Under the Forest with Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou – Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures
In this episode Jason König interviews Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou about his work as a landscape archaeologist in the mountainous region of Zagori in north-west Greece.
Faidon is Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Researcher in the Computational Archaeology Research Group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, working on a project entitled ‘Under the Forest’. His 2022 book, The Early Modern Zagori of Northwest Greece offers a wide-ranging reassessment of the landscape archaeology of the region in the Ottoman period and beyond, from the 15th-20th century.
Faidon talks first about his family connections with Zagori and his experience of visiting there in summer holidays as a child. We discuss Faidon’s book on early modern Zagori, work on uncovering local archives in the villages of Zagori, and also his collaborations with the Boulouki Collective on a series of architecture projects in the region.
We then we turn to Faidon’s current project, ‘Under the Forest’, which aims to shed new light on the archaeological heritage that is increasingly concealed by afforestation. Faidon describes the ‘remote sensing’ archaeological techniques that allow him to bring that heritage to life, and talks about the tradition of giving special protection to ‘sacred forests’ in the Ottoman period.
We talk about Faidon’s work on the region’s successful UNESCO world heritage bid, before turning finally to some of the challenges facing local communities in the mountains of northern Greece, including wildfires and depopulation. Faidon offers some closing reflection on ways in which the creation of cultural trails through the landscape can help with tourist development.
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Sound editor: Zofia Guertin
Video editor: Mary Woodcock Kroble