 Today I'd like to report with our speaker, who is part of the greater art community. Professor Dr. Anastasia Sapka-Larriade. Anyway, she is Dr. PhD at University College London in Public Archaeology and Heritage, which is near and dear to pretty much everybody in this community. And so we have a lot of interesting things in common and things to learn. And she worked on that in Greece and has continued to work on with communities, current communities in Greece, on their heritage situation. And she's also had various affiliations with Princeton and continue to be on the PCL. So she's part of a newer member of our community, so it's really nice to get to know her. And today, her title, I'm sure it's the same one, reading, What is the Future of Archaeology in Greece? How the Nation Building Project E-Values Archaeology, that's her article, and the Quests for Relevance. So this, I think, will be particularly engaging for us, regardless of whether we're going to get this or not. So I'd like you to vote for her very much. Thank you for coming. Good afternoon from you too, and thank you all very much for joining us today. A special thanks to Professor Haskell for the time welcome, and Sarah Kansa and the rest of the facilities staff for the University of Greece. I'm going to talk about values of archaeology in Greece, and more specifically, I'll try to demonstrate how the national views of the past, antiquities and archaeology has compromised other broader political, social, and even economic values of archaeology in Greece. This environment I'm currently developing draws from my doctoral thesis at UCL, and any feedback would be greatly welcome. So I'm first going to give you a brief overview of archaeology in Greece, the politics of the past, and the establishment of the discipline, and the practice in legislation and administration. I wasn't at all sure how familiar each one of you might be with the case of Greece. I will then explain a brief line of archaeology, the type of data I collected, and use some important information about the case studies I used. I will then discuss how people directly prioritize the national value over any other type of values, demonstrate to what extent people assign any other type of value, and argue as a result that other values are greatly compromised by the national views of the past. Finally, I will set out my thoughts about how another archaeology is possible in Greece. I believe that a more self-reflective, newest, and less self-referential archaeology may lead us to tell more relevant and subtle stories about the past and to more efficiently address serious issues that were faced today, such as racism, social fragmentation, and injustice. I will make suggestions about specific steps that we need to take in hope that in the end maybe another archaeology may render another national identity possible. So, as Professor Haslop mentioned, my work is founded on questions that public archaeology seeks to answer, as it is defined in the UK, any area of archaeological activity that interacts or has the potential to interact with the public and to the investigation of this interaction. The basic premise is that sustainable protection and conservation of material culture of the past require people's understanding and appreciation. I would now like to join the voices of those who argue that our work should also extend beyond the narrow realms of our disability. So, we now understand much better the role and contribution of culture to communities and are in a better than ever position to continue to the passing issues of our times through our understanding of the past, rendering this archaeology relevant to people's lives today. I believe that here these kind of workflows were within cultural anthropology. I also draw from more mainstream cultural and psychological work work as sociology, museum studies, fantasy studies, social theory and post-processional archaeological theory as well. Now, let's turn to our topic. I will not discuss very much. I will not spend a lot of time on the historical context, but I need to bring up a few big ideas about it to give you some basic understanding in case you're not familiar. So, the relationship people in Greece have developed with the past and with archaeology was mainly formulated in the 18th century in the context of Hellenism. Maurice has defined this as the idealization of Asia and Greece as the birthplace of a European spirit. The balance between the great powers of the time, Britain, France and Russia played a major role in that as well, and also the development of what is known as the Neolemic Enlightenment, which is the reappropriation of classical heritage and the internalization of the discourse of Hellenism for the development of a great national identity. So here, with the images, I want to bring up examples and remind you of the movements of Hellenism, the competition and European museums to gain antiquities from Italy and Greece. And the general context is obviously the struggle of Greece to gain its independence from the Ottoman Empire, but also the developments in the history of art, with the aftermath of the history of ancient art, played their role in this. So the problem of classical antiquity satire in the national narrative resulted in the dominance of art historical approaches in Greek archaeology and the as-latch in approaches to protection and conservation as in the public presentation interpretation of antiquities and the past. For example, in New Zealand's development and exhibition, as scholar Andromachi Gazi and modeler Muig discussed, and also has affected not only the development of the discipline as Kostos Kocakis has demonstrated, but