DIMITRIS PI-A,NTZOS

fENE@AION(Avdtuno)

IAPYMA N. II. TOYAANAPHMOI''EIO KYKAMIKH> TEXNH>

XOPHTO> EKAO'HT

A@HNA 2006

DIMITRIS PLANTZOS

.GRECE MENSONGERE\ CHRISTIAN ZERVOSAND THE REHABILITATION OF CYCI-A,DIC ART*

The Greek-born colleaor, essafsr, and an-critic ChristianZervos (1889'1970) is well known for his love ofCycladicaf. Indeed, it was through his effors, consummated in hismonumenta.l LArt dtr C1ckle5 published in 1957, thatCycladic artefacts entered - for better, for worse - the realmofcollectable art, and quite a European form ofart at thatr.The volume, dedicated to GreeL archaeologist ChristosTsountas, esrablishes scientific knowledge regarding rheprehistoric culture and art ofrhe Cyclades ard in panicularthe splendid figurines, which Zervos called 'poems inmarble". In the late nineteenth centu-ry, Tsountas' rystematicexcavations, on behalfofthe Archaeological Society of

Dimir/is Plantzos

...thing' dnco,er us at the nme time that ue arcauer tnq,amding to ar i"mldbL re,n'ibilirJ. 1...1 At th. nonent ahe"

the tubject di'cott the obje.t ... the obkct ndls arcuasible, but netet innocmt, .lkca'eD, ofthe '^bject. Moie -

it n actudl| a 'o/t ofin"eniok afthe '"bkct br the ittnted object.

Jean Baudrillard'

Athens, had produced a considerable numb€r ofsites andfinds, but it was only in the mid-1930s rhat Cycladic anbegn to be studied as a wholea. Following an inevirablelull during \forld \Var II, the sptematic excavarion ofrheCyclada was resumed in earnesr in the late 1940s, generaringa wider interest at home and abroad anong scholars andcollectors alike. Thus, "by the early 1960s Cycladic culurehad firmly staked i* claim co a place among rhe majorcivilizations ard its study becarne increasingly thorough"'.ln this paper I shall be looking very briefly into an earlieressay by Zervos, on Greek art and irs predecessors, firstpublished in 1934, ar an introducrion to hls LAt en Grice,

'The ),eds I sp€.t as curatot for the Museum of Cycladic Arr were a ho$ creative period in my working life: r small. vibranr place full of

*cnement md id€s. Futhermue, working witi Dolly Goulandris @ r pleasu.e ed a privilege, and rhe ftuits of our inreraciion were. Ibeliwe, abundotly *idot. I dedicate this paper rc the Museum and i$ Iounder, s a token of my esreen. Par6 of rhn paper are funherexplored;n ny forrhcomins srudy of Greek Archrolog, in rhe rwenderh cenrury. Apecrs ofoy work ad ide* p.ese"red h;re I dncus.dwith Dimir.is Damdkos, Eleni Gara, Elena Hamalid;, Angeliki Koufou, Yorgos Tzdopoulos od Argelos \4achos, who generously oFeredme rhen apqiise. thoughrs and diticisn, I am gnretul to them atl, and I apologise if rhey find rhat ;y vifls €xpresred h*e *em to detutheir bert€r judeemenr.' Baudrillard 1999,76.' Between 1926 dd 1960 Christid ZeNos was rhe editot of Cnhies doa e peiodi<al specializing in contempoEry arr. He was an a.dentsupporter of Pablo Pi6so and devoted nany issues ofrhe Cahin dhtt ro his work. By the tine ofhis dearh, he had published venry,nvovolumes cataloguins Picsso's oeuvre, to which eleven more were added po$hunous\,.J The ptbli.etion of LA/, dz! Cyhdrs wu accordingto nmy scholar (ct Gez-Prziosi 1987, 84) at least in pan responsible for the surfacineof.gref nany C)dadic ngurines in rhe inrernational m neker in lhe 1960s. On Zervos and C),cladic Ari, jee dbru$e 2006.{ Chrnros T$utrs (1857-1934) is considered - rightly - as rhe father ofGreek prehisroryi inspired by romantic ideologies and creekmr;omlism, he strcre b @nstruct Geekprehisrory - especially the Mycenaean crhure - N a fiNr, rhough oninou srep in ihe condnuousnamdre of rhe "Greek miecle". He wx mong the first - ifnot acoally rhe fi6r - to are-pr comparlsons leveen Mycenaean, Homern,and ClNical Greek culture(s), even wnh Byzntine and modern Greek, in his conviction rhar Hellenism has lefr a sinqle, coDrinuous tracein European culture. On Tsountas and his archaeology, see VouBaki 2002, esp. 117-121.'As srated by Ch.ktos Doums in Renfrew 1991, 27 (see pp. 2t-30 for a rhorough acount ofCycladic archaeolosy i. rhe lare n;neteenrhand rwentieth centuries).

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ar eclecric album ofphotos ofcreekarrehc$ datingfromthe rhird millennium to the fourth century BC". Zervoserpresses a number of interest ing ider in this piece,indicarive ofhis love ofGreekart (in both its pre-classicaland chssical embodimerts). More to rh€ point, Zervos'llamboyant rext constitut€s an idiosyncratic attempc roesrablish a link between modernism and clasical antiquitybv highlighdng the qualities of rhe former Gay abstraction)in rhe laner - however absurd this mighr have sounded.The reasons for this lie, I would submit, to the authors. ommrrmenr ro his own Greek idenriry and his inreracr ionsnh inrellecruals in Greece in the 1930s; for it was mostlyhe. along with the Greek-born French art-critic Tdriade,s ho rvere channelling Parisian ideas ino Greek intellectuallife. Behind the hyperbole ofhis texq and its self-assured,porrentous rhetoric, there hides a novel ideological strategybv Greek intellectuals (and cheir Hellenist friends), toreclaim rhe respect of che inrernational communiry aor cheirspirnual homeland.

