Table of Contents

1: Memories cast in marble: introduction
2: The `soldiers' the `priests'. and the `hospitals for contagious diseases': the producers of archaeological matter-realities
3: From the Western to indigenous Hellenism: archaeology, antiquity, and the invention of modern Greece
4: The archaeologist as shaman the sensory national archaeology of Manolis Andronikos
5: Spartan visions: antiquity and the Metaxas dictatorship
6: The other Parthenon: antiquity and national memory at the concentration camp
7: Nostalgia for the whole: the Parthenon (or `Elgin') marbles
8: The nation in ruins? Conclusions

About the Author

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

Reviews

`The Nation and its Ruins makes an excellent contribution . . . [it is] theoretically informed [and] . . . a great read. Hamilakis . . . wants to propose a subtler and more dynamic view of the development of Greek identity. He succeeds in this, sustained by a prose that keeps the readers attention throughout.'
Antiquity Review
`This book is to be welcome for the solid grounding it provides in facts that tend to be either ignored or taken for granted alike by professional archaeologists, by popularizers, and by the millions who visit archaeological sites in Greece each year . . . Hamilakis sets out to reintegrate the two components of his book's title, The Nation and its Ruins, and he succeeds impressively.'
R. Beaton, Times Literary Supplement
`an excellent contribution . . . theoretically informed [and]... a great read.'
Madeleine Hummer, Antiquity
`. . . theoretically informed, yet clearly written; it is an important contribution.'
David Sutton, Professor of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University
`. . . intellectually engaging, captivating in its dexterous use of narrative, and skillfully mines ethnohistoric texts.'
Jack L. Davis, Carl W. Blegen Professor of Greek Archaeology, Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati
`We have been waiting for a book like this for years.'
Alain Schnapp, Professor of Greek Archaeology at the Sorbonne
`a remarkable contribution to a growing body of work.'
Michael Llewellyn Smith, The Anglo-Hellenic Review
`The first serious study of the cultural role of archaeology in Greek society.'
D. Plantzos, Syghrona Themata
`A stimulating book . . . This volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in the modern use of the past in Greece.'
M. Diaz-Andreu, Nations and Nationalism
`The Nation and its Ruins adds a distinctive new voice and vision . . . Hamilakis adds a new challenge to simplistic separations of the modern from the pre-modern . . . [He] is an erudite and elegant writer [and his] magnificently crafted argument deserves . . . a readership extending well beyond regional specialisations.'
M. Herzfeld, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
`One cannot help but be positive about a book that provides such persuasive arguments . . . [it] has a flowing text that skillfully combines academic research with informal sources . . . The Nation and its Ruins deserves our close attention not only because it is a broad and in-depth study of the role of material culture in Greek society through time, but also it might trigger further studies...'
K. Chilidis, European Journal of Archaeology
`There is no doubt that The Nation and Its Ruins will become essential reading for all interested in the deeper sociopolitical dimensions of the history of archaeology . . . Hamilakis has produced the most perceptive and penetrating analysis to date of the modern social context of Greek archaeology and has provided an invaluable model for those who seek to embark on similar research in other regions of the world.'
Neil Silberman, American Anthropologist
`Hamilakis is one of the few scholars studying the reception of ancient Greece using a real diversity of material remains . . . Combining ethnographic and sociological data with primary documentary and visual culture, he covers a rare diachronic range of receiving societiesmainly within Greece, where the remains have an especially strong resonance... These extremely important and novel angles of research are now combined in a highly readable and important
book...'
Saro Wallace, Classical Review
`[T]his work will [be] resonant not only with archaeologists who work in Greece ...but to a wider audience of archaeologists and anthropologists who deal with similar issues in other countries of the world every day... [H]is discussion of the Elgin marble debate in Chapter 7 provides one of best discussions of the topic available, and I will be using it to introduce my students to some of these crucial issues.'
Elissa Z. Faro, Archaeolog.org
`This is a stimulating book with thought-provoking discussions and well-argued ideas...The Nation and its Ruins treats the Greek case but the questions Hamilakis raises... concern us all.'
G. Nordquist, American Journal of Archaeology
`Hamilakis gives a fascinating and sympathetic...account of Greek attitudes.'
John Boardman, Common Knowledge
`An absorbing attempt to provide a window on the contemporary Greek soul via a study of the place of its spectacular cultural heritage in the nation's collective sense of identity.'
The Anglo Hellenic Review