as I hope to show today the socio-political and economic role of archaeology. Within this very broad national context we also have the case of Greek Macedonia, which I need to make special mention to because two of my case studies are located there. So Greek Macedonia has been called the archaeological auger of southern Greece because of its near-exposure from the European notion of Hellenism. It's first mentioned by classical writers and archaeologists consequent in difference to its history. The area remained part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912 when it was surrendered to the Greek army and an efferent of antiquities was established at its capital, Thessaloniki, 15 days later. Within the next six months, two more archaeological surfaces were established in the area. So this otherness continued until 1977 when Manuel Sontlán Kosteks excavated the great Tumulus in Verhina. The group of Thones found was associated with the royal Macedonian family and Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great, and the discovery was met with hater through unprecedented national and international attention and brought financial support and research interest. There was an obvious impact on the public perception of the discipline as well due both to the political implications of the discovery of the dispute with the then Islamic Republic of Macedonia and to the generation for the artistic and material quality of the finds. To give you an idea of the impression the finds in Verhina left on people and on archaeologists, the term the Verhina syndrome was coined by Antoni Zoiz, professor of archaeology in Madrid, to describe a particular pathology in the process of archaeological work production. The trends are hunting excitement where the archaeological value that is the historical importance or significance are oversided by the technology of the valuable material or the form. To say a few words about the establishment of archaeology in legislation and administration, the first legal and administrative measures for the protection of antiquities were taken in the new country's effort to prove it's belonging to Europe, during even as early as the world's independence was still going. The counter-gluting promoted the collection of scattered antiquities in schools and assigned curatorial duties to teachers, encouraged people to surrender their finds and founded the National Museum. The first archaeological law was drafted by the Barbarocresti, the great power established in Greece, when August Sonofloubith, the first king of Bavaria, was informed king of Greece in 1834. That was stated that all antiquities aside Greece, because they are works of the ancestors of the Greek people, are regarded as the national possession of all the Greeks in general. The spirit of the law has remained unchanged ever since. The current law was enacted in 2002 with notable adaptations in the role of archaeology in contemporary society, primarily a more inclusive definition of protection that mentions facilitation of access and communication, enhancement and inclusion in contemporary social life and citizen sensitization regarding cultural heritage. For August Sonofloubith's 11 founding principles refer to the social dimension of protection, the enrichment of protective strategies and the complementarity between state and citizen's duties and the facilitation of citizen's access to features of cultural heritage. More importantly, the Greek constitution recognized in 2001 protection of the cultural environment as an individual right. And this has provided fundamental support for citizens who want to challenge the archaeological services decisions. And we have seen since then many quite public cases of struggles between local community groups. The most current happening right now is the Philoponic Group in Athens, where they're trying to stop the local effort of fences around the Philoponic Hill, which has been always used as an open park, but is also an archaeological site. And against the decisions of the administrative court of Greece, the effort is these days setting up fences to close off the park and turn it into a controllable site that will bring a new avenue. In a critical reading, the current loss is the social role of antiquities and archaeologists. Archaeology fulfilled primarily through business to museums and archaeological sites. Both highly controlled and regulated spaces were formal approaches in joyful and uncontested authority over the visitor. Permit for the use of monuments can be granted under conditions such as the compatibility of the event with the character of the monument, that the event concurs with the original use of the monument and is of an appropriate quality. These terms are not defined anywhere. It's up to the councils and the efforts to make these decisions. They control the archaeological service over the use of antiquities unjustifiably extends to ensuring their ethical use and safeguarding their sacredness from publications ranging from the use of an image of the fountain on Bikoka Colony to covers of a German magazine focused more recently. Admittedly, in the last decade, many museums have been renovated and new ones have been founded. Educational programs and initiatives to attract visitors to archaeological museums and sites were proliferated. It remains no doubtful whether these developments reach beyond aesthetical, technological and communicative advances constituting fundamental ruptures with deep rooted mentalities of controlling authority over the meanings, values and legitimate interpretations of the task of antiquities and of archaeology in Greece. Thus, archaeology in Greece remains an