Independence monument that the ruins had
their full meaning.
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
There is only the one site of this era on the
peninsula, however. The lack of other sites of
this period on the peninsula is significant: some
40 years ago, during increased repression of
Arvanites by the military dictatorship, Methanites felt it necessary to increase their links to
this nationally formative period by constructing a second Revolutionary War monument in
the form of a memorial stele (Figure 5). The
monument to the Revolutionary War fallen on
Methana commemorates the leader of a band
of Methanitis fighters, listing the nationallyrevered leaders with whom they were associated
and the battles in which they fought. It further
records that he gave his life for the cause of
independent Greece—the ultimate patriotic
sacrifice. The monument is associated with the
church of Ayios Yeoryios, a focal point where
Methanites from all over the peninsula and
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece 93
Figure 4. Greek flag-design used during the Revolutionary War, in a gun-slit of the Kastro Favierou.
expatriates from other parts of Greece, especially
Athens and Piraeus, gather in large numbers
every year for the national celebration of St
George’s Day. This is the place which represents
pan-Methana feeling most intensely. The stele’s
significance for Methanites seems to have grown
over time. Until the 1980s it was tucked away
on the margins of a large empty and dusty area
surrounding the church. The area has since been
landscaped and planted with trees: the stele
now has a prominent place much closer to the
church (Forbes 2007: 263-64, 370-74).
The significance of the fort for Methanites
also seems to have increased over time. In March
2013, a Methanitis journalist uploaded an article
in an online organ describing itself as the first
portal for Piraeus (the administrative centre for
Methana’s region) and shipping matters (Athanasiou 2013). He describes his participation in
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
the first ever flag-raising at the fort. He then
tells the fort’s history, emphasising that this was
where Greece’s regular army was born, and the
central part it played during the War of Independence: ‘Methana in 1826 became the centre
of the struggle [for independence]’. He then
mentions the contingent of Methanites and their
involvement in the Revolutionary War, specially
noting that the name of their leader, who made
the ultimate sacrifice, was Arvanitic.
While Methanites cannot connect themselves to this time through memory, there are
visible monumental reminders, original and
retro-constructed, via which they can associate themselves with the events which founded
the nation. Local patriotic pride and identity
as worthy Greek citizens, therefore, is clearly
focused on this aspect of Methanites’ historical
heritage. These material links, not the ancient
94
Forbes
Figure 5. Stele commemorating the leader of a Revolutionary War band of Methanites, set up in
1968.
city ruins, connect Methanites to history and to
the Greek nation: they also demonstrate Methanites’ status as true patriots.
Finally, on a somewhat speculative note, I
return to Methanites’ identity as thoroughly
Greek yet simultaneously in contestation with
those in the centres of power. The flag in Figure
4 seems inherently unofficial, being small and
semi-hidden in the embrasure of a gun-slit,
yet it may have considerable symbolic significance, reflecting the entanglement of Methanites’ identity as ‘others’ with the overwhelming
specialness for rural Greeks of their topos, the
place where they live (Bernard 1976: 289). It
is one of several different designs in simultaneous use during the Revolution, but not the
one described in the provisional government’s
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
decree of 15 March 1822. Rather, it is a design
that was especially popular in the Peloponnese, and which is frequently associated with
one of the greatest war leaders of the revolution, Theodhoros Kolokotronis (Army General
Staff 2003; Breschi 2003-5; Greeka n.d.; Megas
Odigos Ekpaidefseos n.d.). The connection to
Kolokotronis seems logical, since the war band
mentioned on the memorial stele served under
his nephew, Nikitaras.
However, although it might seem logical that
a Peloponnesian site of this period should be
associated with this flag design, I believe there
are messages of contestation in its appearance
here. Administratively speaking, Methana and
the immediately adjoining parts of the Peloponnese belong to Athens and Attica. They are thus
administratively disconnected from the rest of
the Peloponnese, to which they belong by all
geographical logic: local government policy
is dominated by the needs of the capital city,
with which Methanites feel they have little in
common. Secondly, Kolokotronis was a soldier,
rather than a politician. Although now seen as
one of the most influential individuals of the
Revolutionary War, he is also renowned for
being regularly at loggerheads with the politicians in the new Greek government. He is also
widely believed, as indicated by the metaliterature of numerous Greek internet sites, to have
been an Arvanitis. In other words, while this little graffito can be read superficially as a straightforward patriotic statement, it can also be read
as a minor act of contestation in advertising
simultaneously a regional and an ethnic alterity
in opposition to the centres of power in Athens.
