Negotiating Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean: The Archaic and Classical Greek Multiethnic Emporia

by: Demetriou, D.

The Mediterranean basin was a multicultural region with a great diversity of linguistic, religious, social and ethnic groups. This dynamic social and cultural landscape encouraged extensive contact and exchange among different communities. This book seeks to explain what happened when different ethnic, social, linguistic and religious groups, among others, came into contact with each other, especially in multiethnic commercial settlements located throughout the region. What means did they employ to mediate their interactions? How did each group construct distinct identities while interacting with others? What new identities came into existence because of these contacts? Professor Demetriou brings together several strands of scholarship that have emerged recently, especially ethnic, religious and Mediterranean studies. She reveals new aspects of identity construction in the region, examining the Mediterranean as a whole, and focuses not only on ethnic identity but also on other types of collective identities, such as civic, linguistic, religious and social.

Studies identity construction through the examination of multiethnic commercial settlements, which connected the Mediterranean region with trade networks
Considers civic, linguistic, religious and social identities, in addition to ethnicity, in order to demonstrate the variety of changing and competing identities available to members of a group at any given time
Adopts an interdisciplinary approach, using literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence, in order to examine the construction of identity among both elites and non-elites

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Emporion
2. Gravisca
3. Naukratis
4. Pistiros
5. Peiraieus
Conclusion.

Negotiating Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean: The Archaic and Classical Greek Multiethnic Emporia

by: Demetriou, D.

• ISBN-13: 9781107019447 / 978-1-107-01944-7
• ISBN-03: 1107019443 / 1-107-01944-3
• Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012