ideologically-laden state-run activity and a quote here from an archaeologist who is a member of the Academy of Athens who describes, quote, those who discuss art and monuments as part of the social becoming and changes in times and in the mentality of people, basically those who discuss art through values as heritage values, he describes them as and are continually called sirens of pseudo-social theories. So, out the window goes 120 years of debate on values, heritage and best practices in sustainable conservation according to this particular archaeologist member of the Academy of Athens. The Archaeological Service is one of the oldest state services in Greece. It was founded in 1833. Its structure reflected that very recently the Trigapite schema, the history of Greece was fitted to in the 19th century in order to serve the argument of uninterrupted continuity of the Greek culture. So, ancient services regarding ancient antiquities Byzantine, that is medieval and modern services. It was only a couple of years ago that the services were brought in under the same roof after 35 years of conversation about this change. The Central Archaeological Council, another historic institution dating back to 1836 is the highest advisory board to the Minister of Culture. The Ministry of Culture which consists primarily of the Archaeological Service was itself founded during the colonel's order in 1971. I consider the operation of the Archaeological Service in the context of the modern state as a disembedding mechanism as discussed by Indians from the pre-existing relationships that people had developed with their local antiquities as expressed in myths, legends, rituals, their indigenous archaeologies as Hamilakis was behind them. To investigate the value of archaeology I looked into three local communities that were all adjacent to archaeological sites through a combined methods approach. The site of Crenides, the local community of Crenides is adjacent to Philly in Kavalei, northern Lys. I will show you a map with all the sites that are adopted. It is a settlement of approximately 3,000 residents. It has been named after the ancient colony that Philip II, King of Macedon took under his protection and remained after him in the 4th century BC. The Archaeological site consists of late Roman and early Byzantine antiquities of monumental character including the Forum, Femblad, Ancient and Ancient Theater, Basilicas, an octagon complex with the Baptistery and the Acropolis. There is an Archaeological Museum of site. It reopened in 2010 after 15 years of renovation. Crenides is a rural town in transition to a northern economy. At the time of film work it was the capital of the municipality of Philly but it has been currently merged with the municipality of Kavalei. The site also holds the Philly Festival which was initiated by the intellectual elite of Kavalei in the 1950s. It is the second of the Ancient Theater festival in Greece after the one in Apilabrus. Archaeological research by this service, the French form in Athens and the restructuring University of Thessaloniki has been taking place there for the last century. The site was finally inscribed to be open to tourists in 2016. The second case study is the community of Dyspion. Dyspion is a junction to the archaeological site with the same name in Castellan, again in open Greece. It is a settlement of approximately 1,000 people and lies next to the only Neolithic lake settlement systematically excavated and presented in Greece. The Aristotle was conducting research for the last 20 years there. The research stopped after the passing of the professor who had been here years ago. But the university just got a very big grant from the research council for the study of all the material that had come out of 20 years of excavations. Until then the area had attracted little archaeological attention. The excavation of the wood homes, the houses of the lake settlement were built on has allowed the development for reconstruction in the form of an eco-museum. And these are the images at the far right are from the museum. This is a small exhibition that is co-hosted with the ecological workshop. This one includes original material and it's under the ecological service attention and care. One of the reconstruction because it is a reconstruction of the original is being managed by the university. For manufacturing the area's main economic activity has been in decline since the early 90s and the neighbouring church of the Ascension and the uses of the site before it was excavated among other things for a week-long country fair possibly the most important event of the year in this video has caused animosity between the local police, Kislog and the archaeologists. And the final site obviously next to the archaeological site of Delphi is Central Greece. The modern site of the settlement consists of about 1500 residents in a developing close association with the development of archaeological research in the area. The site consists of the classical monumental remains of the Sanctuary of Apollom and of Ascinata Nea and is presented in the recent renovated archaeological museum. Delphi is also an operative site and thus is managed under stricter regulations and its inclusion in the list was made possible after the local community successfully campaigned for the cancellation of plants to build an aluminum plant in the proximity of the site. The local economy has been defended on tourism for a long time now. The population is diminishing as a result of the limitation of work opportunities in the tourism industry and the prohibition of new constructions in the town. So on the map you can see Grimides is here and