30 March 2010: Next Ancient Worlds Seminar
- The study of the ancient worlds of the Mediterranean and Near East is often undertaken in fragments, also at Leiden University. Topographical boundaries (Rome, Greece, Anatolia. The Levant, Iran, Egypt, North Africa, Western Europe) tend to obstruct our view of the larger picture, as do, even more seriously, the disciplinary boundaries that have grown between the study of language, history, material culture and art.
The Ancient Worlds Seminar tries to overcome all these artificial divides by providing a forum for all those studying the Ancient Worlds, in its broadest meaning, in Leiden.
- We aim to present around 14 lectures each academic year with topics ranging from Neolithic potsherds, via Greek democracy to renaissance Latin. This will demand some intellectual stretching from all those concerned, but we have no doubt that the willingness for such an exercise is not only desirable but also present at large.
The Ancient Worlds Seminar is of interest for students in Archaeology and in Ancient History at their MA/RMA level and will hopefully provide the general forum on the ancient worlds that Leiden so far has lacked. Lectures will be given by Leiden PhD students and staff presenting their research, but national and international scholars from abroad will be invited as well. We aim to provide an interesting mix in all respects; suggestions are more than welcome.
- More information
Frederick G. Naerebout (Faculty of Humanities)
Miguel John Versluys (Faculty of Archaeology)
Marike van Aerde (PhD, Faculty of Archaeology)
Student in charge:
Kya Verhagen
- All lectures are at Tuesday afternoon and start at 4 PM sharp.
- Marlis Arnhold, University of Erfurt
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February 16th, 2010
Religion and religious practice as means of self-fashioning in 3rd and 4th-century AD Rome
Fourth century Rome experienced many religious controversies. The so-called 'Constantinian turn', and the debate between Arianism and Donatism, as well as Julian's 'pagan revival' are only the most important ones. The century's religious conflicts reveal the close ties that existed between religious, political and social order.
The lecture aims to shed new light on the relationship between religion and religious practice, as well as self-fashioning and self-display. Central to the discussion will be questions concerned with how cults beyond 'Christianities' have been appropriated within the context of religious conflict.
The paper will look closely at long-term processes related to the social levelling of society and the formation of communities. This will allow us to closer examine the religious controversies and reveal them as social processes with their ups and downs, and as historical processes rooted in the 3rd century AD.
- Tatiana Ivleva, Leiden University, Faculty of Archaeology
- March 2, 2010
Lipsius 227, 16.00 hrs/
British Emigrants: Mobility of ‘Britons’ from the island to the Continent in the Roman Empire.
The epigraphic record from the period of the Roman Empire contains evidence of the existence of ‘British’ emigrants on the Continent. These inscribed stones and military diplomas found throughout the Roman Empire offer an unrivalled source of information about the ‘Britons’ who immigrated. However, not only epigraphy can shed the light on the mobility of the ‘Britons’. Archaeological record also gives the opportunity to find the places on the Continent where ‘British’ emigrants, civilians or army veterans, settled down/ The paper explores the forced and voluntary immigration of ‘Britons’ to the Continent. It seeks to answer the following questions: is it possible to determine British emigrants, and if so, can we talk about ‘British’ emigrant community? How they maintained or transmitted their identities? Did they emphasize pan-tribal, that of British, or regional, that of Icenii, Cantiacii, etc., identities? The intention of this paper is also to emphasize that the combination of both epigraphical and archaeological record can help the scholars to map migration routes of any peoples in the Roman Empire and to understand choices made by the emigrants when they expressed their identities. In particular, this paper supposes that the locations of the British brooches on the Continent can be connected with the presence of the British emigrants there. Analysis of the export of British material leads to the consideration that the brooches arrived initially not as trade items but were brought there by emigrants who wished to express their difference.
- Mirjam Hoijtink, University of Amsterdam
- March 16, 2010
Lipsius 227, 16.00 hrs.
Caspar Reuvens and his Universal Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.
A comparative study of museums of antiquities in Europe (1800-1840) points out that in its pioneering years, the Archaeological Cabinet of the Leiden university, can not be compared with other university museums. The collection policy, merely financed by King William I of the short-lived United Kingdom of the Netherlands, rivalled in its ambition with similar and under royal patronage developed institutes in Turin, Rome, London, Paris and Berlin.
The decision to choose the internationally educated Caspar Reuvens (1793-1835) for the post of professor in archaeology and keeper of the cabinet in 1818 was well-considered and strategically worked out by the leading advisors of the king: all representatives of a neo-humanistic national ideology.
As a member of the leading scientific societies in Europe and as an author of a wide range of scholarly publications, Reuvens was one of the main figures in a leading network of Altertumswissenschaftler, Antiquaires, Antiquarians and philologists. His drawings of a Universal Museum of Antiquities are to be explained as an expression of contemporary historiography. Due to a dramatic change of focus in this field in the first four decades of the 19th century from a ´Universal´ to an ´Individual´ history (also the nation as an individual), the arrangements Reuvens made in his sketches were no longer understood in the second part of the 19th century.
Picture: Drawing of the entrance hall of a Museum of Antiquities in Leiden by C.J.C. Reuvens, c.1828 (never realised) Archive National Museum of Antiquities Leiden, RMO/ARA 342, 15.1.1/1,89
- Bleda S. Düring, Leiden University, Faculty of Archaeology
- 30 March 2010
Lipsius 227, 16.00 hrs.
The Second Neolithic Revolution in Asia Minor: Evaluating Possible Causes.Around 6500 cal BC a decisive development took place in Anatolia that was to have lasting repercussions far beyond the peninsula: it consists of the expansion of the Neolithic way of life beyond the steppe environments of southern Central Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent, and a spread towards western Asia Minor and the Balkans. Despite the enormous importance of this ‘event’ there has been little debate about what caused it. In this paper I will consider various elements that might have played a role, such as climate change, demography, and agricultural and social changes in a contribution towards the better understanding of this "second Neolithic Revolution".
- Next meetings Academic Year 2009-2010
- 13 april 2010
27 april 2010
11 may 2010
25 may 201