Conclusion
Over the last two decades, archaeological discussion has tended to accept the message of
those at the centres of power in Greece that a
Classical and Hellenistic past is essential for a
‘proper’ Greek identity. This rhetoric serves to
problematise and marginalise certain groups of
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece ‘others’ whose alternative identities—which do
not fit this particular past—have been the focus
of other scholars, primarily anthropologists and
legal specialists. I have attempted here to unite
these two strands of scholarship, in outlining
the nature of some of these alterities and the
way in which the dominant archaeological discourse has impacted on their identities. Since
there is far more to be said on such complex
issues than is possible here, I have focused on
one of the less visible ‘others’ of the nation,
the Arvanites, whose relationship with their
own unique material heritage has been recently
identified within the context of archaeological
research in Boeotia (Bintliff 2003).
Arvanites evidently have very complex and variable relationships with their own alternative identities and therefore their pasts, which have yet to
be fully explored. Nevertheless, in how they link
themselves to those pasts there seem to be clear
differences between Methanites, who have readily
valorised the ‘specialness’ of their place (physiccally and metaphorically) in the Greek past, and
Boeotian Arvanites. Although Bintliff (2003:
140-41) is not completely convinced that Boeotian Arvanites were as unconcerned with valorising a past recently discovered via archaeological
survey as they would have liked him to believe,
they expressed no desire to connect themselves to
it. The past uncovered there, however, was one
primarily of sherd-concentrations, dots on maps,
etc.—essentially an academic one, only readily
accessible via a knowledge of the conventions
of archaeology, a kind of knowledge generally
denied to all but a very few. There was no highly
visible monument to which Boeotian Arvanites
could link their historical identity. These remains
also largely date to a period between Alexander
the Great and the Greek Revolution, which is
generally not foregrounded in the national historical imagination (Bintliff 2003: 137).
The two cases therefore are not directly comparable, because of differences in the kinds of
pasts on offer. Boeotian Arvanites’ past(s) were
not ‘usable’ (as defined by Brown and Hamilakis
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
95
2003b) in a dialogical process with a culturally
and politically dominant Other, and could not
be presented without explicitly referencing their
ethnic alterity. In contrast, Methanites were able
to treat the two monuments discussed here as
symbolic capital because they linked them to a
past which was highly ‘usable’ in presenting the
specialness of their place within the context of a
sub-set of the dominant discourse of the Greek
national imagination. Part of that ‘usability’
relates to the monuments’ multivocality. Its historical context is meaningful without reference
to any alterity status. Yet it can simultaneously be
a reminder of their Arvanitic origins and also act
as the focus for minor acts of contestation which
remind Methanites of their regional Peloponnesian heritage in opposition to those dominant
Others in the capital.
Acknowledgements
Some of the ideas in this article lie in an invited
lecture given at the Joukowsky Institute for
Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown
University in April 2009, and participation in
an Archaeological Ethnographies Workshop on
the island of Poros, Greece in May 2009. My
warmest thanks to the Joukowsky Institute,
and especially Ömür Harmanşah, for the first
invitation and to Yannis Hamilakis and Aris
Anagnostopoulos for the second. This article was
written while I was a Visiting Professor at Aarhus
University, Denmark: warm thanks are also due
to that university and especially the Institute for
History and Area Studies for the invitation to
such a pleasant and fruitful research environment. Thanks for encouraging and helpful comments on an earlier draft are also due to John
Bintliff, Lin Foxhall and Ömür Harmanşah:
likewise to JMA’s reviewers, for their insights
and advice. Particular thanks are due to Linos
Papachristou for his kind permission to publish
the illustrations in Figures 3 and 4. None of the
above is in any way responsible for any infelicities
in this work, nor the views expressed therein.
96
Forbes
This article is dedicated to the memory of
Chris Mee, who contributed so much to Methana archaeology.