Philippi this video is close to the border with Albania and Delphi is Central Greece part of the Greek state for much longer than the other two cases. So the data I collected I conducted both qualitative and qualitative research I did 284 structure interviews among the communities and 29 in-depth interviews with local stakeholders and officials of the Ministry of Culture I also collected data from the Ministry of Quality Archives the National Statistics Service the state budget comments made by the survey participants the national press and countries by the association of Greek archaeologists the trade union of state informed archaeologists I use a 30 minute questions long questionnaire that included both open-ended and closed questions on demographics participants' perceptions on archaeology and its recognition of contemporary life investigating participants' relationship with local archaeology and their level of engagement with it and finally with questions on their engagement with other local cultural stimuli. I use stratified random sampling on the basis of gender and age according to the population profile drawn for the most recent national census and I did fieldwork in 2007, 2008 and 2009 so this is right before the full extent of what has been called as the economic crisis was revealed and thus this data set constitutes a valuable benchmark for any future research on the topic I believe I have submitted the entire data set in all formats with metadata files to the data verse of the general of open archaeology data and published a meta paper alongside in order to discuss the methodology in case someone here is interested in more details now I will turn to see some of these questions and participants' responses there were first of all questions that directly address the relationship between the national narrative and archaeology so participants were asked to agree or disagree on a scale from 1 to 10 then being strongly agreed with three statements the vast majority in all three case studies agreed with a statement that the monuments of the past constitute the most important sources if not the most important one of the Greek national identity leaving us with no doubt about how we valorize antiquities in Greece again a great majority in all three case studies strongly agreed with a statement that Greek archaeologist national mission is to do Greece's glorious past the perception of Greek archaeology as enlisted because of nation building representative of the initial aim of the discipline in the 19th century persist in the public understanding of the discipline until today there has yet to be an official effort to deconstruct the national character of archaeology in Greece and to present the discipline and its practices as a social science politically entangled in the past and the present and with its limitations fewer although still significant of participants agreed with a statement that ancient Greek civilization is the oldest in the world and as surpassable by any other ancient civilization demonstrated thus the lack of contextualization of the past of Greece in the global setting and thus the devalorization of any other past culture the highlight of the agreement in these three statements could be attributed to the extreme way these were couched these are conclusions from a doctoral research by professor Thomas Vikkis on the presentation of the past antiquated archaeology in primary school textbooks although one might have expected that the exaggerated manner would make the detailed participants from agreeing with them to the degree that they did factors universal with universal effects such as the rise of national feelings in public education could also account for them Greek public education has been repeatedly demonstrated to be ethnocentric in rather than research and similar feelings also appear in public opinion surveys regarding the role of culturally society in Greece as the university archaeologist in this video noted in his interview with me in the absence of a constructive relationship between archaeology and the public there is space for the development of an ideologized understanding of the past and of archaeology that nurtures nationalism the question do you believe that archaeology has value in it yes, what do you believe is the most important value we have consensus among science was striking and demonstrated a strongly embedded and geographically widespread belief in the historical the scientific value of archaeology the one that supports the national narrative this was followed by the educational slash intellectual that refers more to the individuals education and own culture and the social one plus in preferences namely the economic value and the political value the attribution of such importance to the historical scientific value of archaeology confirms the dominant role that archaeology has as a handmade of history in public perceptions in Greece and of the perceived scientific profile of the discipline itself it also follows closely the findings of research in archaeological narratives in school texts, books and among students this is combined with a greater reluctance to attribute social, cultural economic and even more so political values in archaeology now participants offer the variety of answers to the question of what did your associate archaeology most closely with the categories national history primarily in Trinitas which is the site next to Trinity ancient art in Delphi and life in the past in this period prevailed world tourism and contemporary politics back behind now this is highly surprising as majority responses among the case studies vary according to the nature of the archaeological