Migration is a crucial part of what made the ancient Greek world. It must have been crucial in the way this world came together, but it also must have been crucial in keeping this world linked and connected.
About Naoise Mac Sweeney
"I'm Professor of Greek Archaeology at the University of Vienna. My research focuses on the construction of identity and cultural interaction. I am especially interested in the making of communities – not only their physical formation through landscape and architecture but also their social formation through cultural practice and conceptual formation through the construction of identity. I am a 2015 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.
My work to date has focused on these topics from the Iron Age to Classical periods in the ancient Greek world and Anatolia, in particular on Greek cities Ionia and Cilicia but also on Troy and myths of the Trojan War. My current project expands the geographical frame, considering migration and mobility around the Mediterranean in the Iron Age. I am also interested in wider engagement with antiquity and the politics of reception and heritage. I passionately believe that those of us who study the past also have a responsibility to the present."
Key Points
• The ancient Greek world was vast and geographically fragmented, and migration was essential to its formation and cohesion.
• Mobility was continuous and often circular rather than a single outward diaspora, culminating in cultural convergence that created a shared Greekness.
• Greek communities were bound more by shared language, ritual and everyday practices than by common laws or institutions. What archaeology shows us is that culture comes first and identity follows after.
• Migration is not new, people have always moved around and mobility is a fundamental part of the human condition.