AJrhough in hi , rexr Zervo' . ; ' ue 'hal l 'ee in grerrerderail below, is freely referring to Cycladic as an eadier -'pre-classical" - form ofGreek arc, the former was noralvays readily accepted into th€ creek canon. \7h€n firstdiscovered, in the late eighteenth and nineteenrh century,Crrladic figurines were thorght of as prinitive idoletti,unimportanr creadons ofbarbarous tribes. A nineteenth-cen rury scholu described one Cycladic head as "repulsivelyuelv", presumably because i t looked nothing l ike theBeh edere Apollo'. Eventually, Tsountas and his colLeagueshelped establish Early Cycladic Culture as oneofthe mainsrages in Aegean prehistory. h took, however, a much morecircumspect way before Cydadic craft was accepted as "an"in the nventieth cennrry. Specifically, it had to be discoveredbv some of rhe leading exponents of the modernistm o r e m e n L i r l L , ' u c h r s l r b l o l i c a ' , o , C o n ' r a n r i nBrancusi, Amedeo Modigliani or Henry Moore, who saw

in it what they had already found in other "tribal" or"primitive" arts, past and present: it was abstract, lucid,andessential. This was the "newbeaury", to replace rhe bythen conventional, over-abused, md trivialised models ofRenaisance an, itselfbased on rhe Gneco-Roman tradirion(usually though taken for solely "creek'). Taken up by theAcademy, Classical ldeals now seemed decidedly redundant.For the modernist sculptors and painters, who ransackedrmrseurn galleries and antiques shops searching for thingsprimitive, Creece and the Renaissance were '1he enemy"'.Their stance was political as well as aesthetic. Their brealwith tradidon expressed rheir disaffiliadon with rhe waycontemporary culrure formed and communicated anestablished ruth. For Picasso, Modigliani, Mooreand theresc, Cycladic art was inspiring because it was zar Greek-as amatteroffact itstood as a negation ofrhe Gr€€k norm.cradually, however, and as Cycladic culture was more andmore accrepted into the realm ofHellenism, those boundariesbecame blunter. Moore himselfwas to revise his earlierresolution noc to allow any Greek influence into hrs arr -

a move that today is seen * "a return to Humanism"". Trueenough, for both the artisr and his audience - includingcritics - Cycladic, for all irs fundamental difference inconcept and oudook from the orthodoxy ofcreek art,remained an early phase of that arJ".

In Greece proper, however, marters were viewed fromquite a different angle; Greek intellectuals were fightingtheir own demons, in an efforr to establish a new cuaurarand pokical identiry for a new - ihough ever so old - narion-state. Already by the secondhalfofthe nineteenth century,a move to Hellenize Greekhisrory had been set in motion,when Greek historians sought to furnish Greece wtth anarional history worthy ofa modern Europem srate". Theirofren emorive approach echoes the rhetoric ofGermanromantics such as the philosopherJohann Georg Hamannand his disciple Johann cottfried von Herder, as well as

'ZcFos 1934, with an introducrion (no page iuml,ering). A second edidon ofrhe sahe volume appeared in 1946.

On shiRs of asre and unives.l opinion regarding Cycl.dic ari, see RenfrN 1991, 168 175j for a recent account ofthose early days, seeChnsori6anou 2004ion rhe figurines and rheir significance, see also Maringou 1990,136-142. Finalll Gill Chippindale 1993, esp.601608offesagoodoveNiewofCycladicaresandfonunesintheMentieih.entuq,,bym).ofsuppo.rinsitsauthon,V,/ontheincestuousrelarionship beNeen Crladic scholarship and (ade, onwhich hore below'\

Henry Moore pur ii in 1960, renecdng on the views he held in rhe 1920s and 1930s; quoted by Roger Cardinal in Moore 2000, 17.

B\ Aniia Feldmu Bernet, Curaror ofthe Hcnrt, Moore Foundation, in Moo.e 2000, 53 72.

Ct: Cardndt text h Moore 2000, 17-52, where C/cladic an is referred to r pan of rhe pre-Classical and prehistoric ffadition of Greekan. a phenomenon rreated m a single endry throughout.

O n lhe re'utrion of node.n G reeks wirh thcir ancient forefathers through history, sec ltotr€rdo 1988, l7l - t 89, Klprdroq 2002, 9 I ' I 3 I ,and vous.ki 2003r ako Clogg 1992, 1-6.

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their disant intellectual forefather, the eighteenth-centuryNeapolian critic of the Edightenment GiambattistaVico'z.Greek hisrory hitheno conined to European scholan, nowbecame a narional causq ir was practiced locally, albeir withan eye permanently turned to the west. Greece had beenliberated on the srength ofher antique le$cy, and it wasthis legacythat nowhadboth to be confirmed by rnodernsciencr (ar opposed to romantic lore that had thLa far driventhe \(est's philhellenic senriments) aswellas shown rc bestill in force. The historian Konstantinos Paparrigopoulosundertook the task rc produce rhe new synthesis ofGreekhisrory, uniting ancienr and medieval Greece ro the present,in a single thread. Instrumental to this project was rheassimilatiol ofBlzanrium (up to now seen as a period ofdecline for Hellenism) into the Greek sequence. Thetripanire scheme invented by Paparigopoulos in his lftraryofthe Hellenic Nation, which knew many editions andrevisions between the 1850s and rhe 1880s, succeeded inclaiming Hellenic antiquity for modern creel<s, in the hoperhat non-Greela would be willing co subscribe: based onrhe concept of Helhnbnzr proposed by German hisrorian

Johann Guscav Droysen in the firsthalfoftie nineteenthcentury'r, Paparrigopoulos argued rhar it was the sameGreekness - rhe one so precious to the Europeans , thathad underpinned Byzanrine cultrre. Beneath its frigidmixrure ofAsian pomp and Roman authoritarianism layrhe "Hellenic spirit" which we can nace in Greek language,Christian faith, mores and cusroms that are still visible inmodern Greece; that w:s rhe implicit overall suggestion'4.Thus, the new state seened ro have been successful inclaiming its antiquiry, as well as its status as a European

Prehistorywas, on rhe otherhand, a very differenr casealrogerher. Since the last decades ofthe nineteenrh century,

archaeology had been uncovering rraces of Greece sprehistoric past, including the cuhures that flourished intheAegean.In the 1870s Heinrich Schliemann had shosrthat Homer's Troy was not merely a m1th, and proceededto do che same with Apmemnon\ Mycenae, this rime onGreek soil. Greek inrcllectuals were;n;tially indifferenr, ifnot hostile to Sct iemann's caulier anitude ard endrusiaqicconviction that he had "gazed upon rhe face of Aga-memnon", Mycenaean civilizarion however rvas ro b<attached to the Greek sequence very soon, and so *ere itsMinoar ard Aegean counrerparrs. As ir has recendl beenshown, Greek archaeologists, notably Tsountas, *'ereinspired by the narntive for Greek hisrory consnaed brPaparrigopoulos, andsetoffto investigate rhe euly Hsron'of Greek race and cultural identity - rhe Greekness ofHel la. ' ' . CradualJy. rhe concepr olr r imelc.s. omnipre*nr"Greek spirit" emerges, as well as rhe notion ofGreecebeingthe cradle of Earopean cr'vllization'n.

