Local Antiquities in the Collective Memory of Rural Settlements: A Case Study from Boeotia

Abstract

The following article is under the modern research scope that concerns the investigation of the relationship of local communities with the archaeological environment of their area. It focuses mainly on rural communities that are in the immediate vicinity of archaeological sites which have not been highlighted and projected. One such case is Aghios Georgios, a village of western Boeotia which belong to the Municipality of Levadia. In its territory belongs the archaeological site of ancient Koroneia, which was famous in antiquity because of the cult of Itonia Athena. In the present study, an attempt is made to highlight the perceptions of the inhabitants for their archaeological environment, to investigate whether they are influenced from the academic point of view and to detect the role of the local archaeological past in the formation of their collective and cultural memory. The research is mainly based on quantitative data supplemented in cases by qualitative ones.