Constructing ‘Traditions’

Aspects of Identity Formation in the Southern Ionian Islands during the Late Helladic Period and the Iron Age

Authors

  • Ioannis Voskos National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.39329

Keywords:

ancestors, Ionian Islands, Iron Age, Kefalonia, memory/past manipulation, Mycenaean, tomb/hero cult

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Late Helladic (LH) burial structures and related sacred areas of the southern Ionian Islands and considers how they served as diachronic markers of social space and active agents within the processes of individual and collective identity formation and negotiation. More specifically, it explores a series of examples depicting instances of manipulating memory and the past. I argue that Mycenaean burial monuments played an important part in the configuration of ideological narratives and the construction of traditions aimed either to affirm or to legitimise social status and socio-political hierarchies. Development of tomb and hero cults as interrelated phenomena with strategies of past manipulation are also discussed in detail. The chronological framework covers a broad period between the early LH and the Geometric period, and focuses on the island of Kefalonia, which includes the richest dataset.

Author Biography

  • Ioannis Voskos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

    Ioannis Voskos is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of History and Archaeology (Faculty of Archaeology and Art History) of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He specialises in Aegean archaeology and Cypriot prehistory and his main interests revolve around issues of socio-cultural change, population mobility, ethnic/cultural identities and related topics. The main subject of his post-doctoral research concerns socio-political development in LH Kefalonia. Currently, he is also directing the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Cyprus Project (NCCP), which aims to explore aspects of everyday life in fifth–third millennium bc Cyprus.

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Published

2019-07-16

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Voskos, I. (2019). Constructing ‘Traditions’: Aspects of Identity Formation in the Southern Ionian Islands during the Late Helladic Period and the Iron Age. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 32(1), 88-113. https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.39329