Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity

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Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity

Book•

Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity

01 Jan 1997-

TL;DR: The nature and expression of ethnicity: an anthropological view 3. The discursive dimension of ethnic identity 4. Ethnicity and genealogy: an Argolic case-study as discussed by the authors.

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Abstract: 1. Phrasing the problem 2. The nature and expression of ethnicity: an anthropological view 3. The discursive dimension of ethnic identity 4. Ethnography and genealogy: an Argolic case-study 5. Ethnicity and archaeology 6. Ethnicity and linguistics 7. Conclusion.

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Journal Article•DOI•

Etnología y etnias de la Turdetania en época prerromana

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Francisco José García Fernández

01 Jan 2007

TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the two principal groups in Turdetania: turdetanians and punics, who present a wide variety of particular situations, instead of homogeneous ethnic and territorial units.

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Abstract: Despite the traditional image generated by historicist archaeology, the ethnic composition of Turdetania is a complex, dynamic and unstable reality in a continual process of changing as a result of different political, social and cultural circumstances. Newest theoretical and methodological hipothesis from Sociology and Anthropology let the archaeologist focus on this problem from new points of view questioning the inherent value of literarial texts and archaeological resources to define ethnic group. Both must be considered as contributors on the construction of the ethnic identity. We must not forget the difficulty to define ethnic groups in space and time because ethnicity is a constant process not a phenomenon. In this work, we will focus on the two principal groups in Turdetania: turdetanians and punics, who present a wide variety of particular situations, instead of homogeneous ethnic and territorial units. Keyword: Neolithic, Peninsula Iberica, Turdetania, Iron Age, ethnicity, literary sources, material culture.

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11 citations

Cites background from "Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity"

...…en la definición de los grupos étnicos de la Antigüedad que contaban con documentos escritos –como se ha hecho recientemente para la antigua Grecia (Hall, 1997)–, al aportar una evidencia explícita sobre los indicadores materiales que se empleaban en otras sociedades contemporáneas con un nivel…...
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...PRONTERA, F. (1999): “Identità etnica, confini e frontiere nel mondo greco”, en Atti del 37º Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia, Taranto: 147-166 = “Identidad étnica, confines y fronteras en el mundo griego”, en Otra forma de mirar el espacio: Geografía e Historia en la Grecia antigua, Málaga, 2003....
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...Ello nos obligaría a suponer la existencia –dentro de una etnicidad socialmente construida y subjetivamente percibida (Hall, 1997: 19)– de ciertos elementos recurrentes utilizados de forma generalizada como marcadores étnicos (territorio, parentesco, lengua, etc.) y, en consecuencia, a buscar…...
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...Al menos que yo se sepa, no se ha documentado hasta ahora ninguna crátera en contextos funerarios propiamente griegos, salvo casos muy excepcionales en Magna Grecia y Sicilia (de la Genière, 1987); del mismo modo, aunque las aristocracias “ibéricas” se vieran identificadas en las escenas heroicas representadas en los grandes vasos ( Jiménez Flores, 2002: 375), aunque las elites helenizadas del sur de la Galia introdujeran el culto simposiástico en el ritual funerario (Bats, 2002: 292), en ninguno de los casos se llegó a entender completamente el sentido original y los argumentos iconográficos desarrollados en el objeto en cuestión. para otra ocasión a los célticos de la Beturia y a las poblaciones “ibéricas” de la Alta Andalucía....
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...Resulta evidente, por tanto, la dificultad que entraña aislar grupos étnicos en sociedades prehistóricas o en culturas que, aún conociendo la escritura, no han dejado testimonios sobre sus orígenes, valores, creencias, etc. La única solución pasaría entonces por estudiar cómo se comporta la cultura material en la definición de los grupos étnicos de la Antigüedad que contaban con documentos escritos –como se ha hecho recientemente para la antigua Grecia (Hall, 1997)–, al aportar una evidencia explícita sobre los indicadores materiales que se empleaban en otras sociedades contemporáneas con un nivel de desarrollo similar....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Of dogs and men: Archilochos, archaeology and the greek settlement of Thasos

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Sara Owen¹•Institutions (1)

University of Cambridge¹

01 Jan 2003-Cambridge Classical Journal

TL;DR: A case-study of one of the most generally accepted literary accounts of a Greek settlement abroad -the Greek colonisation of Thasos -was presented in this paper, where an eye-witness, Archilochos, son of the oikist, who actually settled on the island not during the first Greek settlement but during a subsequent wave of settlers, was presented.