About the Author
Hamish Forbes recently retired as Associate
Professor and Reader in Anthropological Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology at Nottingham University and is currently an Associate
of that university. His research interests primarily involve the integration of ethnographic and
archaeological approaches in the Mediterranean
region, particularly Greece. His main focus is on
social issues, and environmental concerns relating to agriculture, pastoralism and the meanings
of landscapes. He is the author of Meaning and
Identity in a Greek Landscape: An Archaeological
Ethnography (Cambridge University Press, 2007),
and ‘Off-site scatters and the manuring hypothesis in Greek survey archaeology: an ethnographic
approach’, Hesperia 82 (2013) 551-94.
Notes
1.‘Monumentality’, a term widely used in archaeology but rarely defined, relates to items of
material culture, normally though not exclusively immobile and of substantial size, which
have important cultural resonance, normally
associated in some way with memory.
2.One anonymous reviewer commented on the
way in which Melina Mercouri, who started
the campaign for the return of the marbles,
appealed to ‘base instincts within Greek society’.
3.This is not to deny the importance of sites such
as Olympia and Delphi within the national
imagination, but the hegemonisation of the
discourse on identity by mostly Athenian elites
means that the rhetoric focuses on Athens.
4.An advert for the event can be seen at sites
including aliartaios (http://aliartio.blogspot.
co.uk/2013/06/blog-post_651.html), Leontari Thivon (http://leontari-thivon.blogspot.
co.uk/2013/06/blog-post_27.html) and palo,
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
(http://www.palo.gr/kentrikh-ellada-nea/arvanitikos-gamos-sto-mayrommati/8276389/).
References
Abu Jaber, K.S.
1967 The millet system in the nineteenth-century
Ottoman empire. The Muslim World 57: 212-23.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1967.
tb01260.x
Anderson, B.
2006 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin
and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edn. London
and New York: Verso.
Army General Staff (Γενικό Επιτελείο Στρατού)
2003 Η καθιέρωση της ελληνικής σημαίας http://
web.archive.org/web/20070402084632/ http://
www.army.gr/n/g/publications/articles/GreekFlag0/GreekFlag1/.
Athanasiou, S.
2013 Τιμή στους αγωνιστές του κάστρου του
Φαβιέρου http://www.portnet.gr/component/
content/article/42-saronikos/12550-timhstous-agonistes-tou-kastrou-tou-favierou.html.
Athanassopoulou, A.
2005 ‘Nos albanais à nous’: travailleurs émigrés dans
une communauté arvanite du Péloponnèse.
Ethnologie Française 102: 267-78. http://dx.doi.
org/10.3917/ethn.052.0267
Baldwin-Edwards, M.
2004 Albanian emigration and the Greek labour market: economic symbiosis and social ambiguity.
South-East Europe Review for Labour and Social
Affairs 1: 51-65.
Baltsiotis, L., and L. Embiricos
2001 Speaking in tongues. Index on Censorship
30: 145-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
03064220108536918
Bawaya, M.
2014 Land of make-believe. New Scientist 221
(2950): 35-37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
S0262-4079(14)60041-5
Bernard, H.R.
1976 Kalymnos: the island of the sponge fishermen.
In M. Dimen and E. Friedl (eds.), Regional Variation in Modern Greece and Cyprus: Toward a
Perspective on the Ethnography of Greece. Annals
of the New York Academy of Sciences 268: 291307.
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece Bintliff, J.
2003 The ethnoarchaeology of a ‘passive’ ethnicity:
the Arvanites of Central Greece. In K.S. Brown
and Y. Hamilakis (eds.), The Usable Past: Greek
Metahistories, 129-44. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
Boyar, E.
2007 Ottomans, Turks and the Balkans: Empire Lost,
Relations Altered. London: I.B. Tauris.
Breschi, R.
n.d. Bandiere: Grecia. Bandiere: Passato e presente.
http://www.rbvex.it/grecia.html.
Brown, K.S., and Y. Hamilakis
2003a The cupboard of the yesterdays? Critical perspectives on the usable past. In K.S. Brown
and Y. Hamilakis (eds.), The Usable Past: Greek
Metahistories, 1-19. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
2003b(eds.) The Usable past: Greek Metahistories. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
Brunnbauer, U.