At the time ofirs conception, the narrative fora rhrc-thousand long history of the Greek nation wts ro sen e asthe academic foundarion ro the chimerical claims for a"Greater Greece" a sovereign state rhar would strerch orerevery rerritory inhabited by Hellene!-. This pan nztionaldream, globally dubbed as rhe "crear Idea", fuelled r}r.nation\ ambitions and imaginings for many decada beforeit collapsed amidst its own ruins, after rhe disastrous stragainst Turkey in 1897 and the catattro?he.hat ensu.edwhen Greek troops invaded Turkish As;a Minor in 1921-1922.Itwas then thar the Greeks realised thar rheir nadonhad to accommodate itselfpretty much in rhe terriroryheJd by rheir , tate. I hehisror icr l nanarive unir ingmcienr.medieval and modern Hellenism was remined horvever, arwere Greek folk studies, a project initiated in rhe 1880s btNikolaos Politis, whose conviction was thar local customs

I5aiah Berlin discuss6 Vco and Herde. in his I 976 monogruph, republished in 2000 wnh rhe addnion of Hanman (Berlin 1976: lO00),B.rlin 1999 incorporat$ th€ author's evaluation oflhe rhree penonaliries in a discussion ofcerman Romanticisn and i6 roos. Oo rh.lcircun$peco reladonsbip ofGreek scholars wirh Hamann, Herder and (presunably) Vico, see Henfeld 1986, 13-18;24-j2 (6p.4Gj9).' Drorsen published a Gasrlic,4te Alefufldat d?' Gto'w ln 1833, and h;s monumental G.r., i.hte d?s Hele,isn$,in Bo rolun6, in t 816

rnd I843- According to th€se works, the spirit ofGreek c!l][re - Helteftnu - stoived the end ofthe Greek rvorld and .reared a Friod ofb islodcll impo@nce and a€sthetic excellencc, now called Hellenistic'. Dro/sen's agenda included his own undesrnding of rhe eme€..c.ot a g(ar German nation Fom a wond of frrgmented nationalgroups and rribes, c rhe Greeks had heen in rhe Clssical period- O. Drc\s;dncoursc on history, see whire 1987, 83-103.:'5.e:(omrdq 1988, 179-189. On rhe ploces ofconsructiod of"narional rime" in Greek hisrcriograph),, see A.iNoq 1994.:' See chiefly Voursaki 2002 , end KWa6\a9 2002, t27 -129.:r Youtsaki 2002, esp. 120-121 eftribures borh nrvendons to Tsountas, who was rhus reacring ro the widespread or;enEltst aftitud6 of hi5

: Clo&g 1992,46-97. On the id€olosiqland cuhuralalsenal ofrhe 'srea.idealisrs" and rhen opponenc, see Iton€rdo 1988.149-i60:Heu le ld 1986, 123-139.

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and rradirions preserve rhe essence of Hellenism'3. Thedisasnous effects ofthe Greek imperialist advent e forceda nrher more inrrovert attitude to a younger generation ofinrellecruals appearing in the country's cultural life around

1930 ' hence rheir collecdve brand name as "the 1930sGeneration"''. A self+tyled Greek avant-garde, this loosecollecrive of essayists, critics, novelists and poets proposed,as rehicle ro their ideas, a new central concept for Creekidenriry, what they called helbniloteta ("Greekness") , ads hrr I propose here to catl helbn;citfa. Hellenicity referled,

borh ro antiquiry and Byzantium, suggesting that theinherenr qualities of the Greek psyche survived, oftenunderected, through the millennia. It was through themining ofthese qualities, a return to basic Greek values,thar the drird Hellenic Civilinti'on (a neu Helbnisn) snLtld.arise. The demoralizing etreca of the 1 922 Greek eracuationofAsia Minor generated in Greece deep fcelings ofbitterresemment against the \?est, strengthening rhe anti-Westemsenriment of rhe previous periods". A cultural backlashsas imperarive, ifthe narion were to survive. The membersof the 1930s Generation, mosr middle- or upper-rniddleclass inrellecruals schooled in Europe, set for themselves anerv mission, indeed arl irnpossible one: to re'unite modern

Greecewith its psyche (buried somewhere in irs remorcormore recent Hellenic pasr), while at the same time establishrhe perennial values of Greek culture on the Europeanhorizon, reminding the Europ€an Occident its culturaldebr ro rhe Greek Orient.

The debare over hellenicity and its qualities led Greekrlinking in the 1930s and 1940s to some curious allelvaF.t ndc, : progre.. ive preten(e. rhe l r)Jos Cenerat ion s

enrhusiast ic modernists model led their rhetor ic on

hellenicity dargeroudy close to racist views - defining, asthey did, Hellenic spirit as the sovereign and exclusiveproduct of Greek soil, exclusive of easterners and westernersalike. The "back+o-basics" approach had been a vitalelemenr of fascist rhetoric in nearby Iraly, where a move

towards the discovery and establishnem of italianitt nayhave inspired some rt least of the promoters ofhellenicityin Creece t*hile ar rhe same time in Spain ruthoriries were

wo*ing on rhe encouragem ent of h*panidad)". Ernba*jngon a self-confessed route to a "new humanism", Greekinrel lectuals in rhe l9J0s regresed Lo hel lenocentr icradicalism, actualty rwiving the environmental detominismprofessed by poet and essalst Peritlis Giannopoulos in thebeginning of the centur/. Biological idiosyncrasies andclirnatic conditions were once again seen as the factors

determining culture, and the perceived particularities ofGreek art - recalling the lines and colours ofthe Greeklandscape - were thoughr to support this. It was nowsomehow becoming obligatory for Greek intellectuals orartists to declare their fascination with rhe landscapes ofAnica, the colours ofGreek nature and, above all, the sea.The Aegean becomes the new point ofreference for the

Creek consciou.nesr i t is giren pr imacy ofplace in poerr l .

significandy in the works ofOdysseus Elnis, whom GTheotokas, another strong voice ofthis generation, called"a mtsdc dawn over the Aegean"". A new mythologyemerges from the waves ofthe Aegean and rhe rocks ofitsislands, a new Hellenic physiognomy, to be credited withall rhe precious quatities ofa vibrant hellenicirl5. This wasto be espoused by artisrs such as the painter Nikos Hatzi-lcyriakos Ghikas who - though his work may look super-f ic i . r l ly.ubisr. repearedl l daimed that Hel lenic.ont inuig

:' T:r6poq 1989, 146-147. on rhe pursuit of folk srudies in ninereenth century creece, and irs political age'da, sa chiefly Heefeld 1986