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Abstract: This article involves a case-study of one of the most generally accepted literary accounts of a Greek settlement abroad – the Greek colonisation of Thasos. Here, according to the generally accepted account, we have an eye-witness, Archilochos, son of the oikist , who actually settled on Thasos not during the first Greek settlement but during a subsequent wave of settlers. He didn't like it much – he calls it ‘thrice-wretched’ (228W), the settlers were the dregs of Greece (102W), the island looked like the back of an ass (21W), it wasn't pretty like Sybaris in Italy (22W), and the Thracians were described as ‘dogs’ (93aW). Fighting between Greeks and Thracians is portrayed (5W). The archaeological evidence for the first period of Greek settlement on Thasos is scarce, but what there is has been marshalled in support of this literary model. Archaeology's main role has been to be used in chronological disputes. The orthodoxy dates the Parian colonisation to 680 BC, arguing that the Delphic oracle concerning the foundation of Thasos has Archilochos' father as oikist. The subject-matter of several of the poems has allowed Archilochos' poetry to be dated to 650 BC, and therefore the colonisation of Thasos to a generation before. Pouilloux (1964), indeed, has used the archaeological evidence from a house in the lowest levels of Thasos town to argue for this early date for the Parian settlement, seeing the ‘Thracian’ (and distinctly un-Cycladic) character of many of the finds as indicative of a certain amount of interaction between Parians and Thracians in the first generation of the colony.

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11 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

To Hellenikon: The Chimera of ‘Greekness’ in the Hellenistic Age-A Brief Survey, from the 5th Century B.C.E

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Joseph M Snyder

26 Mar 2019

TL;DR: This article found that Herodotus' four key criteria of Greekness-blood, language, religion, and customs-closely parallel those identified by modern scholars-descent, commensality or the right to share food, and cult-is evidence of the circularity and irresolution of the ongoing discourse.

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Abstract: Classical scholars have tended to locate the nucleus of Greek identity in one or more of the three principal themes of nineteenthand early-twentieth century identity discourse: culture, nationality, or race [1,2]. Of all the elements to influence recent scholarship on Greek identity, however, that which surrounds ethnicity has been the most pervasive [3,4]. And yet it would be an error to see this as a scholarly innovation; for ever since the birth of Greek historiography in the fifth century B.C.E., ethnicity has been a central issue in the debate over Greek identity. That Herodotus’ four key criteria of Greekness-blood, language, religion, and customs-closely parallel those identified by modern scholars-descent, ‘commensality or the right to share food’, and cult-is evidence of the circularity and irresolution of the ongoing discourse [5-7]. Indeed, since the Second World War, scholarship has emphasized ethnicity, favoring at first the anthropological ‘instrumentalist’ approach which argued that ethnic identity was a guise for political or economic aims. However, a series of ethnic resurgences in the 1970s and 1980s undermined instrumentalism, resulting in the development of more nuanced interpretations which present ethnic identity as unstable and unfixed; as negotiable and situation-specific-conditionality confirmed in this study [8,9].

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11 citations

Cites background from "Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity"

...For many, the implications are tantalizing enough to support bequeathing the passage canonical status in the debate surrounding Greek identity- thus putting paid the question [20]....
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...Scholars cite this passage as an unambiguous statement of the precise components that constituted Greek identity-that is, common blood, common tongue, common cult foundations and sacrifices, and similar customs [20]....
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...Yet the tidy ‘Greek-barbarian’ binary this suggests, as revealed in a programmatic statement in the proem of Book I of Histories, is rather more complex than it seems [20,25]....
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...At the same time, the Athenians-who viewed themselves as the ‘most Greek of the Greeks’-also promoted myths of autochthony (the idea that, quite literally, the ancestors of the Athenians were born from the land of Attica, rather than through sexual reproduction) over the kinship ties that had hitherto linked Athens to Ionia-efforts meant to distance the Athenians ethnically from the ‘lesser’ Greeks, the Dorians [20,22] Thus, the grandiose Athenian claim that ‘kinship’, a ‘common language’ and shared cultural practices formed the basis of an unbreakable solidarity between Greeks was, at best, insincere rhetoric [8]....
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...Second, as Hall notes, in the ‘extant literary corpus there are few statements that define Hellenic identity quite so explicitly’ [20]....
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Book Chapter•DOI•

