public archaeology, Vol. 7, No.

2, Summer 2008, 130–134

The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity,

Archaeology, and National Imagination
in Greece
Yannis Hamilakis
Reviewed by Anastasia Sakellariadi

This book is a recent addition to the list of works on perceptions and uses of the past
in modern Greece. Its author is one of the most committed and widely published
researchers in the field. Based on a series of articles, this book develops his theory
on the subject in detail and incorporates new material. The Nation and its Ruins:
Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece aims to explore the role
of classical antiquities and archaeology in the formation of the national imagination
and its materialisation.
Claiming a ‘position of reflexivity’, Hamilakis draws on his own experience of
Greek archaeology, a broad range of primary resources, including historical archives,
newspapers, and magazines, and his distinctive ‘cupboard’ of post-processual
theories. In addition to Hamilakis’ work, perceptions of the past, antiquities, and
archaeology in modern Greece have been the focus of diverse research in archaeology,
architecture, museum studies, management, and history. Hamilakis’ method of ‘multi-
sited historical and archaeological ethnography’ (23–25), as well as elements of his
theory mentioned below, draws mainly on the anthropological work of Gourgouris,
Herzfeld, Stewart, Sutton, and others.
The book consists of eight chapters presenting a background for Greek archaeol-
ogy and four case studies. Images are used appropriately. Expressing a sensory
approach to his own text and the transmission of meaning, the author has inter-
sected passages in italics to narrate an instance, an encounter, or a social performance
of such significance that it would be compromised by conventional academic
writing.
As early as the title of the first chapter, the author establishes connections with
David Sutton’s (1998) seminal Memories Cast in Stone. Commenting on the 2004
Athens Olympics, the event that most recently enlivened the discussion on the role of
antiquity in the national imagination, Hamilakis introduces us to the main features
of his investigation and to the associated theories and methods. He goes on to explain
the idiosyncratic nature of the book as ‘an account of the social lives, roles and mean-
ings of ancient material culture, of antiquities, in a modern social context, that of
Greece’ (9), thus setting the scene for a study that transcends a socio-anthropological
approach.

© W.S. Maney & Son Ltd 2008 DOI 10.1179/175355308X330034

 NOTES AND REVIEWS 131

Discussing recent developments in the study of nationalism and archaeology,

Hamilakis places his view on nationalism as a cultural system in context. At the
same time, he looks at the study of colonialism and establishes one of the book’s
main arguments, that the emergence of the modern Greek state was the result of
a ‘colonial-cum-national’ project and therefore post-colonialism is the most appropri-
ate context for the subject’s investigation.
To set the scene for his case studies, the author critically discusses the structures
of archaeology in Greece, focusing particularly on the influence of national imagina-
tion. The key players in Greek archaeology are presented in historic and current
terms: apart from the State Archaeological Service and the Athens Archaeological
Society, university departments are noted for their contribution to the reproduction
of the archaeological culture, the archaeological museums for the authority they
exercise over visitors, and foreign schools of archaeology for being reminders of a
colonial era.
At this point Hamilakis elaborates his theory of Greek archaeology as a religious
ceremony performed within the realm of the secular religion of the nation — that is,
antiquity. Archaeologists act as the ‘priests’ of this religion, as mediators between the
past and the present, while monuments are its icons. The importance of archaeology
as the secular religion of the nation is attributed to its role as a provider of indisput-
able arguments for the defence of the nation’s rights, a duty which has hindered the
full professionalisation of Greek archaeology. This is put into a historical context of
archaeological legislation and the creation of national value within its provisions.
In a comparative overview Hamilakis sees archaeological legislation (2002) as reaf-
firming the exclusive role of the state and the national framework, recasting it and
enforcing it.
In the past, Hamilakis has introduced indigenous archaeology in the Greek context.
In this book, he defines it as ‘a meaningful reworking and re-appropriation of ancient
things for current concerns and purposes’ (74). He also introduces the notion of
‘indigenous Hellenism’ as the narrative of western Hellenism reformulated by Greek
intellectuals to a local version to achieve the ‘emancipation of the national narrative’
(119). Changing attitudes towards antiquities, from indigenous to modern, and the
formulation of a syncretic national imagination constitute key themes of the book.
The decisive role of both colonialism and nationalism in the Balkan peninsula over
this period is emphasised.
Looking at the role and meaning of antiquity during the dictatorial regime of
Ioannis Metaxas (1936–1941), Hamilakis puts forward nationalism as a project
engaging the whole of the national body—another of his main arguments. The
regime’s deployment of the past seems to have been in accordance with pre-existing
views. It was mainly private initiatives that attempted to link the past with the
regime’s pursuits. Building on this case study, Hamilakis discusses rehabilitation
camps organised in the middle of the Greek civil war for left-wing soldiers and citi-
zens in Makronisos, an island known as the ‘New Parthenon’. The government was
using classical antiquity, its material remains, and their replicas as instruments of
propaganda to persuade the detainees that their Greek origins and their communism
could not be reconciled. At the same time the detainees also drew from the paradigm
132 PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY, Vol. 7, No. 2, Summer 2008