:'On the 1930s Genention, their developnent md ideo, see chiefly Vid 1984 and Th6poq 1989;.lso Leonds 1990:TherermhdbcenusedbyHall2002.astudyofancientcreeknorionsofethnicity(wharHerodorusc,llst r elbfliho,).I prcFet b te ir

erclusntly for modern G ree.e, hye\et, when h.lhnikotcb ws suggesred by int€llecruals as a vital element of national ideology. See Xorh'

i(oidot 1982,30-38.' Clogg 1992,98-106._ Vi r r i 1984,200.:: Inhis Grceh lih. an.t.alo,t, published in 1903. cidnopoulos (l869-1910)calts his conpado$ !o rejoin rhe spirn of their glorious mcstor,

o.!(hrc$ rhe iylanny of the \aesr", rhrcugh a return to rhe inherenr values of rhe Greek nation; moreover, these v.lues we!e, ac@rding to

c;aonopoulos, invested io rhe Greeks by rheir own eanh, the Greekland thar creared i6 people "in h$ own inage and likenesr'. L;ke mmy

ofhis contenporaries, Giannopoulos had formed thn kind ofdetermin;* rhinking inspired by posr-Dryinian, solutionist rb@ries ofculturedefeloped in Europe, mosdy Germany. On the impact of Environmenrat Deterninism on Greek thousht, and $pecially Giannopoulos, see

Peckhim 2001 , 76-88; Greek aulhorities on Gidnopoulos and Romanricisn: see Vii 1984, esp. 195'224i Tttbpoq 1989, esP 73-93 add

I Il-l t2. On modernist conldbutions to the debrte on hellen;citl,, sft kontis 1995, ch. 4: - \ ' i r i 1984, 213.'_ \ - i r r i 1984, 212-215.

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remained his anistic realiry: Greek light, landscape (turning

every stone into a piece ofsculpture), rhe precedence ofl ighr o,er colour ;nd gcomerr l over conrou,. p 'oporionand spirituality, all ecrnalgiftsofthe land ofGreece to iarnhabiranrs' . For .ome cr ir ics, Chrka s work .on'r i rure'"a metaphysics of Greek nature"". As if arly further con-firmation were needed, the periodical The Thid Eye, ashorclived publication dlat disseminated the ideology ofthe Greek avant'garde in the 1930s, published in 1935 anexcerpt from the seminal essay by Giannopoulos on rheGreeh line and colour, in an issue devored to the aiptych"Nature - Subject - Landscape". Nea Grammau, arotheravancgarde periodical, published in 1938 a tribute to theby then long dead flag-bearer of creek romanticism. Hisyouthtul enrhusiasm for the Greek soil and sea comes cooclose for comfort to similar views expresed by the Greekinrellectuals in the 1930s.

lt was then rhat, following a long parlirmenrary crisis,the "Regime ofthe Fourth ofAugust 1936" esrablishediself, a rolal dictatorship led by General toannis Metaxas'3.Having sryl€d his regime after its much more dynamiccounrerparts of German Nazism and ltalian fascism,Metaxas imported freely their rhetoric and ideologies, inpretry much the ra1 his aranL garde <omparr ioLs were inthe same period imporring ideas and trends from the Vest,occ.rsionalJy con llsing rhepmgresive widr rhe conservarive.As an ul tra r ighc-wing pol i t ic ian, Metaxas despisedinrellectual life of any sort; instead, his emphasrs was onorder and discipline, social, political and ideological. Inrhat field, his main agenda was to appropriite helleniciryand lead the discussion about it, thus saving it from thehands ofunwanted claiman$ (liberal or communisd. Tothis end, he effectively usurped the ideas of rhe liberalintellectuals in order to consrruct a rhecoric promoring thevalues of the Hellenic soul, raditional and self-sufficient.Admittedly, and though their intenrs and purposes wereostensibly different, tie Greek aranegarde found rhemselvestrapped in their own rhetoric on hellenicity, so rhe debate

thrt ensued had little meaning, if at all (especially norv rharthe Communist Left was effectively silenced)". Anackedfrom the tught, the intllectuals ofthe 1930s Generarionwere forced ro prove their patriotism by succumbing roempry srereoryp€s on rh€ Greek souland the eternal spirirofGreek culture. For the liberal inrellectuals hellenicir_rhad been a quarion ofenlightened choice, cenainly pauiorkbut free nonetheless; for some ofits exponena ir representeda one-way ticket ro Europeanism, allowing rhem to de6ne"Greekness 'within a European framework". Vhereas forrhe libemls modernity could acconmodate helleniciw, forconservarive Gr€€ks modemity was cena;nly md-Hel.nic

Art, norably painting, was significantly influenced b-'''rhis debate and its resulrs. Sensitive to tradition, Greekpainters ofthe 1930s and 1940s turned ro rhe pasr,resurrecting techniques and motifs from ancrent anomedieval Greek art and trying to pick up rhe rhread rvirhfolk culture in the post-Byzantine period. Eclecric andcosmopolian, these painters (rnost ofwhom aiso designedfor che stage, including performances ofancient drana)created their own version ofhellenicityin their an,hidrnnto rhe concept ofcontinuity in the Greek aadidon Fomantiquiry ro the preseni. Tsarouchis, Moralis, Nikolaou.ard de alore menrioned Chila became rhe mair erponensofthis movement. Tsarouchis, in panicular, perfeced midiom based on Blzantineand traditional Greek painting.which he however applied to modfs borrowed from ancienrGreek an. His characteristic homoerotic images of naledor serni-naled sailors and soldiers converse with rhe aroraofcreek reliefs and vasess'. Major and minor anisrs, ofprogr€ssive or conservadve disposirion, seemed now moreand more often to be makingthe obligarorysrop ar Crckantiquity at least once in their career. Others perfeced amore persistenr and authentic rapport with (their ormperceprions o0 Greek ant iqui ty, notably Moral is orNikolaou. The latter actually dwelled on Cycladic an,especially the figurines. His many essays on rhe monoch-romatic, stony-fac€d v€rsions ofa contemporary Hellenic

" Ol6pou 1999, 98-100j On Ghika and his ideolog/, see Xorhvrkoldoo 1982, 61 68. On his conseflarive turn, coopleled br I93-. sTir60dq 1989, 145.:?

Quoted in Xorftvkorriou 19s2, 64.:3 On rhe Mer*a. regime. "ee. logg looz. I I1 . l Iq .:'Ch;eflyVirri 1984, r 9 t-2 24: T46Poc t989, t39-152. Alrhough the Commuoists showed initially very litde inreres in hellenicio - ragelda ser by the Right w$ desig.ed ro exclude $en fron ir, even in case rh& politics changedr once hellenicity sx championed br rhetught, oneould eithersubscribe to it, thus accepting the Conseruatives' moral leadenhip in rhe matte., ordery it, in sti.h c* one *ould&ce moraland poliricat charges of"unparrioric behavioul', "cosmopol;tanism", and the like.ro T(r6poq r989, 153-163.' Kafe$i 2000. 18'22 aM 60'6t. On Tsarouchn and his approach to helleniciry, see xqr{ryr(o}.do! t 982, 68'80.

