47 antiquities should stay in situ. The issue of the shift in archaeologists’ involvement to the city’s cultural issues will be further analyzed bellow.
48 For K.K., an archaeologist who is specialized in cultural management, her exact specialization set her apart from the group of Archaeologists. “(…) for me the part of the management and the relationship with the people differentiates from the archaeological practise and if you ask me, no, the archaeologist is not obliged to be able to do that as well.
(…) We can outsource it to professionals. We graduated as professionals in this thing, in this part, theoretically. We, who are dealing with cultural management and so on”.
It was rather difficult for me as well to convince my colleagues and professors that I was able to study social anthropology and not erase from my memory everything that I studied in order to get my bachelor degree in Archaeology. For the participants of the archaeological courses of the master program in History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology that I attended, my choice to be examined in Anthropology rather than Archaeology in order to be accepted in the MA, set me as an “archaeological pariah”. And so I had to pay the prise of constant archaeological tutoring for turning my back to my mother field.
My informers confirmed my observation that archaeologists are maintaining hostile environments of exclusion within their field by producing stereotypical identities for who they are or what they do. Rivalry instincts are also seen in their relation between tour guides.
Archaeologists following this career choice are pretty competitive towards non- archaeologists tour guides to the point that many of them are accused of following unethical behaviours towards tourists and culture or even for mobilizing antiquities for their personal agendas104.
The majority of the informers who are archaeologists, admitted that they had chosen carefully with whom they are collaborating or to whom they are going to speak to for certain matters concerning the public. Not every one of them is open to accept different perspectives.
D.K. stated in the more natural way that “Yes. I knew from the beginning where I was going to. If, let’s say, I heard about an excavation or a project where the people in charge were not very cooperative, they were not very friendly with the students, I would not go there, so I chose where to go”.
In like manner, the social identity (Goffman, 1959: 22) of archaeologists is often described as difficult to elaborate with, esoteric and strictly professional, which has created a
104 This conclusion came after several informal discussions I had with archaeologists who are currently working as tour guides.
49 involved reality. E. X. states “It is true that the people administrating museums and archaeological sites, are a bit stiff for the Greek reality and we have many examples for that.
In their collaborations, in being more open, in finding contemporary solutions for designating antiquities and so on. (…) in general, most of them are people quite insular to what antiquity means, “we do not touch, we do not disturb”. This is an issue”.
Thessaloniki’s archaeologists have been bullied from the time when the metro constructor announced the first delay105. The financial, as well as political conjecture was not allowing citizens to be optimistic about the compliance with the timelines given in the beginning of the project. As time went by and the drawbacks normalized, the rhetoric against archaeologists was getting harsher to the point that they were the only ones to blame for the delays occurred in all 13 stations, when problems with the antiquities were traced to just three of them106.
Nevertheless, from 2009 until 2017, in the collective interpretation, archaeologists were responsible for the non- completion of the project. A statement of the president of Thessaloniki’s Chamber of Tradesmen, M. Zorpidis and owner of a travel agency, was rather shocking as well as featuring the polemic atmosphere “If I were you, seeing people in the construction site that blocks my store not working, I would take a gun and let the devil take the hindmost107”.
During that period of the excavations in Agia Sophia and Venizelou stations, a part of which was open to the city view, archaeologists and workers confronted angry citizens who attacked them verbally as well as physically by throwing bottles and drinks on them. Another common hostile activity was the lurking. Citizens were waiting for the lunch break in order to captivate sitting archaeologists who wasted public funding. The photographs were sent directly to the Ephorate followed by demands of “layoffs108”.
The responsibility of archaeologists was confirmed when in 2015 the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport visited the city and the construction site, and judged that
105 This is information given by a former archaeologist of ATIKO METRO Ltd. He is keeping his anonymity due to legal differences he has with the company.
106 Το μετρό Θεσσαλονίκης, τα αρχαία και πώς πραγματικά διασύρεται η χώρα. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2020, from https://www.voria.gr/article/i-epistimoniki-athootita-chanete-stis-prosfiges-kata-tou-metro.
107 Metro.thessalonikis.: Επαγγελματίες: Κραυγή αγωνίας για το μετρό. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2020, from http://metro-thessalonikis.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-post_6486.html.
108 These information were given by the same ATTIKO METRO Ltd., archaeologist who wants to keep his anonymity.
50 archaeologists indeed are responsible for delays; as a result two of them, in charge of the Sintrivani and Agia Sofia station were fired the next day, satisfying the public demand109.
The depositioning of Giorgos Skiadaresis, is also an incident highlighting how Archaeologists are treated by the State. He was the former head of the Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Thessaloniki. Recently Lina Mendoni, the minister of Culture decided to replace him to his former position as head of Byzantine and Post- Byzantine antiquities of the Ephorate of the Antiquities of the City after not permitting the removal of the protective sand in the station of Venizelou in February of 2020110. His position was filled by Ioannis Kanonidis, who was found by the former government insufficient for this position and also will be retired soon.
Another example of how multiple readings, complicates the dynamics of the relation of the public with the Archaeologists is that of M. Tiverios. His involvement in the case as a supporter of the metro construction was surprising enough for archaeologists. The way he was referring to the antiquities was considered both by the greater public and archaeologists to be unethical. The intense reaction of the antiquities defenders forced him to point the finger to the archaeologists who did not react when the planning was at its formation stage, implying office politics111. This time the archaeologist Tiverios, was the one who aligned with corporate interests, not caring for the antiquities he was trained to reveal and protect.
The technocratic perspective that he adopted, was rather different from that of the archaeologists that proposed the demolition of the refugee dwellings back in 2010.