of classical antiquity to prove the government’s practices as ‘foreign’ to the Greek

spirit. For both sides, the national narrative was a repository of values that served
their arguments.
A sine qua non of any book on the archaeological heritage discourse in Greece, the
Parthenon Marbles, constitutes the pretext for the author to revisit some of the book’s
key themes. Hamilakis discusses this multi-faceted issue in terms of the sculptures’
‘anthropomorphism, fragmentation, pain of dismemberment and mutilation, home-
land-exile, reunification-repatriation, recollection of fragments, reconstitution of
whole’ (277), with the aim of revealing broader implications as regards national imag-
ination and antiquities. The author calls the nation’s desire for re-unification with the
sculptures, as if they are living entities, ‘nostalgia for the whole’, and identifies it as
a prominent aspect of the perception of antiquities in modern Greece. Therefore he
considers the ‘idiom of kinship’ as more appropriate to the symbolic capital discourse
for their study.
To explain further the Marbles’ position in the Greek cultural discourse and
national imagination, Hamilakis challenges Kopytoff’s (1986) theory of commoditisa-
tion being the opposite of sacralisation. He aims to show that the Parthenon Marbles’
symbolic value, their sensory and material qualities, and their history demonstrate
how they combine sacredness and commoditisation, and thus prove the need for a
re-evaluation of Kopytoff’s theory. However, Hamilakis believes that their inalien-
ability does not exclude their symbolic exchangeability: although commodification is
regarded as sacrilegious in the Greek discourse, there is wide acceptance of covert
dealings in the symbolic economy of culture as serving the broader national interest.
The British Museum, on the other hand, has repeatedly commercialised the sculptures
in obvious ways.
In this densely written book, Hamilakis raises a series of important and interesting
issues. His investigation of the subject follows many different strands, many of which
deserve further investigation and constitute new approaches in the field of Greek
archaeology. The introduction of ‘indigenousness’ in the formation of Greek percep-
tions of the past contributes to the connection of the field with the recent discourse
in world archaeology. It is certainly the first time this subject has been analysed in
book length and from the perspective of such an updated theoretical background. The
‘secular religion of the nation’ framework constitutes a new approach to the place of
antiquities and archaeology in modern Greece. Is it, though, sufficient to explain the
complex relationship that Greece and the people of Greece more specifically have
developed with the past?
In concluding, Hamilakis estimates that the role of the nation and its localities will
grow in the face of developments such as globalisation; the materiality of antiquity
will certainly contribute towards this. He emphasises the need to reconsider the
exclusive link between archaeology and European modernity, and the total replace-
ment of earlier forms of imagining the nation, such as religion, by nationalism. The
complexity of what constitutes modernity and the diversity of each society’s course
towards it are acknowledged, along with the formation and operation of multiple and
diverse archaeologies. Therefore, Hamilakis argues that the ‘idiom of kinship’ needs
to replace the symbolic capital discourse to acknowledge more sensory aspects of the
issue.
 NOTES AND REVIEWS 133

There are occasions, however, where the theoretical argument is over-emphasised.

