Stelios Lekakis (University of Athens)

After the end of WWI, Greece, who was on the side of the victorious Entente,
was rewarded with lands in Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor, which had belonged up until then to the defeated allies of the Central Powers: Bulgaria and the
Ottoman Empire respectively.

In 1919, the Greek army landed in the area around Smyrna/Izmir in order to 'protect the Greek-Christian populations from the random attacks of Turkish guerrillas'. The newly created Greek government of Asia Minor organised and funded a number of cultural and social activities in the area in an attempt to solidify Greek identity and establish substructures for the final incorporation of the liberated lands into the Greek state. This paper, part of an on-going project, looks specifically at the archaeological excavations performed by the Greeks in the occupied/liberated land of Ionia and examines a number of multiple and intertwined political, social and scientific issues, such as the role of politicians and military men in the archaeological projects, the connection with archaeological projects in mainland Greece in this period and their role in identity building of the local populations, and the way in which the findings were interpreted by the Greek side. It will also examine the fate of the research and excavations after the Turkish War of Independence.