Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
The teaching of archaeology in higher education in Greece cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader realms of antiquity, archaeology and the past in modern Greek society and the context of Greek higher education. A growing body of literature has shown that archaeological antiquities have contributed substantially to the generation and perpetuation of a genealogical national myth upon which the modern nation- state of Greece was founded (e.g. Gourgouris 1996; Herzfeld 1982, 1987; Kitromilides 1989; Morris 1994; Skopetea 1988). This ideology of nationalism not only presented the nation-state as the ideal form of political organization for 19th-century Greece, but also presented the inhabitants of Greece as direct descendants of Socrates and Plato. Intellectuals and the emerging middle class merchants imported this western romantic ideology (so popular amongst the European middle-class of the time) into Greece.