This volume provides a theoretical basis for understanding the specific effects of totalitarian dictatorship upon the practice of archaeology, both during and after the dictator's reign. The nine essays explore experiences from every corner of the Mediterranean. With its wide-range of case-studies and strong theoretical orientation, this volume is a major advance in the study of the history and politics of archaeology.

Archaeological knowledge is not created in a vacuum and our understanding of the past is profoundly affected by political ideologies. In fact, a relationship between politics and archaeology develops to some degree in every nation, regardless of social and economic circumstances.

The connections between politics and archaeology become most visible, however, within a totalitarian dictatorship, when a dictator seeks to create and legitimize new state-supported ideologies. Any dictator may attempt to control and exploit the past, often by directly controlling archaeologists. The degree to which a nation's archaeological system may continue to be affected after the fall of the dictator depends upon both the previous regime's ideological position and its level of dependence upon archaeology, and the response of archaeologists to the regime, collectively and individually.

Archaeology Under Dictatorship demonstrates that the study of archaeology as it evolved under modern dictatorships is today, more than ever, of critical importance. For example, in many European countries those who practiced archaeology under dictatorship are retiring or dying. In some places, their intellectual legacy is being pursued uncritically by a younger generation of archaeologists. Now is the time, therefore, to understand how archaeologists have supported, and sometimes subverted, dictatorial political ideologies. In studying archaeology as practiced under totalitarian dictatorship, that most harsh of political systems, light is shed on the issue of politics and archaeology generally.

This volume aims to provide a theoretical basis for understanding the specific effects of totalitarian dictatorship upon the practice of archaeology, both during and after the dictator's reign. The nine essays explore experiences from every corner of the Mediterranean; from the heartlands of Italy, Spain and Greece, to the less well-known shores of Albania and Libya. With its wide-range of case-studies and strong theoretical orientation, this volume is a major advance in the study of the history and politics of archaeology. The Mediterranean focus will also make it thought-provoking reading for classical archaeologists and historians.

Memory and Nation Building addresses the complex topic of collective memory, first described by sociologist Maurice Halbwachs in the first half of the 20th century. Author Michael Galaty argues that the first states appropriated traditional collective memory systems in order to form. With this in mind, he compares three Mediterranean societies - Egypt, Greece, and Albania - each of which experienced very different trajectories of state formation. Galaty attributes these differences to varying responses to collective memory in all three places through time, with climaxes in the Ottoman period, during which all three were under Ottoman control. Egypt was characterized by deeply meaningful memory tropes concerning national unity, which spanned all of Egyptian history, while Greece experienced memory fragmentation, a condition exacerbated by periods of imperial conquest. Albania adapted and assimilated when faced with foreign domination, such that an indigenous Albanian state did not form until 1912. Galaty builds a diachronic model of state formation and its relationship to memory and political control. Memory and Nation Building culminates in an analysis of modern collective memory systems and resistance to those systems, which are often framed as conflicts over "heritage". The formation and eventual fall of the short-lived Islamic State serves as an example of extreme memory work, with lessons for other modern nations.

This revised and expanded edition of the classic 1999 edited book includes all the chapters from the original volume plus a new, updated, introduction and several new chapters. The current book is an up-to-date review of research into Mycenaean palatial systems with chapters by archaeologists and Linear B specialists that will be useful to scholars, instructors, and advanced students. This book aims to define more accurately the term"palace"in light of both recent archaeological research in the Aegean and current anthropological thinking on the structure and origin of early states. Regional centers do not exist as independent entities. They articulate with more extensive sociopolitical systems. The concept of palace needs to be incorporated into enhanced models of Mycenaean state organization, ones that more completely integrate primary centers with networks of regional settlement and economy.

Research report providing a petrographic and chemical analysis of a large sample of Mycenean potsherds from Pylos. The author saw a unique potential for a small bounded, relatively well studied state as Pylos to give information in a comparative framework on the organisation and origin of early state systems. Investigation of pottery industry provided a means to avoid an overreliance on historical data in order to augment and sharpen our complex largely text-based theoretical models.

Memory and Nation Building addresses the complex topic of collective memory, first described by sociologist Maurice Halbwachs in the first half of the 20th century. Author Michael Galaty argues that the first states appropriated traditional collective memory systems in order to form. With this in mind, he compares three Mediterranean societies - Egypt, Greece, and Albania - each of which experienced very different trajectories of state formation. Galaty attributes these differences to varying responses to collective memory in all three places through time, with climaxes in the Ottoman period, during which all three were under Ottoman control. Egypt was characterized by deeply meaningful memory tropes concerning national unity, which spanned all of Egyptian history, while Greece experienced memory fragmentation, a condition exacerbated by periods of imperial conquest. Albania adapted and assimilated when faced with foreign domination, such that an indigenous Albanian state did not form until 1912. Galaty builds a diachronic model of state formation and its relationship to memory and political control. Memory and Nation Building culminates in an analysis of modern collective memory systems and resistance to those systems, which are often framed as conflicts over "heritage". The formation and eventual fall of the short-lived Islamic State serves as an example of extreme memory work, with lessons for other modern nations.