sites themselves and of the archaeology practice in each one of them Philip is a site closely related to the history of Christianity in Greece because of its inclusion in St. Paul's itinerary towards Europe and his epistles to the phoenix phoenix patients at Delphi the emphasis on the achievements of ancient Greek art is exhibited in the museum and the site itself with any further context regarding religion or life in the city of Delphi there must have been a city around Delphi it can only be a sanctuary right this view is a quick historic site that does not fit in the historical national narrative and where a more anthropological archaeology has been practiced and hence the difference in their responses in the question do you feel that people who lived in the area from Neolithic times and let this be their answers to treat the relation to them the majority in all the case studies agreed gave a positive reply with considerably less in this Pio just over half the results of this Pio may be due to the fact that the settlement is rather recent the fact that the archaeological remains of the area are dated to the Neolithic without the introduction of any other classical Roman or even decent time material there are remains of a Hellenistic fortification wall but they are very poorly preserved and this may also have contributed to the fact that they feel unrelated to it another factor may have been the extended sermon by the local priest when the excavation started on how Jesus was the founder of all civilization of Earth actually participant echoed this view and said to me Christ brought religion to Earth we do not come from animals furthermore the generic and generally restricted way in which the history has been portrayed in popular culture and in public education may also explain why people find it difficult to associate with these times as another participant said the Neolithic peoples were nomads overall the more prominent and fitting to the national narrative local and the more people are likely to claim decent at least in cultural terms from it it might be worth mentioning I have not included in this presentation cross tabulations with demographics because then the story becomes too big to include in a brief talk but here age and education correlated significantly to participants answers in any descending dispute and in both sides more participants between the ages of 18 and 39 did not feel that people who were originally associated with the sites where their ancestors it may be that one's feeling of ancestry increases with age or that we are seeing a generation that is more detached from the ancient past this result also confirmed younger participants as more critical towards archaeology than other age groups regarding education two thirds of participants in Green Nides and almost three quarters in this video who did not feel that people who live in the area of the past whether ancestors had more than compulsory education of course some social value beyond the national identity building is still as far to archaeology and this became evidently more indirect questions where archaeology was found to constitute a part of these communities to improve their race of life and to raise the ratings of the community's responsibilities for the protection of the archaeological sites so in the question did you feel that these sites belong to you and constitute part of their community and if not to whom would you say that they belong that the past majority in both in all three sides stated that the site belonged to them and it was a part of their community three quarters almost three quarters in Delphi participants who replied negatively said that the site belonged to Greece in general to the whole world particularly in Delphi 20% of them expressing awareness of the site's international acclaim as experienced for many years in their everyday life and formally recognized through the World Heritage status and also to those who have the political interest and get the money so one handful of participants in Delphi who linked political and economic interests with the archaeological site demonstrate that political and economic values are described as means to antagonize current heritage management so they were expressed when participants made explicit claims to their revenues from adverse tickets and in respect to proposed countermeasures to balance the regulations over building restrictions over the use of property and the negative impact of tourism in the community participants' positive answers to whether the archaeological sites belong to the community were reinforced by considerable level of agreement with the question do you believe that these archaeological sites improve the quality of life in your area a result that demonstrated that there is positive value in archaeology and it is identifiable even if it is stated in such vague terms as quality of life if the question do you feel that you have a kind of responsibility for and slash all rights to these archaeological science museums again the majority of participants in all three case studies replied yes and they stated that they had both responsibility and rights explicitly demonstrating willingness to support the conservation and their positive generalization further expressions of social value became evident in answers to the question of what advantages from the local community's proximity to the archaeological site and there people mentioned value, pride and advancement publicity for the village researching local history and culture cultural events mobility of people intellectual development civic beauty and spiritual health but these values were assigned by from a quarter