1999 Diverging (hi)stories: the contested identity of
the Bulgarian Pomaks. Ethnologia Balkanica 3:
35-50.
Byzantios, D.
2003 Η Βαβυλωνία: Ή η Κατά Τόπους Διαφθορά
της Ελληνικής Γλώσσης. Κωμωδία εις Πέντε
Πράξεις. Ed. A. Perdikouris. Internet Edition:
http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/extracts/bab/0.
html.
Capotorti, P., and United Nations
1979 Study on the rights of Persons belonging to Ethnic,
Religious and Linguistic Minorities. Volume 384 of
United Nations E/CN.4/Sub.2/ Human Rights
Study Series 5. New York: United Nations.
Carabott, P.
2003 Monumental visions: the past in Metaxas’ Weltangschauung. In K.S. Brown and Y. Hamilakis (eds.), The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories,
23-38. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C.
2009 Myth of the Anasazi: archaeological language,
collaborative communities and the contested
past. Public Archaeology 8: 191-207. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1179/175355309X457222
de Rapper, G.
2009 Pelasgic encounters in the Greek-Albanian borderland: border dynamics and reversion to
ancient past in southern Albania. Anthropo© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
97
logical Journal of European Cultures 18: 50-68.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/ajec.2009.180104
Deltsou, E.
2009 Researching biographies of archaeological sites: the case of Sikyon. Public Archaeology 8: 176-90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/
175355309X457213
Demetriou, O.
2004 Prioritizing ‘ethnicities’: the uncertainty of
Pomak-ness in the urban Greek Rhodoppe.
Ethnic and Racial Studies 27: 95-119. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1080/0141987032000147959
Eleftherotypia
2002 Η χαμένη πατρίδα του Θόδωρου Πάγκαλου.
Ο Ιος. Internet Edition: http://www.iospress.gr/
ios2002/ios20021124b.htm.
European Court of Human Rights
1996 In the Case of Ahmet Sadik v. Greece. Number 46/1995/552/638. http://www.cilevics.eu/
minelres/coe/court/AhmetSadik.htm.
Forbes, H.A.
2007 Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape:
An Archaeological Ethnography. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1017/CBO9780511720284
2009 Researching ekina ta khronia [times past] in
a rural Greek community. Public Archaeology 8: 88-107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/
175355309X457169
Frankiskos, E.N.
2008 Πότε ο Δ.Κ. Βυζάντιος έγραψε τη ‘Βαβυλωνία’;
δοκιμή αποκρυπτογράφησης σκηνικών
δεδομένων. Δ.Κ. Βυζάντιος και ‘Βαβυλωνία’;
Ερμηνευτικές Δοκιμές και Μαρτυρία Βίου.
Tetrádia ‘Ergasías 20: 33-60. Internet Edition:
http://www.ine-notebooks.org/index.php/te/
article/view/83/139.
Gefou-Madianou, D.
1999 Cultural polyphony and identity formation:
negotiating tradition in Attica. American Ethnologist 26: 412-39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/
ae.1999.26.2.412
Goffman, D.
2002 The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511818844
Gotsi, G.
2000 A garment of one’s own: Eugenia Fakinou’s
re-imagining of the Greek past. Mediterranean
98
Forbes
Historical Review 15: 91-110. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1080/09518960008569780
Gounaris, B.C.
2003 The politics of currency: stamps, coins, banknotes and the circulation of modern Greek tradition. In K.S. Brown and Y. Hamilakis (eds.),
The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories, 69-84.
Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
Greek Helsinki Monitor Minority Rights Group
n.d. Report: Arvanites. http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/
english/reports/arvanites.html.
Greeka
n.d. Flags of Greece. http://www.greeka.com/greecehistory/flags.htm.
Hamilakis, Y.
2003 ‘Learn history!’ Antiquity, narrative and history
in Greek educational textbooks. In K.S. Brown
and Y. Hamilakis (eds.), The Usable Past: Greek
Metahistories, 39-68. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
2007 The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology
and National Imagination in Greece. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Hamilakis, Y., and J. Labanyi
2008 Time, materiality, and the work of memory. History and Memory 20(2): 5-17. http://dx.doi.org/
10.2979/HIS.2008.20.2.5
Hamilakis, Y., and E. Yalouri
1996 Antiquities as symbolic capital in modern Greek
society. Antiquity 70: 117-29.