Supernatural paraphernalia in Polybius' Histories

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Frank W. Walbank¹•Institutions (1)

University of Liverpool¹

01 Sep 2002

11 citations

Book•

Heroic Offerings: The Terracotta Plaques from the Spartan Sanctuary of Agamemnon and Kassandra

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Gina Salapata

12 Feb 2015

TL;DR: In this paper, a comprehensive study of a distinctive class of terracotta votive offerings from a specific sanctuary is presented, which sheds light on both coroplastic art and regional religion; and by integrating archaeological, historical, literary, and epigraphic sources, they provide important insights into the heroic cults of Lakonia and contribute to an understanding of the political and social functions of local ritual practice.

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Abstract: This monograph is a contribution to the study of religion in Sparta, one of Greece’s most powerful poleis, whose history is well known but whose archaeology has been much less satisfactorily explored. Through the comprehensive study of a distinctive class of terracotta votive offerings from a specific sanctuary, I shed light on both coroplastic art and regional religion; and by integrating archaeological, historical, literary, and epigraphic sources, I provide important insights into the heroic cults of Lakonia and contribute to an understanding of the political and social functions of local ritual practice.

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11 citations

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References

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Open Access

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Journal Article•DOI•

Outline of a Theory of Practice

[...]

Andrew P. Lyons, Pierre Bourdieu, Richard Nice

01 Jan 1980

TL;DR: Bourdieu as mentioned in this paper develops a theory of practice which is simultaneously a critique of the methods and postures of social science and a general account of how human action should be understood.

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Abstract: Outline of a Theory of Practice is recognized as a major theoretical text on the foundations of anthropology and sociology. Pierre Bourdieu, a distinguished French anthropologist, develops a theory of practice which is simultaneously a critique of the methods and postures of social science and a general account of how human action should be understood. With his central concept of the habitus, the principle which negotiates between objective structures and practices, Bourdieu is able to transcend the dichotomies which have shaped theoretical thinking about the social world. The author draws on his fieldwork in Kabylia (Algeria) to illustrate his theoretical propositions. With detailed study of matrimonial strategies and the role of rite and myth, he analyses the dialectical process of the 'incorporation of structures' and the objectification of habitus, whereby social formations tend to reproduce themselves. A rigorous consistent materialist approach lays the foundations for a theory of symbolic capital and, through analysis of the different modes of domination, a theory of symbolic power.

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21,227 citations

Book•

The Interpretation of Cultures

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Richard Fenn, Clifford Geertz

01 Jan 1973

TL;DR: The INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ Books files are available at the online library of the University of Southern California as mentioned in this paper, where they can be used to find any kind of Books for reading.

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Abstract: THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ PDF Are you searching for THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ Books files? Now, you will be happy that at this time THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ PDF is available at our online library. With our complete resources, you could find THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ PDF or just found any kind of Books for your readings everyday.

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20,105 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Outline of a Theory of Practice.

[...]

Arthur W. Frank, Pierre Bourdieu

01 Mar 1980-Contemporary Sociology

14,683 citations

Book•

The Nuer, a description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic people

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E. E. Evans-Pritchard

01 Jun 1940

1,049 citations

Book•

The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present

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Siân Jones

01 Jan 1997

TL;DR: Sian Jones as mentioned in this paper argues for a fundamentally different view of ethnicity, as a complex dynamic form of identification, requiring radical changes in archaeological analysis and interpretation, and presents a comprehensive and critical synthesis of recent theories of ethnicity in the human sciences.

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Abstract: The question of ethnicity is highly controversial in contemporary archaeology. Indigenous and nationalist claims to territory, often rely on reconstructions of the past based on the traditional identification of 'cultures' from archaeological remains. Sian Jones responds to the need for a reassessment of the ways in which social groups are identified in the archaeological record, with a comprehensive and critical synthesis of recent theories of ethnicity in the human sciences. In doing so, she argues for a fundamentally different view of ethnicity, as a complex dynamic form of identification, requiring radical changes in archaeological analysis and interpretation.

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816 citations