’The Mediterranean: A Wall’: Comment on Lidia Sciama’s paper ‘The Mediterranean: Topos or Mirage?’

If even ‘amoral familism’ has been revisited, why not the ‘Mediterranean syndrome of honour and shame’? It is surely a matter of interest that topics of anthropological debate have a way of returning after having lain dormant for a long time. Sometimes we are fortunate, and this is the result of new data having emerged or of new theories having been developed; some other

times, unfortunately, it is nothing more than people’s preference for simple, shortcut solutions when faced with complex problems. We must be grateful to Lidia Sciama, therefore, for calling our attention to the fact that the issue of the ‘Mediterranean culture area’ is not dead, as many of us had hoped it would be.