archaeolatry

English

Alternative forms

• archæolatry, archeolatry

Etymology

From archae- +‎ -o- +‎ -latry, from Ancient Greek: ἀρχαῖος (arkhaîos, “ancient”) in combination with λατρεία (latreía, “service", "worship”).

Noun

archaeolatry (uncountable)

1. Worship of an antiquity; excessive veneration of antiquity.
   • 1992, Maria Kakavoulia, Interior Monologue and Its Discursive Formation in Melpo Axioti's Dyskoles Nychtes:

     Here Axioti opposes to ethnocentric archaeolatry one's "painful" relation to the present and past, which is based on the search for authentic, not superficial, signals of this continuity .

   • 2002, Mikael af Malmborg, Bo Stråth, The Meaning of Europe, page 39:

     Later on, during the second half of the nineteenth century, it was the language question that occupied the centre of the political scene. This time, unmitigated archaeolatry ran hand in hand with religious traditionalism.

   • 2008, Argyro Loukaki, Living Ruins, Value Conflicts, →ISBN, page 151:

     That is, it continues a tradition of archaeolatry and the Hellenocentricism that began with Winckelmann and trived with the contribution of Greek scholars.