Paper short abstract:

In this paper I aim to focus on the representation of the body as a place of memory under the Portuguese dictatorship *Estado Novo*. Such discussion intends to present how the idea of race created by scholars was used by politicians in order to create a National Identity adequate to the regime’s projects.

Paper long abstract:

At the end of 1920's in Portugal, a dictatorial regime of a traditionalistic right wing - *Estado Novo* - rose to power, using a historicist nationalism as the main source of its rhetoric. During the following decades, António Oliveira Salazar, the dictator of the regime, argued that Portugal needed a *reaportuguesamento* - an action that would remember the eternal values of God, Homeland and Family, and would bring the Portuguese to a new Golden Age. Within the *reaportuguesamento* of the nation, the Past was used as one of the main elements in the construction of a National Identity adequate for the political projects of the regime. This relationship conditioned the monuments restoration projects because its management sought to fulfil the requisites demanded by the strategy of creating a juxtaposition between the political agenda and historical commemorations. In addition to this, the body was also used as a place in which people could see the emergence of the new/ancient Portuguese. In fact, within this use of the body, as a place of Past - as a place of memory, the XXth century Nation-Sate was linked with an Iron Age People named *Lusitanos* based on the idea of race. In this paper, I aim to discuss this last aspect of Salazar´s reaportuguesamento, analysing the role of archaeological and anthropological studies in the creation of the National Identity.