Hart, L.K.
1999 Culture, civilization, and demarcation at the
northwest borders of Greece. American Ethnologist 26: 196-220. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/
ae.1999.26.1.196
Herzfeld, M.
1987 Anthropology Through the Looking Glass: Critical
Ethnography in the Margins of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1988 The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a
Cretan Mountain Village. Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press.
1991 A Place in History: Social and Monumental
Time in a Cretan Town. Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press.
2002a The absent presence: discourses of cryptocolonialism. The South Atlantic Quarterly 101:
899-926. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00382876101-4-899
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
2002bThe European self: rethinking an attitude.
In A. Pagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe: From
Antiquity to the European Union, 139-70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511496813.008
2003 Localism and the logic of nationalistic folklore: Cretan reflections. Comparative Studies in
Society and History 45: 281-310. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1017/S0010417503000148
2009 Evicted from Eternity: The Restructuring of
Modern Rome. Chicago: Chicago University
Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/
9780226329079.001.0001
2010 Engagement, gentrification, and the neoliberal
hijacking of history. In L. Aiello (ed.), Engaged
Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas. WennerGren Symposium Supplement 2: 259-67. Chicago: Wenner-Gren Foundation.
Hobsbawm, E.
1983 Mass producing traditions: Europe, 1870-1914.
In E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds.), The
Invention of Tradition, 263-307. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hobsbawm, E., and T. Ranger (eds.)
1983 The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hodder, I.
2003 Archaeological reflexivity and the ‘local’ voice.
Anthropological Quarterly 76: 55-69. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1353/anq.2003.0010
Human Rights Watch
1999 The Turks of Western Thrace. Internet Edition:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/g/greece/
greec991.pdf.
International Labour Organization (ILO)
1989 C169 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989. Internet Edition: http://www.ilo.
org/public/english/region/ampro/mdtsanjose/
indigenous/intro169.htm.
Karakasidou, A.
1993 Politicising culture: negating ethnic identity
in Greek Macedonia. Journal of Modern Greek
Studies 11: 1-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/
mgs.2010.0204
1997 Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.
org/10.7208/chicago/9780226424996.001.0001
Archaeology and the Making of Improper Citizens in Modern Greece Kretsi, G.
2002 The secret past of the Greek Albanian borderlands. Cham Muslim Albanians: perspectives
on a conflict over historical accountability and
current rights. Ethnologia Balkanica 6: 171-95.
Lawrence, C.M.
2011 Miserable banditti: the pot-head outlaws of
rural Greece. Dialectical Anthropology 35: 33-47.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10624-010-9200-z
Livanios, D.
2006 The quest for Hellenism: religion, nationalism
and collective identities in Greece (1453-1913).
The Historical Review/La Revue Historique 3:
33-70.
Lolos, Y.A.
2011 Land of Sikyon: Archaeology and History of
a Greek City-State. Hesperia Supplement 39.
Princeton, New Jersey: American School of
Classical Studies at Athens.
Lolos, Y.A., B. Gourley and D.R. Stewart
2007 The Sikyon survey project: a blueprint for
urban survey? Journal of Mediterranean Archaeo­
logy 20: 267-96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/
jmea.v20i2.267
Magliveras, S.S.
2009 The Ontology of Difference: Nationalism, Localism and Ethnicity in a Greek Arvanite Village.
Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of
Anthropology, Durham University, Durham.
2013 Naming people: a reflection of identity and resistance in a Greek Arvanite village. Mediterranean
Review 6: 151-87.
McNeal, R.A.
1991 Archaeology and the destruction of the later
Athenian acropolis. Antiquity 65: 49-63.
Mee, C., H. Bowden, L. Foxhall, D. Gill, T. Koukoulis
and G. Taylor
1997 Catalogue of sites. In C.B. Mee and H. Forbes
(eds.), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape
and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula,
Greece, 118-210. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Megas Odigos Ekpedaifseos
n.d. Ελληνική Επανάσταση 1821: σημαίες των
Ελλήνων. http://www.mathima.gr/education/
yliko/files_yliko/25h_Martiou_flags.html.