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lirce berray a sincere inrellectual as well as aesdretic interesC'.He:Jso produced an extensive series ofstones painted withfacial features, in an idiosyncratic rend€riry ofone s im-presion ofa finished Cycladic head.

h rvas in this politiel and ideological circumstance thatGreece gradually regained its prehistory.In the midofthenventierh cenrury, following the decipherment ofLinearB, rhe script used by the Mycenaeans in their palaces, it'vas suggested thar Greek was spoken already in the secondmillennium BC, thus pLuhing back the beginnings of Greekhisrory by one thousand years or so. The same was lanosri n by some) implicitly suggested for Linear A - the scriptemployed by the Minoans in Crete - even though the lanerhs not been deciphered yet (and it would have done ifitsere a Creek-language script like its counterpan, LinearB),,.

Back in the 1930s, though, conrinuity in Greek artseemed to be in need ofvery litde proof indeed. Z2z az6rlr rvas published on rhe occasion of rhe IVr Interna-donal Congress for Modern Archirccture, which took placrin Arhens in July 1933. Zewos acknowledges that in therirle pages ofhis book, which he dedicates to a number ofGreek archaeologists and architects who provide! accesto sites and phorographic archives under rheir authority.Following a short declaration on the notions ofantiquityand his enthusiastic introduction, Zervos offers a pictorialsuney ofGreek arc from the Neolithic period to the 5'r'cenrury BC, with an appendix on Byzantinean. Then, wefind a numbt of dlmoignager by poers, painters, architecaand contemporary art-cr i t ics, including architect LeCorbusier and criticMaurice Raynal, where the essenceofGreek an is further explored".

As stipulated in the book's preliminary mane/5, Zewosapproaches antiquity as a source ofspiritual guidance andconsoladon: ir "broadens the nodons ofhumarity"; it "ern-

porvenourinrocat ionofLheinf ini te : i r"emphxizesemo.r ion : rr al low, toran expressron "rccessible but very pure'at rhe same time. Creek antiqoity in particular, is presenteda ' a d i * o u r s c o n l i l ' c a n d i r s m a n y m r n i f e s r a r i o n r . : n

authority "whose limitations and definitions oflile arefurnished wich such avasr perspecrive that rhey ceas€ to be

So far so good. Zervos rnain piece, however, underrakesan arcack againsr rhose "art-historians who never showedany frank affection towards the radiant yourhfulness ofGreekarf', eventhough it could have assured them a greatadvan tage over "rheir illusions ofthe library'. Zervos strivesto show that, however academic or stale some periods inGreek an may be (he rdmirs that towards the end oftheClassical period rhis is often the case), its splendour andoriginaliry are overlooked by modernist ("les esprits frappesau coin du modernisme"). Our contemporary aestheria,he claims, allow us to appreciare the beauty ofCycladicsculpture, since itsabstraction €choes our sensitivities. The"spiritual gymnastics" to which we are imposed by moaernart enable us to understand pre-classical an while at thesame time misleading us to discriminate against its classicalculmination. \\/1ro is to blame? Scholars, for one, who failedto se€ that €arly Gr€€k an is equally significant 'A Cycladicfigurine, a rase or a bronze anehcr ofrhe Geometric period,r . t r tue or r pot of the Archair pcr iod. do rhei norconrainalready the essential elements ofthe style ofthe Panhenon?"he ercl .r im'. ro conclude rhrr i t befal l ' h is generar ion ro"embrace wery lorm in which beauty has manifested itselfand crsr a longer gee o'er Hel lenn arL. i rom irs or igins rois clasical culmination". In these dals ofmoral md spirimalcrisis, he maintains, Greek arr may offer us "a lesson ofemancipation regrding the conditions ofour life." Themasterpieces ofHellenic an will educate modern "eyes andhands", since rhey are expressions ofan art at the same nmespiritual, psychological and. srpple ("plutiqu ),like theGreek language itsell Vhy the Creeks? Because they -

alone in human history - were able to rnanage their collecrive.on'ciou,ne*, 'oa toerpre- themselves in s:ch poignmcy:rhe civic collectivity of Greek city-stares triumphed overthe isolated limitations of the individual, allowing topowerful personalides and complete characten to developrhemselves. By culrivarinS a "novel moraliry", based on the

' On Nikolaou: M.w{oqoi-no} Eou 1998, €sp. 13 19; 34 36 for a text on Nikolaou and hellenicity first published in 1948; figs. 44-46,if i4,6r, t42-144 Eetay \nfluences from ancient, and in padcuhr Cy.ledic, s.ulpturej on his painted stones see 178-189 (wi$ 6gs. I77-l9l) - a rexr finr writt€n in 1972, by Od/sseus El/tis nonetheless.

" Kwrdrqq 2002, 127'129.! Ihe volume % republished in 1946, having undergone some signiffcant changes: only Zenos' rext wo reproducd fron the original.omnring the front pages with the a.knowledgements rnd dedicadons, as rcll * rhe testimonics" by Le Corbuier, Raynal and the re*rfudermore, the illu*rations wer€ conff.ed rc the 357 pictures ofadcient Greek art (prehistoric to late clasical) omirring the Blzmtineposrcripr of the 1934 edition. Evidendy, whatever issues the original volume was meant to be addresing seemed, by 1946, in ned ofa

i As rhe book lacks page numberins, specifi. rext references are not possible.

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ultimate rapprochemenr between the individual and socieg,,as this was achieved by rhe creeks, mod€rn man is boundto regain the "essendal foundations ofsocial life" is Zervosargurnent and final plea.

Sevenry odd ye:n laLer. i r is real ly di f f icuJr Lo a.cenainwhether Zervos' texr sounded at all convincing to the earsof rhe rrdenr modernis* of hi< r ime. His emorive p'o5eperform. gim r leap, in roheren ce .r nd hntorical onsisr enq .He e<1uates, as many are in thehabit ofdoingto rhis date,society with irs arr (assuming rhat the latter is a directexpression ofrhe former), artefacts with their portenrous,read-in "meanings", and quite implicidy - though wer sovigorously - the Greek with the Hellenic \71'a! 6 rnore,while he strives to show that Clasical Greek art is bestowedwirh al l the.pir i rual md ideologir ,J qu:Jir ie his generar iondiscovered in prehisroric arr, he does nor feel he needs roprove, even mercly to srare, rhat prehistoric an from Greecer'r ,:cruJly Creel. or rarher Helbnir. Organic conrinuiryin Greek art - pre-classical, classical, blzantine - is thusraken for granted, and used to redeem Clasical Greece inview ofits prehistoric sell Only implicitly does Zervos givea reason behind the singular (ifnot uniform) grandeur ofGreek art: it would have to be rhe natural spectre, thelandscape. Neither the customs, nor rhe mores, reiigion,lJ$ n en: no orher f ic,o, dcLermined rhe Greek spir i t morepoignanrl l rhrn rhe landrupe. rhe pl ; in<, rhe mounrain..the sea, and above al l the l ight, the l ight of Greece.Continuity oflandscape is all we need ro esrablish theuninterrupted sequence ofGreek art,history, even if wecannot really argue rhat it was the same "collective con,sciousness" of the Greek city-state that actually producedrhe spirnualry ofCycladic sculprure. Though instrumentalin his argument lor the vatue ofClassical Greece, Zervosavoids discussion ofhis centralpremise, that prehistoryand hisrory in Greece partake ofthe same "spirit", pre-sumably because for him this is selfevidenr.

