Cultural identities in Ancient Greece | Naoíse Mac Sweeney

How Greekness could coexist alongside and be interconnected with other types of identities and other kinds of cultural traits is a central question.

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 case of Cilicia really helps us to understand that identities can change, and they can change quite rapidly in response to specific historical contexts.
• Cilicia sat at a strategic crossroads linking Anatolia, the Near East and Mediterranean sea routes, which made it a long-standing melting pot of peoples and traditions.
• Archaeology shows mixed assemblages and blended crafts, with Aegean Greek, Anatolian, Phoenician and Persian elements coexisting and intertwining..
• As Persian rule intensified, some cities adopted Greek language, coinage, art and civic practices as a self-driven stance against imperial power