Verba volent sed scripta manent? Researching ekina ta khronia [times
past] in a rural Greek community
A substantial element in many ethnographies which have accompanied
archaeological projects in Greece in the late C20th consisted of “recall
ethnography”, documenting life in previous decades or centuries. By such
means researchers have described and analysed the material culture of
the relatively recent past, sometimes to provide greater social or
historical meaning to the extant material record, and on other occasions
using the information to understand the deeper past
This paper investigates the complexities of using “documents” in
the widest sense, including written sources but focusing particularly on
oral histories, as “history” in western academic terms. I shall use my
experiences of ethnographic research on the peninsula of Methana,
Greece, to highlight some questions for further discussion.
