The Archaeology of Nostalgia

The Greeks used the mythical geography of their land to re-create a physical view of the past that their poets, priests and politicians used as a paradigm for contemporary behaviour, and they drew upon the world around them, not just to illustrate that past, but also in many ways to create it. Sir John Boardman explores objects and images: those that are recoverable, those that are mentioned in texts, or those that may be imagined. He also assembles the many relevant extracts from classical writers with paraphrases of their content. Presented alphabetically under authors and with indexes to gods, heroes, places and classes of object, these Testimonia are absorbing in their own right as well as vital source material for students.