A Modern People in an Ancient Land: An Archaeological Ethnography of Mythmaking, Landscape, and Living Memory in Selinunte, Sicily Público
Coates, Ava (Spring 2025)
Abstract
This thesis explores how modern people in the Sicilian town situated next to the ancient Greek city of Selinunte interact with the legacy and lives of the ancient occupants of the same land. This study highlights that while scholarly interactions with the past through archaeology and historical documentation is valuable in the continuing exploration of the past, the past also communicates with the present through experience and interaction with the archaeological landscape between those who have lived there in the past and in the present. Chapter one provides a theoretical framework foregrounding landscape, heritage, and memory studies and how the three areas balance two perceptions of space and time: the Institutional perspective, which divides past and present in order to preserve and study the past, and the Experiential perspective, which perceives the past and present as a continuously flowing entity which constantly interacts through landscape. Chapter two provides a historical background of Selinunte and offers that the present echoes the past when traversing the landscape of the ancient city. Chapter three describes how the local residents of Selinunte interact with the ruins of the park in spontaneous ways, and how modern divisions between the past and the present temper that interaction. Chapter four describes how ecological, climatic, and environmental factors may aid in human communication across time. Chapter five introduces the role of the archaeologists in the town and in the park and explores how archaeologists may incorporate more experience-related interactions with the park among the local population. Chapter six introduces the cultural context of Selinunte and Sicily to discussions of the archaeological park and considers the ways in which area specific issues—the mafia, historical legacy, anti-Sicilian bias—temper the continued local interaction and communication with the ancient city of Selinunte. Finally, Chapter six concludes that through modern continuous interaction with the archaeological landscape and remnants of the past, residents in Selinunte can make waves across time and learn through experience rather than only through historical canon.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
I: Introduction………………………………………………….………………..………..1
Setting the Stage, 1
Methods, 5
Archaeology as a Social Practice, 6
Landscape, 9
Heritage, 11
History of Memory? 12
Combining Landscape, Heritage, and Memory: The Theoretical Framework, 14
The Institutional and the Experiential, 18
II: Historical Background………………………………………………………………….21
Ancient Sources on Selinus, 21
Ancient Selinus, 23
Archaeological Park of Selinunte, 24
Malophoros and Meilichios: Bridging the Gap to the Future, 27
Conclusion, 30
III: Community Interactions with the Archaeoscape: Experiencing Heritage and the Dunes of Selinunte………………...............................................….…………………………..………22
Introduction, 22
What is the Archaeoscape, 35
The Archaeoscape in History, 37
Remembering and Forgetting in the Archaeoscape, 40
The Archaeoscape of Selinunte, 43
Conclusion, 53
IV: Fire on Manuzza Hill: Connections through Landscape and
Ecology across Time………………………………………….………………………………55
Introduction, 55
Fire in the Mediterranean, 56
Human-Ecology Interactions, 65
The Olive Tree: A Window Through Time? 68
V: No Time for the Living: The Place of Archaeologists in the Local Context……………72
Introduction, 72
Eyes looking Forward: Linear Relationships between the Ancients, the Archaeologists, and the Locals, 74
Ghosts of the Archaeoscape, 77
An Experiential Archaeoscape, 83
VI: We Are Waiting for the Next Earthquake: Considering Historical Legacy
and Modern Myth among Selinuntians……………………………………...………….88
Introduction, 88
The Southern Question, 89
The Mafia, and the Making of a Modern Mythos, 98
Perceptions of Past and Present, 107
Conclusion, 109
VII: Conclusions: Does the Past Speak……………………………………………………112
Bibliography………………………………………..……………………………………….116
About this Honors Thesis
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