Gino Canlas
Mediterranean archaeologist, historian, linguist, educator
My Research
I am an Archaeologist and Historian who specializes in the rituals, religions, and identities of the inhabitants of the Greek world. My primary research focus is the investigation of the archaeological and historical evidence for the role of the sanctuaries in the identity formation processes of the inhabitants of ancient Thessaly. My guiding research framework is to shed light on the social diversity and interconnectedness of the ancient world (even in rural regions stereotyped to be isolated and homogenous) and to highlight the role of marginalized populations in the construction of societies through the application of theoretical frameworks such as materiality, post-colonialism, and lived religion to the material and textual evidence.
Some Favourite Quotes
“It is only by a somewhat severe mental effort that we realize the fact essential to our study that there were no gods at all, that what we have to investigate are not so many actual facts and existences but only conceptions of the human mind, shifting and changing colour with every human mind that conceived them.”
— Jane Ellen Harrison.
“The basic pleasure in the phonetic elements of a language and in the style of their patterns, and then in a higher dimension, pleasure in the association of these word-forms with meanings, is of fundamental importance. This pleasure is quite distinct from the practical knowledge of a language, and not the same as an analytic understanding of its structure. It is simpler, deeper-rooted, and yet more immediate than the enjoyment of literature.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien.
“Learn what you are and become it.”
— Pindar, Pythian Ode 2, 72.
Get to know me
This page will soon be available in French and Greek, I promise.
