Tombs, Images and Identities in Ancient Anatolia
Tombs, Images and Identities in Ancient Anatolia

Summary/Abstract: Self-definition of ancient Greeks was created under the influence of socio-historical events, reflecting both, the relationship between Hellenes themselves and attitudes towards others. Greek wonder as a selfgenerated process yielded to a growing awareness that the drive towards advancement, observed in certain regions of Greece, was probably not possible without the external impetus of an extensively integrated Mediterranean world (Rollinger 2006, 197-226). The influencing factors for self-definition of ancient Greeks were a shared myth of descent, a shared territory, and a shared sense of history. Many scholars assume, that a sense of Greekness among Dorians, Ionians, Aiolians and others was finally crystallized throughout the number of military conflicts in which they were involved during the Classical period. Its seems probable that Athens played a major role both in the invention of the barbarian concept and in the substitution of cultural for ethnic criteria in the self-definition of Greeks. In their self-definition, Greeks seem to be deliberately stylized as antinomy to what they considered to be typical for others. Similarly, as a response to the strong pressure from the Persians, the national awareness of the Anatolians was formed. Interestingly, in some cases local ethnic groups had chosen cultural elements that had been associated with Greeks or Persians for their self-definition.

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