Archaeological tourism as a signpost to national identity: Raising aphrodite in Cyprus

Abstract

The modern nation-state, as developed since the nineteenth century, seeks to bind groups of people together in a geographically and culturally defined political unit in which ethnic identity is synonymous with national identity.1 In order to nurture a sense of unity within, and loyalty to the state, the notion of the cultural distinctiveness and homogeneity of the group is fostered (Graham et al. 2000; Gellner 1987, 9, 18; Mouliou 1996, 175). Frequently, this cultural particularity is linked to, or indeed presented as the direct result of, the relationship between a people and their physical environment. In this way the land, the people and the nation-state are tied firmly together in an organic entity born of 'nature' and as such above and beyond question or reproach. The fact that nationalism in its ideological development equated modern state political legitimacy with group cultural antiquity means that these characteristics of distinctiveness and homogeneity must be extended into the past of the people and place, and as a result has a profound effect on the way that an archaeology embedded within state structures operates. The collective memory of the group is stimulated through symbols and commemorative events such as flags, national anthems, memorial days etc. aimed at enhancing a sense of community. Collective memory, however, is not entirely fluid and adaptable as it is constrained to some degree by the actual historical past, i.e. the past can be 'selectively exploited' for ideological purposes but not entirely construed (Zerubavel 1995, 5). Thus Anderson's 'imagined community' of the nation, can only be imagined because some real commonalities already existed; it is rarely, if ever, invented from scratch, as 'imagined' implies. I am concerned here with the problem of the transference of values, such as territoriality, nationality and continuity, from the nation state to archaeology through the mechanisms of their shared institutional bodies and as expressed in antiquities laws (Firth 1995). As Firth notes, archaeology as a discipline could conceivably question the material evidence for the state values of continuity and territoriality, but is unlikely to do so when operating within state institutions (ibid. 52); to question the prior existence of such values is to question the legitimacy of the state itself. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.