Regional Mobilities and the Making of Community in East Lokris (15 min)

Presenters

Eleni Kopanaki, University of Vienna

Abstract

To better understand the role migration and mobility played in the making of the ancient Greek world, we are to look beyond the usual suspects and combine different evidence and approaches. Archaeological research in East Lokris has largely been carried out by the Greek Archaeological Service. Excavations, topographic research, and survey projects have shed new light onto this otherwise less well-known area. Regional perspectives highlight that the landscape is particularly diverse and linked via several land routes and passes. On the other hand, site-based studies speak of dynamic settlements; mortuary variability; local and regional cult spaces. This paper discusses old and recent archaeological data from a regional perspective in light of mobilities and their role in community formation. It examines landscape data and shifting settlement patterns in the form of distribution maps to reveal aspects of the unique sociopolitical history in the region ca. 1200–480 B.C.E. A focus on zones of interaction within East Lokris testifies to the different ways short-distance mobilities were crucial to the communities and vice versa, the ways some mobilities acquired different traits over time because of the changing character of communities.

It is said that migration and mobility played a role in the representational formation of communities through myths of origin and foundation; this also stands true for the Lokrian case. Most discussed are literary sources pertinent to the untypical Lokrian ethnos, which was geographically distributed across two nonneighbouring regions of central Greece. Yet, a focus on ethnicity and the singular process of moving from point A to point B is not all there is. The image becomes far more complex once all literary evidence of Lokrian mythical mobilities is examined. It turns out that there were multiple ways, reasons, and effects of such mythical movements (beyond the popular apoikia model). Their role in the conceptual formation of Lokrian communities becomes even more telling once we pay attention to the different narration techniques chosen by the authors.

(The use of later literary sources to understand the early Greek world has generated heated scholarly debate. Beyond these fruitful considerations and juxtapositions of evidence, there is also a heuristic potential in studying these literary sources from multiple angles. It helps to “unthink” our monodimensional readings and instead feeds back with new ways of perceiving and approaching migration thereof.)

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