Attitudes towards the past in antiquity : creating identities : proceedings of an international conference held at Stockholm University 15-17 May 2009

The papers presented address many different approaches to these issues such as the use of tradition and memory in shaping an individual or a collective identity, questions of continuity and/or change and efforts to connect the past with the present. Although the sources vary a great deal depending on the topics discussed, there is a shared methodology of examination, drawing on literary and primary historical texts such as inscriptions, as well as of identifying and interpreting archaeological remains in the landscape such as houses, temples or tombs, and artefacts such as sculpture, frescoes, coins, pottery and bronzes. While there is no absolute separation between these themes, the articles offer a rather unique variety of topics, ranging in time from the Prehistoric periods to Late Antiquity and in place from Britain to Greece and Italy and to Asia Minor and Cyprus, showing very clearly the universality of the questions introduced, regardless of time period or place.