I n : r r a c k i n g s c h o l a n o f h i s r i m e l o r n e g l e c r i n g p r eclassical Greece, as well a.s modernist crhics for basing theirlove ofprehistoric alt to rheir abhorrence ofthings classial,Zervos may have been srriking closer to home rhan one

might suspect: for ir was in Zeruos' very own Cahier d'an(and in the issuet inaugural volume) rhar pione€. erhnologisrGeorgevHenri Rivi€re puSlkhed his polen:r 6cha eo loeisn Ereferring ro archaeology as rhe "parricidal daughrer ofhumanism"". Under the images ofrwo African sculptures-Riviire, who was to become known as one of rhe leadingmusmlogisrs ofhis century declares rhar "the Greek min&-has run ia course; archaeology has finallywoken the [aza;with Khmer smiles thar lay sleeping under rhe foun&donsofthe Parthenon, the Parthenon ofMauras and \finckelmarq excavation has presenred us with pre-Pyramid fuplpre-Columbian Arnericas, China s empires; and he con-cludes: "we have joined ro this broader knorvledge rhedisgrace of anistic liberalism: enough of wonhless eclecri-

It is against rhis aggressive anti-Wesrern stance ofthemodernist avart-garde, and rheir polemic and-classicism.that Zervos directed his fervent response eight years larer.He was notalone: in rhe same 1934 volume rvhere Zen-osvoices his angst, k Corbusier stares his own rl'rr,jzg.from Greek antiquirl3: we, the IVi International Congr.ssfor Modern Architecrure, have been there, he broadcasts.to ancient Greece, we have found n intacr on irs isla, ami&its ruins, we tarted irs esence and we experienced is inuirsi<drama. He talksofa "discovery of Greece", nor ofrhe kindprofessed by Riviire and h;s fellow radic.ls, whar he refersro as an "arbitrary", filse archaeology, producing a de.€irfulat ade m ic Fa5l dc. a fab ri. ation he call:' 6 r?, e nen,ongb e.'Riviire hadinsisted thar the actuality produced bv archae-ology may deprive Greek antiquity (he is explicitly referringto King Minos) from its legends, though in order ro re-institute its historical incegrity. rr Corbusierdoes norseninterested: we will, we can re-discover the Greece thar"possessed the heroes and created rhe gods ', he marntarns.Evidendy, Le Corbusier s nodernnt convicrions souldallow for a cerrain romantic extravagance; ir rvas he, neraall, who in I 923 had compared rhe Pafthenon ro modemautomobiles (inrending it as acompliment ro borh)i". Ercrsince his first visir in Creece and to rhe Parrhenon in l9 I I .Le Corbusier had been inpresed bv the s'nergr of'olmes

$ Riviire 1926.I Tnnslated by M. Tiews, M,1cu nn / nodenitJ \I (1), 179-180.'" Explicadons'. in Zeruos 1934 (no page numberirg).'"

Le Corbusier first published his esay on rhe Parlhenon in$e rcyi1 L Bprit No"r.d,, wnh photosraphs ofrhe P.rrhenon by F. Boisl4The modernist architecr plaised tbe "doric ethos" ofthe monument, which he took to be rhe uhimare expc$ion ofpure spirnual cradon.\harhe cdle.l nodl"dtur.In 1923, Le Coduser incorponed his alier esay h his book W^ ,ft drhit?.tLft, \hete he jlxtaposdl phdosEp|!ofthe Panhedon and one ofthe Greekremples a! Paesrum wirh phorcs ofa 1907 Humbert and a l92l Delage crand-Spon. See Kondntost994.47 48.

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in G reek architecture, and their visual plcticity under thenarural lighr This he repears in 1934, drawing, as Zervosdid, on theircollective memories from asplendidsummercruise to the Greek islands in order to establish the -

o*renvise self-evident - imponance ofGreece in modernit'".Furrher ro his earlier norion of modlnanre, k Corbuiernow turns towards rhe min conceprs ofproportion andscale, expressing in his view the harmonious balance betweenthe secularand rhe divine, thesense ofhuman scale withinthe cosmosar . Maurice Raynal was more explicit in the smerolume: it i rhis lighl he concludes, thar arcentuates thepiast ic qual i t ies of the l ine in Greece, be that on rhedelinearion ofa mountain, or a column, or a pediment.

I hi) I ine rpperrr ro u\ rs a measure ofpoerry-.This srrongly emotive language evokes the enthusiasm

of Greek inrellectuals over the potency of rhe Gr€€klan&cape and its mptic:l powers. Through their polhicallyunsrable, and in pars quite shallow rhetoric, monotonouslyrepeared for the benefit of anyone who would care to listen,Greek intellectuals and their sun*truck Hellenist friendsattempred to develop a bi-focal strategy: on the one traro,ro prove - or merely state - that Greek art was stillvalid asa sr;mulus to modernity, that the "Greekmiracle had notver oudived its life-cycle"; and on the other to daim theGreekness ofwhar had recendy come ro be highly valuedbv European rnodernisrs: Greek prehistory. This is aconscious eForr on behatfofGreek thinkers, ar nome anoabroad, to claim the ethnic origh of prehistoric HelL*, inorder ro consolidate irs (and theirs) Europear identity. Asthe inrernarional avant-garde was appropriating Cycladican, in panicular, it was fifting to remind them that whatrhev rreasured so rnuch was actually Hellenic; thereforerhev had Greece to thank for it. Modernity had espousedGreekNeolithic and Cydadic art because itwas zarGreek;Zen'os w:s now arguing that the Europeans should learnro love ir 6rraz* ofits Greekness - io hellenicity to be exact;and with it, restore Classical Greece to its former glory.sin, e:rch.reology was berng. laimed by moderniq. * oncof rhe modern sciences 7 ar excellence, Greek modernists

had to come up with an archaeologr of their own. Creekmodernistintellectuals, lile rheirfello*compatriotpaintersand poets, constructed rheir viral space allowing for rheample presence ofGreece\ past". For the Greek Right,which proceeded ro mke an ever hardening line afrer the1936 coup, hellenicity became (and in some respecs it stillremains) a yardstick for parriotism, a disciplinary meffureagainst irs political opponenrs, and a means to curtailinrellecrual conucr' wirh rhe \?e'r. A.curing all progresiveinrellecruals of cosmopolitanism, materialism, or - morecrucially - communism, conservative rhinkers - who cam€to consider antiquity as their home turf- pushed for aclosed, xenophobic hellenicity, one more readily prone totheir control. Vhereas for the Greek tught modernityconstitur€d a morral danger for the nation's values, for theGreek avancgarde diachronic hellenicity became a confir-marion of their Europeanness and was, in result, seen aspart oftheir modernity. Rather than a symptom of thenaLlon < embr ra.'ing p:roJialism, it. devotion roarLiquirycould pass as the main trait ofits singularly modern nature- idiosyncratic but adrnirable nonetheles.