Despite the extensive use of Manolikos Andronikos’ writings, the knowing
undertaking of the role of ‘the Shaman of the nation’ by this archaeologist seems
exaggerated (‘he deeply believed in his sacred mission and his destiny as the shaman
of the nation’: 165). Andronikos’ aspirations, his ‘experiential reception of the past,
the sensory and somatic perception of its materiality’ (146), his ‘personal, physical
way’ (166) are interpreted as a distinctive canon and a philosophical stance. In fact,
many of these traits could apply to any field archaeologist immersed in a life-long
project, such as the Vergina excavation. It seems that, in this case, the symbolic
capital discourse offers a more solid approach and explains more sufficiently the place
Andronikos acquired in the national imagination.
Considering the author’s conclusion about antiquity’s contribution to the monu-
mentalisation of Greece outside its historical context, one could say that classical
archaeology has in parallel separated Greek archaeology from its socio-political and
disciplinary context. The dominance of classical archaeology over any other archaeol-
ogy in Greece is a very timely issue. With the official opening of the New Acropolis
museum pending, the fate of two until-recently listed historical buildings, rare
examples of art deco architecture in Athens, is under consideration by the Council of
State. At the same time the Greek police are investigating a case that involves the
Ministry of Culture and the Central Archaeological Council. Despite the officials’
claims of absolute protection and high state priorities for archaeological heritage, in
real life it is constantly under overt and covert threat.
The disparity between the place of archaeology in the national imagination, as
Hamilakis describes it, and the widely spread view of national archaeology as an
obstruction to development constitutes another paradox. Antiquities are regarded as
a national resource to be shared by all, and in general terms people feel responsible
for them. However the exclusive and self-sufficient system of state archaeological
management, institutionalised in the early days of modern Greece, has very success-
fully entrenched these antiquities as national emblems and de-contextualised them,
making them thus less relevant to the people of Greece.
This field of discourse is extremely important, not only for the future of antiquities
and archaeology in Greece but for the redefinition of Hellenism as a whole. The
discussion needs to open up and allow for different approaches. Hopefully this book
does not constitute the conclusion of Hamilakis’ work, but simply a recapitulation
on the route to bringing other aspects of this challenging and timely subject to
light.

The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in
Greece. Yannis Hamilakis. Oxford University Press, 2007. 360 pp. £60.00 (hardback).
978-0-19-923038-9.

References
Gourgouris, S 1996 Dream nation: Enlightenment, colonization and the institution of modern Greece. Stanford
University Press, Stanford CA.
Herzfeld, M 1987 Anthropology through the looking glass: critical ethnography on the margins of Europe.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
134 PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY, Vol. 7, No. 2, Summer 2008

Kopytoff, I 1986 The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process. In: Appadurai, A (ed.) The social
life of things. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 64–91.
Stewart, C 1994 Syncretism as a dimension of nationalist discourse in modern Greece. In: Stewart, C and R Shaw
(eds) Syncretism/anti-syncretism: the politics of religious synthesis. Routledge, London, 127–144.
Sutton, D 1998 Memories cast in stone: the relevance of the past in everyday life. Oxford, Berg.

Notes on contributor
Anastasia Sakellariadi is an MPhil/PhD student in public archaeology at the Institute
of Archaeology in London. She has studied archaeology (Honours BA) and Byzantine
archaeology (MA) in Greece.
Correspondence to: Institute of Archaeology, UCL, 31–34 Gordon Square, London
WC1H 0PY, UK. Email: a.sakellariadi@ucl.ac.uk