of participants in each case starting to about 3% the least of them however by far the most widely mentioned advantage of archaeology was tourism admittedly 80% of participants in Delphi that makes sense 76% in this video and 60% beneath us considering the above I think that one would expect that archaeology is highly relevant to people's lives today however when participants were asked to grade how relevant they are regarding archaeology to be in contemporary life on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being extremely relevant over half of participants in Delphi half of the beneath us and one fifth in this video regarded it as relevant only 15% in the beneath us 18% in Delphi and a significant 37% in this video felt archaeology was actually relevant to our lives today the percentages at Delphi beneath us were quite similar however there is a clear difference in the answers from this video a possible explanation for this could be the fact that this video the only prehistoric lake settlement open to visitors in Greece attracts more domestic than international tourism this means that the visitors this video coming to contact with our priests they form a more positive impression about the relevance of archaeological heritage to people in Greece as opposed to the other two sites in Delphi in philippi representative sites of glorious moments in ancient history participants kept contrasting the eagerness of international tourists to visit them praising especially people coming from Asia to Greeks lack of apparel and will to visit archaeological sites food and cafeterias were mentioned prevalent interest for people in Greece and lack of education or of being cultured as the causes for this difference to give you an idea of the importance of these responses the contrast with surveys that are conducted in other parts of the world is striking so one of these conducted by Pocotillo and Gaffi found that four times more participants than in the San Indelphi considered archaeology relevant and only 11% consider being relevant to contemporary life results in this video were actually closer to the ones from service in international service conducted we included this question and things become even more complicated when one considers that percentage is very slightly from case to case in the question on a scale from 1 to 10 how much would you say you are interested in archaeology overall more than half of participants stated that they were interested the highest percentage of interested participants was found in Delphi in Grimidis slightly lower and finally in this Pio 56% stated their interest the percentage of participants interested in archaeology decreases from Delphi to Grimidis and finally with this Pio while the amount of uninterested ones increases this may be a result of the longer presence of archaeology in these areas and nationally important and profitable presence in the case of Delphi at least and the monumentality of their resources now this point I would like to argue that there are three types of personas demonstrated in this data the first one is between values attributed to archaeology and its most important advantage so historical scientific values come first and economic value comes second to last but tourism is mentioned as by far the most important advantage of archaeology for local communities political value comes last although the political views of antiquity for example in the conflict in the Macedonian conflict and during the so called economic crisis have monopolized public discourse in and about Greece and here I wanted to bring the case of Hanfipoli which developed in the last three years but there is a lot of space I think it is a subject that merits its own presentation this goal persists even when the association of archaeology with tourism and contemporary politics is specifically addressed the second is a disconnect between the social values that we found archaeology to generate as opposed to the low relevance attributed to archaeology this demonstrates that little of the social value is actually materialized and identified in terms that make them specific and tangibly appreciated therefore social values compromise and goes unrecognized while the national values widely accepted as the high agreement with the statements I showed you in the beginning about the mission of archaeology and the role of monuments in ancient nation building and the place of ancient re-culture in the world demonstrated and the third business is between the low relevance of archaeology versus participants high interest in it this could be good news even if for the wrong reasons archaeologists have people's attention in Greece the following findings I believe help us explain what becomes evident as a gulf between values advantages, relevance and interests the perception of Greek archaeology is enlisted through the cause of nation building has been almost fully internalized by people a new existence focuses on the practice of archaeology and heritage management rather than on the actual valorization system that guide them the value of this course is almost absent anyway instead the values of the past antiquities in archaeology are being taken for granted archaeologists believe and stated that in their interviews that people know and understand why we need to conserve antiquities they are after all the roots of our national being right but preparedness to agree with statements such as the one of the place of ancient Greek civilization as the oldest one in the world and as repossible as highly demonstrated in this survey is problematic indeed the dominance of the national narrative is such that all participants were