Western travel and collecting classical antiquities in the nineteenth century informed European understandings of Greece's past and present, and enriched private collections and museums. Travel and collecting have typically been studied separately by literary scholars, historians of archaeology, and historians of the Ottoman Empire and modern Greece. Similarly, publications have largely prioritised evidence from and about elite social groups.
This book breaks new ground through its interdisciplinary approach, its insistence on the interweaving of the phenomena of travel and collecting, and its emphasis on marginalised perspectives. Contributors drawn from art history, classics, history of architecture, Ottoman history and modern Greek history foreground diversity and small-scale engagements with the landscape and material past of Ottoman Greece. The book explores the perspectives of both foreign travellers and local inhabitants through case studies, keeping a sharp focus on ethnicity and social status. Diaries, visual art, and rich archival material are analysed, often from a novel perspective, to give voice to a range of people including English servants, Albanian peasants, an illiterate Greek fighter, and the Ottoman Sultan. The result is a micro-cultural history of travel and classical collecting which expands existing narratives. As such, it changes the simplistic dichotomy between collecting as ‘pillaging’ or ‘saving’, and nuances the important current debate surrounding repatriation.
Travel and Classical Antiquities in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Greece addresses scholars in the areas of classical reception studies, classical archaeology, material culture studies, nineteenth-century studies, Ottoman studies and modern Greek studies. It will also appeal to a broader audience of people interested in travel writing, the history of archaeology and the history of Greece.
Edited by:
Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 650g
ISBN: 9781032413112
ISBN 10: 1032413115
Series: British School at Athens - Modern Greek and Byzantine Studies
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 09 December 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction Chapter 1 A Granular Approach to Ioannis Makriyannis (1797-1864) and Antiquities: Replication, Domesticity and Multivalence Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis Chapter 2 “Viewing And Admiring” (Seyr Ü Temaşa): Foreign Travellers and Antiquarians in Ottoman Documents, ca. 1790-1830 Edhem Eldem Chapter 3 Entering The Peasant’s Cottage: Vernacular Architecture of Ottoman Greece Through the Eyes of Western And Ottoman-Greek Travellers Nikos Magouliotis Chapter 4 Ethiopians and Arrowheads: Marginal Perspectives on The Marathon Soros Estelle Strazdins Chapter 5 Collections Of Antiquities in Athens on the Eve of the Greek Revolution Alessia Zambon Chapter 6 Marginal Voices, Ethnographic Judgement and Antiquarian Self-Definition in Edward Daniel Clarke’s Travels Jason König Chapter 7 Travelling In Europe, Exploring Greek Identity: Orientalism And “Occidentalism” in the Diary of Constantine Karatzas (1790-1792) Charalampos Minaoglou Chapter 8 Perceptions of Ancient Remains in Ottoman Anatolia in The Mid-Nineteenth Century: Modernity, Local Society, And Diverse Ways of Being Greek Ayşe Ozil Chapter 9 The Travel Journal of James Thoburn in The Ottoman Empire (1793-1798) Michael Metcalfe
Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of St Andrews. She researches classical material culture in the Greek world, and its reception in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The body and travel are major themes in her work. She searches out marginalised voices and explores intimate, small-scale encounters with objects. Her publications include Drawing the Greek Vase (co-editor C. Meyer, Oxford University Press,2023), The Classical Vase Transformed. Consumption, Reproduction, and Class in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain (with E. Hall, Oxford University Press, 2020), and Truly beyond Wonders. Aelius Aristides and the Cult of Asklepios (Oxford University Press, 2010).
