Conference in Volos: Updating News

By: Hatto Fischer, City of Volos

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International Congress: "The Lands of the Aegean and the Black Sea: from the Argonautic Expedition to Black Sea Co-operation"

Volos: Gianis Kordatos Amphitheatre, Papastratos Building of the University of Thessaly, Oct. 21 - 23, 2004

Conference analysis for possible Internet Radio coverage with further going comments

Report from the Opening, Thursday evening

That the international congress takes place in Volos is most appropriate. Already when walking along the bouvelard newly reconstructed for the Olympic Games - Volos was one of the five Olympic Cities and hosted during the Games Athens 2004 soccer games - one passes the sculpture depicted the Argos- Boat which the Argonauts used.

This unusual boat constructed for 50 oarsmen - Pindar mentions in his ode the same number - combined at that time navigation skills and a new technology. For no trees were long enough to allow the ship be built in one piece. A new boat construction technique had to be invented especially for the expedition to happen. They knew without the extra power stemming from more oarsmen that the ship would not be able to pass some dangerous currents and make it to the Black Sea. Ever since the mythology surrounding the 'Golden Fleece' has instilled some awe and influenced the thinking of the ancestors about lands existing at the 'end of the world'.

Volos as port city situated in the Thessaly region has taken on the argonauts and in particular the Argos-boat as the city's symbol. To set out anew to remap the linkage to what is now existing around the Black Sea, that is indeed the purpose of the Congress. In particular, member countries of the Black Sea have come to the Congress to discuss with their Greek and Western collegues from archaeology, social anthropology, history, etc. their findings and viewpoints on the basis of wishing not merely to reconstruct the past out of historical clues but to see whether the 'then' can be linked with the 'now' by following developments through the ages.

The Congress takes place in the Gianis Kordatos Amphitheatre, Papastratos Building of the University of Thessaly. During the opening speeches this meaning of Volos was stressed while local politicians explained why they support this Congress. As Christos Dimoglou explained, the culture of a city - politismos - is linked to an economic life which supports certain expressions of life and gives way to future developments based on bringing together the best of skills with aspirations as has been marked by the achievements of the Argonauts.

In other words a cultural measure taken from history is applied to comprehend the modern relationship between economy and culture. One can ask: "what disturbances are felt nowadays in this relationship?" Michael D. Higgins, Ireland's former Minister of Culture, would say, culture has been pushed to the margin and is not a key element when it comes to formulate and to implement policy. There are too many forms of alienation marking human relationships nowadays. If this is true, then it has many implications for what can be done to overcome the neglect of cultural policy and what one expect from any consciously formulated cultural policy.

When listening to the opening speeches in the context of such a Congress, there comes to mind the question, "but will the city send once again its best people abroad in order to bring back ideas and goods that can inspire?" What is needed seems to depend on identifying what is missing at the local level and what cannot be provided by local resources. Again this would involve a very precise identification process of culture as resource. But the disturbance can be felt whenever some crucial questions are asked for the answer given is most telling: "ask the people what they think. The local people."

In applying cultural measures, memories and other meanings are evoked. It can be nostalgic viewpoint insofar as looking back to then, it might be evoked the thought and feeling, it was better then! However, the most crucial thing to be dealt with by any society is change: what kind of change, if the future is more than just uncertain. Societies search for answers in this direction and it reproduced in multiple forms when parents ask what is the best education for their children. In other words, in which direction to develop in may require such changes that it is inconceivable that one generation can achieve it. By relating to alone the different time concepts of archaeologists, society learns to understand what are really achievements and most importantly what can be destroyed over time if vanity and not wisdom rules. Over and again great empires and cities came and went when looking into the historical mirror. Society confronts in this glance back in time the pitfalls and mistakes it wishes to avoid if there is indeed such a thing as learning out of the past.

Something else the opening speeches stressed: what connects people around the Black Sea and the people in Volos to all these areas is the constant movement of people. There are different reasons for that: war, economic collapses, trade, adventurism. The common pain goes with being displaced: the diaspora of the Greeks a most telling tale with Greeks being spred everywhere: South Russia, Georgia, Rumania. The Colchos image stands for this phenomenon: a demographic factor that has till the present brought with it the pain of people not living at their place of origin but somewhere else. How this matter is handled politically and overcome socially, that seems to be a huge challenge to culture and more so to how cultural heritage is defined. Cultural heritage as memory and reminder to where one belongs to should not be used to separate people but be perceived as source of common identity with all people. Here then lie the difficulties once cultural heritage is used to delineate the belonging of people.

To bring out some common elements may, therefore, be the purpose of the Congress as it shows how the Aegean and the Black Sea have always been connected since the Argonauts set out on their expedition. Once one perceives the oars dipping under the way as the boat gathers speed, such reflections begin to touch upon a way to think near the sea and in terms of the consciousness of the Mediterranean cultures developing a special dialogue with those countries situated around the Black Sea. It is an area rich in cultural meanings and stories out of which the modern risk of cultural blindness or neglect of culture per say can be overcome.

To study the area it would be useful to present the different maps which show how borders and linkages, locations of ports and cities mark the various trade routes and how things evolved over time. The congress will trace the development towards national states and therefore to the historical period starting in the 18th century reaching into the present. In the archaeological perspective, it will look at the periods starting with the 16th century BC till the 5th and 4th BC - the classical age - and then touch only slightly what is called the Byzantine era.

Some metaphors shall be evoked to have an understanding of the land and of the sea. For boats are even taken over land to make the expedition happen, so the Argonauts as told by Pindar.

Findings that archaeologists deal with to reconstruct the past are ceramics, technology, architecture, outlay of settlements, fortifications, written materials and mythologies on display on vases and walls in the form of reliefs. There are equally the reliefs of the landscape made up of a tremendous dialog between mountains and sea. Archaeologists will have to deal also with puzzling items: stones which have repeatedly three holes making up a face like image of two eyes and a nose.

But how to explain the images conjured up by these findings? How then to bring into public discussion the findings of the archaeologists? Of interest is that there already two different viewpoints prevail. The British archaeologists Dr. Alan Greaves from the University of Liverpool believes that no archaeologists will want his material be published on the Web. He explains this is a matter of copy right. Any archaeologist must aspire to publish his research findings first of all in hard copy, otherwise it goes unrecognized in the scientific community. Also he objects to making findings of his excavations be known to a larger audience. The reason he puts forth indicates an alarming state of affairs with regards to cultural heritage. It is the fear that the moment public attention is turned to rare findings, then the plunderers will come immediately. Looting for the sake of making a profit is more wide spread than what was recently the case in Iraq. It reflects the vulnerability of cultural heritage sites and what it means to have a global market willing to exploit everything if it has value and can be sold. As this touches upon the central question on how can cultural heritage be protected, if not through active promotion, the stand taken by Dr. Alan Greaves is of crucial importance as it evokes also a resistance against use of modern communication tools.

Quite a different approach is taken by archaeologist A. Mazarakis-Ainian, president of the department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly. He does not mind publication on the web. He has his own website and puts materials on it one month after some findings have been discovered. He does not mind if another scientist takes one item and publishes something on it, for he will not have the same approach as he who has started with the digging at that place.

The congress thus reveals already at its outset an interesting acess to cultural heritage and above all there is a reminder that the community of archaeologists, anthropologists and historians need to discuss these findings in a broader context. They cannot remain in isolation for society needs to learn out of the developments in the past. This then is not merely a matter of what viewpoints shall prevail when it comes to publication versus to making things available on the internet, but also what epistemological order and use of terminology can be used to locate the common root of our cultural characteristics and thereby local and European identity.