A.s Creece emerged from Ottomrn occuparion a' a no.mantland berween the Orient and the Occident"' - autopia produced by the oriencalist fantasies of the Vest -

modernisr erhos was embraced as a means to achieve then€w srare's modernizationar. Under the stern Europeangaze - often disapproving or seemingly so - Greece stroveto re-invenr itself, once left to its own devices. Greekarchaeology, or rather archaeologlr lz Greece, had beenconscripred in rhe.rraregical ly imponanr mi* ion ro re-construct the nation's history. By a bold leap of faith, az7archaeological evidence was thought to enhance the notionof a glorious, coherenr, and continuous past, by way ofcontriburing to scientific knowledge about ir hence Zewos'own admirarion ofTsountas and his discoveries in rhe 1957LArt drs Clclader As far as he was concerned, Cycladic anwould be the perfect exponenr ofClasical Greek valuesnow rhat the art ofthac period was falling from grace,overburdened by the darnning accusations ofacademism

'" The rip ofzeryos' dkringukhed guesrs took place beveen the 5rh and the 8th ofAugust, 1934 and included stops * Delos, Mykonos,Santorini, Siphnos, Seriphos and Aiginar For Le Corbuier, as for many ofhis fellow rravelers, this was then first en@unt€r with the Greekisland landscape. See :tforogopi6tq 1987, l9-24.-r

Cl :1lFloqopi6T 1987, 21.

" On modernist Greekpoets and dchaeolo$,, s€elusdanis 2004 and the response in Hamilakis 2004.'i Ctl :(oner!o 1988, 161-162.

" Ct Leontis 1995,116. Orienglista itudes in wesreln academia have been famously qplored by Edward Said; see chieflySaid 1994 (fi6r

publnhed in 1978), €sp. 31-110. On archaeology and dre colonialist agenda, see Mesk€ll 1998, 1-12 and Bahrani 1998.

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and stagnation. Though this kind ofarchaeology may becriticiz€d (and indeed n has been) as severely handicappedby internal incoherence'5, this is mainly due to the way(western) historians have been taught to treat culturalexpressions ofnationalism. at Greek archaeologists suchas Tsounras and intellecuals such as the I 930s Generationand Zervos were airning at, was to compromise the "ob,jective" modernity of their cultue, as ir was produced bythe scientific rigour ofarchaeology, wirh the "subjective"anriquiry of rnelr homelrrd. a ir uar broughr inrocri"renceL,y rheir collective national irnagination. As Benedict And-erson has acutely poinred out, ir is such kinds ofparadoxi-cal situations, inherent in dre scructure ofnationalisr thoughtyet unable to be remedied by it, that help us identifi thenarion as a "pol i r ical communiry" imagined by i r . mem-

In Creece. rhir procesr of imigining rhe narion $J5subject ro an instinctive urge to embrace modernity (whichfor many may have simply meant "modernization"), whileat the same time placing an emphasis on the nation'sHellenic identity (in the hope that Greece s glorious pastwas to guaranree it a splendid future). For GreeL intel-lectuals, the Vest had to be conquered, not merely joined;therefore they strove to constmct a narional ardstic idiomwhich $ould be modern ,nd un Wesrern ar rhe same rime.ln this, predicrably, rhey emulated ideological dwelopmentschewhere. namely;n nru rrater in tuir md Alricaemergingafter a long anti-colonialist srrifeaT. As anarion-state ofthe"second generation", Greece was bound ro srructure rtsnarional identity on an antithesis to occidenral orthodory,wen though Greek intellectuals themselves rhought ofrheirnation (and the state accommodating it) as genuinely"European{'.

This explains, I would think, the central position ofCycladic an in the narradve for a primordial hellenicity.

It is a qpically ideologized scheme, timeless and norel arthe sam€ rime. And remarkably long-lived: ar the openingceremony ofthe 2004 Olympic Games in tuhens, brcadcastworldwide while th€ Greeks had the chance, an orer-sizedCycladic head emerged from a 'iea" planted in the heanofthe sradium, and then proceeded to produce. ZeusJike.an Archaic kouro' .rnd a C a.sical rono. ln rhe procsionthat followed, personified concepts and morifs ofHellenicart marched in linear succession, allpresumablv generarcdby the spiritual magnirude ofthe Cycladic head. For rheGreek nationalisr imagination, the silenr, fearureless,poignandy blind faces ofthe Cyclad;c figurines fiuaioned(rhey still do) as double-faced mirrors reflecting the coum"s"anriquity" and its "moderniry" ar rhe same rime. Para-doxical and nrational, contrived or even blatantly untrue,these notions are expressions ofa frustrated nation living

Archaeologisrs are invired ro imagine these notrons mmbeing, "discovering" atrnities ro be inrcgrared in the grandr h e m e o f r h i n g " . r h u , p r o d u c i n g r n e w r i m e - ( p a { econtinuum which, when projected to rhe furure, becomathe natton's smrctared pasr. The archaeologies ofTsounrasand Zervos, ofscientists, intellectuals, and laymen alike,fall well into this caregory, as do those of Le Corbusier,Raynal, and many more hellenophiles who eagerlv shrctheir notions. More recently, it was Colin Renlierv s'ho,in his Cyckdic Spiit, attempted yer again the - "procrssual"as he put ir - comparison of Cycladic figurines ro Archaickorai and kouroi on the one hand and Byzantrne rcons onthe other5o. Renfrew's book, commissioned by rhe N.P.Goulandris Foundation and drawing mosdy on the holdingofthe Museum of Cycladic An, attracted a wave ofhosdlia,chiefly by advocates of "pure", "un,indocninared", mdicientific" archaeology, who agued thar Posr-Renaissancesensitivities and rures, as well as capimlist ventures involving

15 Cl. Voutsaki 2003, I I 8 in her ffne essay on Tsounras, where she seens to be somewhat peiturbed by his ideologicat driye "tTsoun6 livolk signats f..l the inlroduction of a nore r;gorous md scienrific methodology. I7,oac/, t...1his w'* is

".rr hkh a ptu/kr of ntuan.