entirely oblivious of any contradiction in their statements the role of universal public education cannot be understated but also more recently of the mass media too and this is an argument that the Amphipolis case demonstrates really well finally the myth with prehistory that the national narrative has enforced leads to yet another disconnect with human prehistory beyond national cultures now I would like to close with a few suggestions on how to move on from this 19th century perception of the past antiquities in archaeology and better prepare ourselves for issues that we are currently faced with this is a particularly urgent need as what what initially seemed to be financial crisis in Greece in concurrence with many other events such as the war in Syria has since been revealed to be a larger crisis of values people in Greece are being challenged in many respects and some of their reactions are truly fundamentally shaking our assumptions about who we are who we thought we are and who we need to be in order to face the future I got goosebumps when I read a brief review of professor Jason Spanley's book How Fascism Works and how he identified in his book the invocation of a mythical past showing the vision and attacking truth as essential elements of fascism through heritage we have the privilege and the responsibility to address all these in order to construct a different national identity one that is resilient, tolerant and confident we need a more self-reflective, nuanced and less self-referential archaeology it is time that archaeology in Greece embraces multi-disciplinary approaches opening up to fields such as public archaeology as defined in the beginning public history, cultural anthropology sociology, heritage studies education, museum studies and conservation which more recently acquired a much broader definition internationally would benefit the field a critical history of archaeology in Greece would also contribute towards this direction we also need transparency in heritage management and the decision-making processes in order to reveal which values archaeology has been choosing to preserve through material conservation and render the process open to debate and dialogue it is time to open and admit our year-centrism and how it has compromised the humanity of our past value debates surrounding archaeology that often in public in Greece other than their people's case the finding of whole parts of the Byzantine city of Thessaloniki during the construction of the metro works sparked a huge public debate back in 2013 about what we choose to preserve and what not but no one openly admits or even realizes that their opinions derive from values that others obviously do not share the authoritarian hegemony of Hellenism still lives on, it indicates after the European powers lost their colonies built on the paradigm of European superiority we need to move beyond narratives that build divisions between peoples of the past and allow us to extend such divisions to today we need more nuanced and elaborate narratives that address the sophistication matters that are relevant until today and migration has become an issue that is more widely discussed among anthropologists the triple A's a couple of weeks ago we need narratives that benefit from archaeological science and its advances but also put this to the critical test of their limitations and we also need a critical evaluation of the content and messages that we have been communicating through hundreds of permanent and temporary exhibition educational programs and other such outreach activities and finally we should keep trying to renew our history textbooks in spite of the failures of several previous attempts we need to de-sacralize, de-nationalize and decolonize every instance of the archaeological discourse but coming back to the trap of a politically neutral display which is a favorite argument amongst archaeologists in Greece in practice but by fully engaging with the political nature of heritage from the opposite direction the one that openly addresses the constructs that led us here only then will we be able to free ourselves from the constraint of the national narrative and pursue other benefits from our work as archaeologists and allow other heritage values to materialize we need to make our communities relevant to our work first before our work becomes relevant to them and there are and there are so many different communities to work with out there so for recent examples not to leave you with a very simplistic note are collaborations with initiatives for the appreciation of urban architectures such as the Open House that have recently helped attract urban communities to archaeological sites and urban areas and there is also a great interest among younger generations which are entirely underdeveloped in Greece again to finalize you to close with a positive note there have been initiatives towards these directions recently we have founded the Association of Heritage Managers and Policemen in the annual meeting Archaeological Biologists in order to try to introduce all these debates in Greece there are enlightened state archaeologists who are retracing archaeologists' role in contemporary opening up archaeology to new collaboration but there is still a lot of work ahead and the issues we are faced with are only increasing they are not going away on their own so thank you very much for your attention Thank you Thank you very much It is something that you come up against very often especially with older generation archaeologists who my own professors often would say things like oh I don't care what happens to the antiquities after I study them it's not part of what archaeology