A comprehensive mapping of potential sailing mobility was performed for the eastern and central Mediterranean basins. The mapping is based on newly developed methods for measuring potential sailing ...mobility of merchant ships with a loose-footed square sail in antiquity, both for direct passages and for coastal sailing. The metrics of the measured direct and coastal sailing passages generate new measures of potential sailing mobility that provide new insights into the functioning of maritime links. The study also applies the measurements to several case studies in historical context including mapping of potential sailing mobility for the grain shipments from Egypt to Rome and the potential sailing mobility of Phoenician maritime links between the Levant and colonies to the west. The mappings reveal the bottlenecks for westward sailing from the Levant in the summer months. The mappings also highlight the bi-directional sailing links that could be maintained throughout the summer season despite the prevailing Etesian winds. The mappings contribute to deeper understanding of seafaring options and challenges during Antiquity.
Abstract
This article aims to rehabilitate and restore the concept of heresy in the analysis of “religion” in a broad sense. Heresy is largely considered as a paradigmatically Christian, pre-modern, ...and, by implication, useless concept for scholarly investigations into religious phenomena today. A re-examination of the medieval concept of heresy, particularly that of William of Ockham, reveals that pertinacity as a defining feature of heresy in the medieval sense indicates heresy is the observed failure to recognize the obligatory nature, not the truth, of what authority asserts. The medieval idea of heresy may thus be redefined as the interference with the sacred, because obligations that generate the sacred are at the heart of what Emile Durkheim called “religious phenomena.” The Durkheimian reconceptualization of the medieval idea of heresy serves to illuminate the mechanism of social exclusion in both religious and secular contexts.
In south-western Europe, the transition from pre-modern polities to modern states started in the central decades of the eighteenth century. This article explores why and how the plural, judicial and ...polycentric practices that structured social and political life before circa 1750 were progressively replaced by more unified, administrative and hierarchical repertoires of practices. The article rethinks the formation of the state through the conflicts over the debt of four municipalities of the former Crown of Aragon in the monarchies of Spain, the Savoy and the Two Sicilies. The global wars of the mid-eighteenth century and the subsequent extraordinary fiscal pressure fuelled local conflicts that led to the collapse of the ancient practices that structured life in common. However, the new social and political arrangements that were born out of the ancient polities and started replacing them were not imposed from above, but rather ideated, negotiated and implemented by a myriad of local actors and corporations. The article asserts that local realities were much more complex and polyhedric than what has traditionally been stated. As in other European regions, in the south-western polities of the Old Continent the modern state also emerged, first and foremost, from below.
Latin literature Walter, Anke
Greece and Rome,
10/2023, Letnik:
70, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Let me start with a fascinating volume that Paolo Felice Sacchi and Marco Formisano have edited on Epitomic Writing in Late Antiquity and Beyond, the first volume in the new series sera tela, devoted ...to ‘Studies in Late Antique Literature and its Reception’, edited by Marco Formisano. This inaugural volume gets the new series off to a very good start. Sacchi and Formisano offer a new approach to epitomic writing, seen as a typical product of late antique literary culture. The aim of the volume is to focus not so much on what is lost and cut out in the process of condensation, but on the value of the epitomic as a hermeneutic category as well as on its aesthetic value, both textual and visual. The individual contributions follow this editorial lead admirably closely, examining the interplay of repetition, fragmentation, dismemberment and re-composition, cutting and re-uniting, and defamiliarization, and showing how epitomic writing can be playful and entertaining, how it can represent a sophisticated act of interpretation, and serve as a ‘tool for investigating the very borders and paradoxes of language’ (12), even for conveying a spiritual experience.
Numerous texts from the New Testament deal with passions in a wide variety of genres. Historical-critical methods have been applied but cannot be regarded as complete. Especially for texts dealing ...with passions, no consensus of methodology has yet been established. The situation is further complicated by the existence of differing or ambiguous definitions and many unclear categories. This article highlights some important aspects we ought to consider when describing and analyzing passions in their given literary contexts with precision. They belong to abstract concepts; they appear in explicit terms, but also in paraphrases – that is, in a descriptive manner represented by facial expressions and gestures, for example. They are expressed by descriptions of diverse physical symptoms and by metaphors. This variety results in semantic problems. Many additional factors have to be taken into account. The duration, quality, and intensity of passions described ought to be considered. Emotions are embedded in psychological processes, and they might be connected to pragmatic intentions. The different genres and concepts of texts in which they occur should not be neglected either. Most of the emotional phenomena are culturally acquired forms of expression and communication. Therefore, it is always necessary to be aware of the danger of anachronism, and to consider the historical and cultural background along with its respective display rules: namely, the socially accepted patterns and rituals in which these passions could be encountered. In the last section of this article, a functional psychological approach of exegesis with concrete examples is offered to assist with finding suitable methods.
During systematic research in Ludbreg (Roman Iovia-Botivo) in
2011, a 5th century grave built of tegulae was discovered within
the Roman stratum. The deceased has a trepanation on his skull
and was ...accompanied by a single object, a silver ring buckle. The
newfound grave has undergone radiocarbon and radiological
analysis. The discovery of this grave has prompted a revision of
previous graves of the Migration Period found in Ludbreg, discovered
in previous research, as well as the accidental find of a grave
found between Ludbreg and Selnik. Available data on these
graves have been analysed and contextualized within the complex
historical period of Late Antiquity and the Migration Period
of northern Croatia. Analysis of the graves in question has shown
that Roman Iovia ceased to function during the 5th century.
In this article, I trace Safavid paintings depicting women's imagery online and explore the possibility of digitally mapping Safavid (1501–1736) paintings featuring women on publicly accessible ...platforms. Along with the practice of online mapping that led me to digital museums, I investigated the descriptions presented on three digitized paintings on different platforms to address the questions, “Where and how can Safavid paintings be digitally encountered” and “In light of the theoretical developments in the scholarship on pre-modern discourses of Safavid gender and sexuality, how do the descriptions of Safavid paintings reflect gender discourses online?” By following Safavid paintings of women online and probing the textual descriptions attached to them, and using netnographic research methods to document my experience and encounter with the digitized Safavid paintings, I explore whether the online descriptions accompanying the images could contribute to the making of decolonial knowledge about non-Western gender discourses.
This article summarises the results of archaeobiological research into the period from the mid-3rd to the 8th centuries AD in the area of present-day Switzerland. Compared to the preceding and ...subsequent periods, the state of research is rather poor, particularly in the cases of archaeobotanical research on the period of Late Antiquity and archaeozoological research on the early Middle Ages. The majority of the sites investigated so far are situated in the northern part of the country. A marked decline in human impact can be observed at the transition from Roman times to the early Middle Ages, particularly in pollen diagrams. A change from surplus production to a subsistence economy can be seen from changes in the relative importance of different species of domestic animals and in the size of cattle. The cereal spectrum becomes increasingly diverse. A movement from long-distance to regional trade is illustrated by the absence of imported foods, such as exotic plants, from the 3rd century onwards. At the same time, the production of goods from antlers is intensified and the cultivation of rye begins; both are probably influences from northern (Germanic) regions. Some of the Roman innovations, like the cultivation of fruit trees and the keeping of poultry, persist throughout these times of change.
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