"atiof,dlttft whi.h {ose out of the need ro demarate od consolidate modern Greek idenriv i emDhaes added.

" Andenon 1991. l'7.4 See Chatterjee 1993, esp. 3 13, where non-Occidental nationatisms are *plored a a reply ro Anderson s earlier model (Ande6on 199t.fist published 1983). Chafterjee s dstription (p. 8) of the early rwenrierh-cenrury Bengal school ofan sdkes a i:mili& rone ro d! onestud)'ing th€ efroft ofGreek inteilectuats to deffne their nrio.al identirJ, asairor rhe nodern/occidenral brckdrop. Antonis L,alios 0lT<6 a.rnicaloveNisof rhe reent debat€s on nriionalism in Adroq 2005, esp. 86-108.

" Ct Adkoq 2005, 106: "In case tpc.@lonial nationsl did nor wish ro view themselves rhrough the e),€s ofrhe wesr, rhey had no orh..cho;ce but ro vis themselves as a reaction againsr rhe g&e ofthe Wsf'.a' Cuftural hisrorid Homi Bhabha hs $udied closely what he qlls "nadon time" and "nationjpace", and fieir ennnglement .'irh rneinherenrly irhtional dncouse ofmoderniry. See chiefly Bhabha 1990, reprinred in Bh abh^ 1994, 199-244. Cf. dso Andenon s i 99 I addirionro h^ c. r l ie , bool on \dr ion. l i \m: Andebon 1991.204 206.50 Renfrew 1991, 126-141.

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inrernarional antiquities rade, have destroyed CycladicarchaeoJog to nredeemable extenC'. Two otherscholars,David Gill and Chriscopher Chippindale, published longaccounrs on Cycladic at, maintaining that its involvementin non-archaeological narradves (aesthetic appreciarion,nat ionJnr re.rdings and 'o on) h* jeopardi 'ed i rs integriryas archaeological evidenn". In a more recent book, ClprianBroodbank has reiterated these claims, in his atternpt toprevenr whar he calls "sensibility" from impeding our(scholarly) effons ro "rnake sense' of the pasr5r. Besidestheir repulsion for any expression ofaesthetic or culturalbiar, due to their neo-archaeologcal acadernic upbriogings5',all these scholars share another fundamental dislike,

"dtio nli'n.In !|piczlly orientalist rhetoric, many such

critics confirm a stereorypical modern attitude towards theproducrc ofnationalist imagination as "fabrications ' and-falsiries"". Nationalist stereorypes on "Greekness" are out,and this might not be alrogerher regre$able, but how morepredicrable can dichds on "pure, scienrific archaeology"reallv ger before they loose their Oxbridge shine? Intrigu-inglv. in some orher ca<es rhi< klnd ofau*ere. posnivistarchaeologr seems often anxious to shed its own modernsk;n. Broodbank is ofcourse right to caution his reader

that 'there is the danger that Early Cydadic Culrure w;ll

[... conform...] to a nostalgic !(/estern stereotype ofinsularpurity that has litde to do wich $e archaeolag ofthe realislands oat therc in the Aagraz"5"; funny he should berepearing L€ Corbusiers imagery, from 7934, when hethought he had witnessed the nuth ofthings "out there,under rhe sun ofthe Aegean". But can archaeology, eventhat ofa "scientific" narure, exkt (let alone be practiced)

'Vrhat I srppose nodem archaeologists fail to realise isthat, far from being an "exacr science", archaeology isconrextual. There is no such thing as a "real islard" or-rtthere, deprived ofwhat in over+implified terms we courocall its cultural history. Archaeologies (zar archaeology)are selective oftheir evidence ofthe past, as they are selectiveofthe alternarive possibilities they are faced with in thepresent5?. Zervos created an irnagined (rot imaginary)genealo$/ for his homeland, juggling personal aestheticpreferences ard national cuhural strategies; modern purists,obstinately attached to a kind of by now redundant posi-rivism, caution us that his interpretation fails to rnake arlysense. Evidendy, " Grlra zrarrrgrle ", is an accusation thatflies both wrys.

'Broodtrankt992andEl ia1993wer€cr i t ic l rev iNs;Renfrew1993msrhenpubhhedaanovesatedreta l ia t ion("col lecros{ethereal

lmre6 ) .nd - presumably - an auiou face-saver. A sombre and well-balanced dq on the srudr ofslspect anfiquiries, wid, particularretirence ro Cycladic aftefacrs loored from Greeksnes, ws (finall, exp.e$ed just when rhis papet m raching complerionr Sotirakopouloua005.43 44.''

Gill, Chippindale t993 and 1995.-

Broodbank 2000, esp. 58 65.'

According to sl,stenic / processualist approaches ro cukure, what hd been called "civilizarion" is simply mmk reacdon rc stimuli posedh rhe environmenri rherefore pesonal involvemenr (e.g. ofthe mcient utist or the contemporury scholar) is ddud€d fron any form oiepisrenric discusion. \v/lar nodern societies commonly describe s "aesrheric r"lue ofantiquir;es ;s a mer€ front for capiul;t enterprisesand should not be allowed to fog the scholarly imporance ofwhat ought to be treated solely as archaeological €viden.e. This is lalgelyinfluenccd by rhe work of criticd th€ori$ Theodor \v. Adorno and dle sociologisr Piene Bourdieu who, from a neo'Manisr point ofview,h.ld th.r inrellecrual and a€$heticphenonena in conlcmporary epitalisr societies ought to be dismised s'oere ideolo$,'. that;s mechrnismsin order to legitimize class doninadon and genemte profir for rhe privileged clas. I will be discusing the debare on Cydadi. art, venrielh-..nuq.culluEl politics, md'tci€ntific archaeolog,' in a furure paper. On id€oLogy as a discredited, suspecr cuhural force, see also Geerizl9-3, .h. 8.''

Ci Andeson 1991, 5-7. Acco.ding rc Charterjee (1993, 3-13), in view ofcort€hponry pohical dwelopments in th€ slobat scene Gucha intemarionat te.rorism md the phenonena we tend ro sum under rhe bric "Muslin fundemaotelism"), nonoccid€nsl nationalisms arerraed.vnh violent ho$ilir/ by wesrern historians and politicians alike, sinc they are 6ared to rrigger rhe de+abiliation ofmoderniry.'

Broodb!.k 2000, 64 (emph*$ added).'

Cl: Schnapp2004, esp. 102: ihe pasr n alwa)6 a.ealm ofcontention, a realm where rerospecrion and rhe elabodtion ofprospecrive socialr2nias! arc destined to meet and merge"; also Hm akis 1999 and 2004, esp. 56.

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