is or when I was doing this research and I was applying for funding I turned down because what would be sociology if it's not excavated material or material from some really old storming it's not archaeology but this this can't be another recent example is the current exhibition at the National Museum of History and it's an artist among all the things that are happening in the last decade and the world is the various aspects of beauty so it kind of leaves you there's nothing to say you feel that you're hit against the wall and you have to wait for generations to clear out before anything can happen but we can't wait because we need now I have a question about your question that might help me understand the disparity between whether they find it relevant and they're interested in it but I have to actually be free so when you ask those two questions how are you free to be free to be free to say are you good, how long are you free to say are you good yet in terms of the lack of relevance I've done a quite close translation actually actually over here in both instances so both whether they find it interesting and whether they find it relevant you use the same terminology yes, actually over here and I had obviously 38 questions, it was a huge questionnaire that we never presented in one event but the most interesting question was what do you think of when you hear the word archaeology and that was an open question and it was so difficult to codify the answers and come up with a way that makes sense so it's very difficult for me to include it into any such presentation but there as well it shows that the longer people have been in touch with archaeology who live next to these sites the more they appropriate this relationship with archaeology so if you need as an endelpe you would see sites where people would instantly say oh, you think of a pier we think of our museum we think of this one even I think of my father who works at the excavations while in this video which is archaeology it is indeed an anthropological archaeology that is taking place there by a communist Marxist archaeologist to remember himself people have much more objective distance detached relationship and come up with answers that make sense like history, culture such generic terms I was just thinking of my energy study in my city for instance and if I ask when thinking about those same topics I think there would be that difference as well that they don't actually think it's very relevant to what's going on they see it as an economic advantage that they have in their archaeological site but they are actually all kind of interested they do want to know what you're finding I don't necessarily know why they don't know what I'm finding different generations will tell you different things but I noticed when there was a difference you mentioned that I think it was for cruelly best was initially its own municipality and then it was incorporated when they made the changes so I definitely noticed in my city that when we were our own municipality it was a very different relationship with the archaeological site where they were both resizable for it and also immediately receiving benefit from having it once they were then combined with Argos which they are now and they don't get the jobs anymore it's coming from over there in the city that are getting the jobs they have a very different feeling in the relationship you see how this scale affects their relationship with the site and that mistake itself it didn't get combined Delphi is also so close to the site and so associated to the site it's always curious about the site originally absolutely people would show me on the site where they used to be so that's a really good thing actually initially I had only designed a project to only clean this and this video and I talked about it for a minute this is not here how are you going to compare this and I included Delphi for that reason and the differences came up so spectacularly between the mentalities of people who have been affected by archaeology working with archaeologists for a century and the sites that people have seen and have had an entirely different relationship with it but we will see changes because now we have the third generation of these pillars that have always met with the archaeologists in their community comes to age so these changes will start showing that as well this was a fantastic talk I think I know how long you are here in the military and I know a working group on tourism studies that I love to get this I would love to I would love to I would love to and there is also one of the sites of the archaeology studies which is one of these called Cure and I am curious on the dissidents slide the photo of the old white horse train where is that this is in Belgium these old trains are famous all over the world for turning people off for turning academics academic skills but I am not so sure about the people especially in Delphi because it is kind of steep they want with this train to connect the old house of Sicilianos with the archaeological sites so to encourage people to stay for longer in the area and to disperse them in the site they use this train for free obviously I understand you are talking about your reaction and our reaction to it but sometimes it can be practical during the talk they are going to type in tourism studies but for all the new middle class these Asian tourists you can't get them to send them unless you promote them with a train or a show or something they don't get them that might be true in the case of Delphi too thank you very much for your suggestions and I will try to look after the people and get in touch thank you so much