Mind the chronological gaps: The remembering, forgetting and ignoring of past materiality during the 2nd millennium BC Aegean

Abstract

The rich and diverse evidence from the 2nd millennium BC Aegean allows indepth analyses of how past materiality was treated in this period. Remembering, forgetting and ignoring have been important tools employed by societies on various occasions and with different meanings and aims. The mnemonoscape in the Aegean has provided a template of objects and landscapes, which received diverse treatments depending on the relatively recent or older past uses. There had also been significant variations in their functions and meanings, whilst their re-interpretation had often been analogous to the degree they belonged to same temporal and cultural context (same chrono-type) or not (different chrono-type). Furthermore, it is highlighted how forgetting and ignoring objects and landscapes played a role in memory, oblivion and the formation of new cultural conditions. A certain eclecticism of regional character can be recognized in the employment of past materiality and landscape in the 2nd millennium BC Aegean. It had often been the case that they had been associated with metaphysical and eschatological contexts.