Contested Antiquity: Archaeological Heritage and Social Conflict in Modern Greece and Cyprus

While the archaeological legacies of Greece and Cyprus are often considered to represent some of the highest values of Western civilization—democracy, progress, aesthetic harmony, and rationalism—this much adored and heavily touristed heritage can quickly become the stage for clashes over identity and memory. In Contested Antiquity, Esther Solomon curates explorations of how those who safeguard cultural heritage are confronted with the best ways to represent this heritage responsibly. How should visitors be introduced to an ancient Byzantine fortification that still holds the grim reminders of the cruel prison it was used as until the 1980s? How can foreign archaeological institutes engage with another nation's heritage in a meaningful way? What role do locals have in determining what is sacred, and can this sense of the sacred extend beyond buildings to the surrounding land? Together, the essays featured in Contested Antiquity offer fresh insights into the ways ancient heritage is negotiated for modern times.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: Contested Antiquity in Greece and Cyprus Part I: Between nationalism, colonialism and crypto-colonialism: Historical perspectives and current implications 1. Hellas Mon Amour: Revisiting Greece's National "Sites of Trauma" 2. Archaeology and Politics in the Inter-War Period: The Swedish Excavations at Asine 3. Contested Perceptions of Archaeological Sites in Cyprus: Communities and their Claims on their Past 4. Pressed On in Press: Greek Cultural Heritage in the Public Eye: The Post-War Years Part II: Spatial metaphors and ethnographic observations: heritage, memory and dissonance 5. The Gentrification of Memory: The Past as a Social Event in Thessaloniki of the Early Twenty-first Century 6. The Oracle of Dodona: Contestation over a "Sacred" Archaeological Landscape 7. Archaeological "Protection Zones" and the Limits of the Possible: Archaeological Law, Abandonment and Contested Spaces in Greece Part III: Competing pasts 8. Heritage as Obstacle: Or Which View to the Acropolis? 9. Eptapyrgio, a Modern Prison inside a World Heritage Monument: Raw Memories in the Margins of Archaeology 10. Contemporary Art and "Difficult Heritage": Three Case Studies from Athens Endnote Index

About the Author :
Esther Solomon is Assistant Professor in Museum Studies at the University of Ioannina. She has worked as curator in several museums in Greece and abroad and has published extensively on museum representations, the social and political uses of the past, material culture, social identity, cultural memory, and tourism.