Archaeology Under Dictatorship Archaelogy Under Dictatorship Edited by MICHAEL L. GALAXY Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi CHARLES WATKINSON American School oj Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton, New Jersey Springer Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Archaelogy under dictatorship / edited by Michael L. Galaty Charles Watkinson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-306-48508-7 - ISBN 0-306-48509-5 (pbk.) 1. Archaelogy and state-Mediterranean Region-History-20th century 2. Dictatorship-Mediterranean Region-History-20th century. I. Galaty, Michael L. II. Watkinson, Charles. CC135.A735 2004 930.r072'01822—dc22 2004046114 ISBN: 0-306-48509-5 softcover ISBN: 0-306-48508-7 hardcover Printed on acid-free paper. First softcover printing, 2006 ©2004 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. 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Printed in the United States of America. 10 987654321 springer.com Contributors Stefan Altekamp • Winckelmann-Institut fiir Klassische Archaologie, Humboldt- Universitat zu Berlin, Germany Bettina Arnold • Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin D.J. Ian Begg • Trent University Archaeological Research Centre, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario Margarita Diaz-Andreu • Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom Michael L Galaty • Department of Sociology-Anthropology, Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi Oliver Gilkes • Institute of World Archaeology University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom Dimitra Kokkinidou • Departamento de Filologia Clasica Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Massimiliano Munzi • Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali del Comune di Roma/University Roma Tre, Rome, Italy Marianna Nikolaidou • Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, Los Angeles, California Manuel Ramirez Sanchez • Departamento de Ciencias Historicas, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain Wendy M. K. Shaw • Faculty of Communications, Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey Charles Watkinson • Director of Publications, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton, New Jersey Preface The destruction of Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad, the toppling of images of Saddam Hussein... archaeology, our science of material culture, is daily challenged by such dynamic interplay of artifacts with politics. As recent news stories demonstrate, nowhere does this relationship come into sharper focus than under the most extreme political systems, such as dictatorships. This book is not, however, about recent events in Iraq, and none of the contributions dwell solely on the Middle East. The authors are united, rather, by their interest in the totalitarian political regimes which developed around the Mediterranean and mainly in the first half of the 20th century. Within this well- documented, carefully studied, theater, they explore both the treatment of the material remains of the past by dictators, and the roles archaeologists played, and continue to play, in interpreting that material. It may seem perverse not to discuss archaeology under contemporary dicta­ torships, since our colleagues continue to endure these regimes in every continent. Not only, however, would such broad coverage have made this book too dispersed, but we would also argue that, in Afghanistan and Iraq for example, it is still too soon to have a clear perspective, the experience of dictatorship being too recently ended. It is only as secret records are unearthed and the dangers of persecution are removed by regime-change that the complexity of the relationships between dictators and archaeologists becomes apparent. The dust will surely take many years to settle in the Middle East and new totalitarian regimes will continue to emerge. We only hope that the essays in this volume may point out some directions for unraveling the intricate webs of patron­ age and coercion dictators weave, and understanding more fully the opportunities and challenges that the past offers to those who seek to control it. This book project began as a conference session on archaeology under dicta­ torship, which was held at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Society for American \iii PREFACE Archaeology in Denver, Colorado. Several of the papers in this volume were first presented in Denver (those by Begg, Diaz-Andreu and Ramirez Sanchez, Galaty and Watkinson, and Gilkes). The symposium was stimulating and our schedule fluid, with much time reserved for discussion, and we would like to thank the participants, audience, and two excellent discussants, Phil Kohl and Tim Kaiser. Following the session, additional papers were soUcited and added, including the conclusion, expertly penned by Bettina Arnold. Our experience of dictatorship has not been direct (one of us being American and the other British), but our Albanian colleagues have, sometimes with hesita­ tion, told us about life and work under the Hoxha regime. As we prepared to edit this volume, we consulted Muzafer Korkuti, Director of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology in Tirana. P^of. Korkuti entered the field of archaeology and built his professional career during the communist period, and has made a remark­ ably successful adjustment to life and work in the new capitalist and democratic Albania. On two separate! occasions we interviewed Prof. Korkuti and portions of that interview have been excerpted for the introduction to this volume. We would like to thank Prof. Korkuti for his patience and insights, and we would like to dedicate this volume to the Albanian archaeological community We believe the future of Albanian archaeology is bright and feel honored and privileged to work there. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future Iraqi archaeologists can learn from the Albanian experience. MICHAEL L. GALATY CHARLES WATKINSON Contents Chapter 1 • The Practice of Archaeology Under Dictatorship 1 Michael L Galaty and Charles Watkinson Chapter 2 • Fascism in the Desert: A Microcosmic View of Archaeological Politics 19 D. J. Ian Begg Chapter 3 • The Trojans in Epirus: Archaeology, Myth and Identity in Inter-War Albania 33 Oliver dikes Chapter 4 • Italian Colonial Archaeology in Libya 1912-1942 55 Stefan Altehamp Chapter 5 • Italian Archaeology in Libya: From Colonial Romanita to Decolonization of the Past 73 Massimiliano Munzi Chapter 6 • Archaeological Resource Management Under Franco's Spain: The Comisaria General de Excavaciones Arqueologicas 109 Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Manuel Ramirez Sanchez Chapter 7 • Whose Hittites, and Why? Language, Archaeology and the Quest for the Original Turks 131 Wendy M. K. Shaw IX X CONTENTS Chapter 8 • On the St^ge and Behind the Scenes: Greek Archaeology in Times of Dictatorship 155 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou Chapter 9 • Deahng with the Devil: The Faustian Bargain of Archaeology Under Dictatorship 191 Bettina Arnold Index 213 Chapter 1 The Practice of Archaeology Under Dictatorship MICHAEL L. GALATY AND CHARLES WATKINSON A people lives happily in the present and future so long as it is aware of its past and the greatness of its ancestors. Heinrich Himmler (1936), quoted in Hassmann (2002:84) History is self-interest. Lucy Marsden in Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (Gurganus, 2001:124) In recent decades, we have come to understand that archaeology and archaeologists can be and often have been—to paraphrase Phil Kohl and Claire Fawcett—made to "serve the state" (Kohl and Fawcett, 1995b). In fact, we now generally recognize the profound effect political ideologies have had on our understanding of the past, and vice versa. Furthermore—and with this most archaeologists would also agree—a relationship between politics and archaeology develops to some degree in every nation, regardless of (and in response to) the particular political and economic circumstances (Hamilakis and Yalouri, 1996). That said, however, it does seem to us that the relationship between politics and archaeology is more intense, perhaps more intimately realized, in situations of totalitarian dictatorship, notably when a dictator seeks to create and legitimize new state-supported ideologies, often, though not always, in the face of organized resistance. Dictators have long reaUzed the ideological importance of the past and have sought to wield archaeology as a poUtical tool. There are numerous examples MICHAEL L. GALATY • Millsaps College CHARLES WATKINSON • American School of Classical Studies at Athens 2 MICHAEL L. GALATY AND CHARLES WATKINSON of this, and they have been well described and analyzed: German archaeology under Hitler (Arnold, 1990, 2002a; Arnold and Hassmann, 1995; Harke, 2002; Hassmann, 2002; Junker, 1998; Wiwjorra, 1996), for instance; or the Soviet- style archaeology that formed under Stalin (Dolukhanov, 1996; Shnirelman, 1995, 1996;