Meier, T.
2013 Archaeology and identity in a Bavarian village:
academic and local (hi)stories. In E. Niklasson
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
99
and T. Meier (eds.), Appropriate Narratives:
Archaeologists, Publics and Stories, 145-84. Budapest: Archaeolingua.
Niklasson, E., and T. Meier
2013 Appropriate narratives – an introduction. In E.
Niklasson and T. Meier (eds.), Appropriate Narratives: Archaeologists, Publics and Stories, 15-28.
Budapest: Archaeolingua.
Pantazatos, A.
2010 Does diaspora test the limits of stewardship?
Stewardship and the ethics of care. Museum
62: 96-99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.14680033.2010.01724.x
Pollis, A.
1992 Greek national identity: religious minorities,
rights and European norms. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 10: 171-95. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1353/mgs.2010.0193
Rougheri, C.
1997 Media monitoring February 1997. Greek Helsinki Monitor and Minority Rights Group.
Internet Edition: http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/
english/media/feb97.html.
Rountree, K.
2003 The case of the missing goddess: plurality,
power, and prejudice in reconstructions of Malta’s Neolithic past. Journal of Feminist Studies in
Religion 19(2): 25-43.
Sant Cassia, P.
1999 Tradition, tourism and memory in Malta. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5: 24763. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2660696
Sarris, A., N. Papadopoulos and V. Tringkas
2008 Recovering the urban network of ancient
Sikyon through multi-component geophysical
approaches. In A. Posluschny, K. Lambers and
I. Herzog (eds.), Layers of Perception: Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on
Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods
in Archaeology (CAA), Berlin, 2-6 April 2007,
11-16. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt.
Sasse, H.-J.
1998 Arvanitika: the long Hellenic centuries of an
Albanian variety. International Journal of the
Sociology of Language 134: 39-68.
Silverstein, P.A.
2005 Immigrant racialization and the new savage
slot: race, migration, and immigration in the
100
Forbes
new Europe. Annual Review of Anthropology 34:
363-84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.
anthro.34.081804.120338
St Clair, W.
1972 That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes
in the War of Independence. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Stavros, S.
1995 The legal status of minorities in Greece today:
the adequacy of their protection in the light of
current human rights perceptions. Journal of
Modern Greek Studies 13: 1-32. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1353/mgs.2010.0393
Stewart, C.
2003 Dreams of treasure: temporality, historicization and the unconscious. Anthropological
Theory 3: 481-500. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/
146349960334005
Stroulia, A., and S.B. Sutton
2009 Archaeological sites and local places: connecting
the dots. Public Archaeology 8: 124-40. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1179/175355309X457187
Sutton, D.E.
1998 Memories Cast in Stone: The Relevance of the Past
in Everyday Life. Oxford and New York: Berg.
Tsitselikis, K.
2008 Minority mobilisation in Greece and litigation
in Strasbourg. International Journal on Minority
and Group Rights 15: 27-48. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1163/138548708X272519
© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014
Tsitsipis, L.D.
2009 The discursive construction of multiple identities
of the Albanian (Arvanitika) speakers of Greece.
Pragmatics 19: 435-48.
United Nations
2010 Minority Rights: International Standards and
Guidance for Implementation. HR/PUB/10/3.
New York and Geneva: United Nations Office
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Vidali, M.
1999 Living in a policy vacuum: the plight of Albanian immigrants in Greece. Central Europe
Review 1 (no. 21). Internet edition: http://www.
ce-review.org/99/21/vidali21.html.
Vucinich, W.S.
1962 The nature of Balkan society under Ottoman
rule. Slavic Review 21: 597-616. http://dx.doi.
org/10.2307/3000575
Watkins, J.
2005 Through wary eyes: indigenous perspectives on
archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 34:
429-49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.
anthro.34.081804.120540
Whitman, L.
1990 Destroying Ethnic Identity: The Turks of Greece.
New York, New York: Human Rights Watch.
Wikileaks
2009 09THESSALONIKI24. http://wikileaks.org/
cable/2009/04/09THESSALONIKI24.html.