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.

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.

Roman Syene as outpost of western culture or last blossom of Egyptian religion? The terracottas from Aswan

Since 2000 the Swiss Institute of Architectural and Archaeological Research on Ancient Egypt is excavating the archaeological remains of ancient Syene (modern Aswan). During these excavations over 300 fragments of terracotta figurines of the Greco-Roman period have been discovered. For the first time it became possible to study a group of clay figurines from a closed context in Egypt. The result shows a development in motive, style and technique over the centuries from the age of the Ptolemies to late antiquity. Whereas the earliest figurines are either clearly attached to the ancient Egyptian culture or are imports with a Greek background, the local artisans soon imitated these motifs but also created a new set of visual concepts influenced by both traditions. The development not only reflects the religious and cultural background of the changing rulers, but also the ‘local’ ideologies of the inhabitants of the small border town. The material evidence underlines the fact that Syene in Greco-Roman time is not only the small, insignificant neighbour of Elefantine but a complex urban system with an independent religious background, dominated by Isis, the “mistress of Syene”.
For the study of the technical aspects a system of clay fabrics was applied, which is strongly influenced by similar attempts in the study of ceramics. Besides from the few imports two main types of clay with a considerable number of subfabrics could be individuated. The Nile Clay, which is mainly used in Hellenistic age is increasingly being replaced by the local “Pink Clay” in Roman times.

The construction of the Egyptian Pyramids Archaeological and technical aspects

Much has been written about the development of Pyramid building and its role in Egyptian History. However, a thorough review of this literature showed that in non of the many publications is the coherence of the various operations needed for the construction of the Pyramids treated in a systematic manner, evidently resulting in invalid results.
This lecture will focus on the largest Pyramid, built by Khufu. An important aspect is the surprisingly fast (yet not steady) construction rate, of 2.6 million m3 of limestone in about 20 years, an average of approximately 50 m3 per hour or one block of 1 m3 per minute. This means that the production of building materials and other subsequent work needed to be carefully customized to avoid any delays. In addition, a flexible allocation of the labour among the different building activities was needed.
Archaeologists still disagree about the applied construction method. Evidence from drawings and reliefs suggests that Egyptian builders were equipped with ropes and levers, and used ramps during the construction of other buildings.
It is possible to incorporate all these aspects in a mathematical model. It compares three different construction methods, namely methods that use a straight slope, a spiral shaped ramp and levers. Using certain basic data, the model makes it possible to determine the most likely building method used and to get an estimate of the labour needed. The findings of this research show that the size of the project and the organizational skills required were remarkable.

The end of the ancient Olympics and the domino-effect

The ancient Olympics are one of the most widely known aspects of ancient culture. Every four years, when the modern Olympics are held, the interest is renewed and new books are published with yet again summaries of Olympia in its heyday. Such works usually treat only very briefly how the iconic festival came to its end: the contest remained popular until the mid-third century, after which it declined sharply and was eventually abolished in either 393 or 426 by an anti-pagan law of Theodosius I or II. In the academic world, however, there has been in the last two decades a renewed interest in the final phase of the games, with the discovery of late antique finds during new excavations and reappraisals of long known evidence. The idea of an imperial abolition about AD 400 is no longer accepted and the old insistence on all possible factors leading to decline (moral aberrations, barbarian invasions, Christianity, economic crisis) has been replaced by an openness to possible continuity of the games in the fifth century. What is still lacking in this discussion is a broader perspective. Although the Olympics were the symbolic number one contest throughout Antiquity, they were only a part of a large circuit of hundreds of similar contests. The success of each contest on this circuit depended on that of the others, and an explication for the end of the Olympics should therefore not be detached from the general desintegration of this circuit.

Texts and Archaeology: The Mesopotamian Interphase

In the Mesopotamian context the majority of texts, i.e. clay tablets, themselves constitute part of the archaeological record, being excavated with other objects. A first observation, which stresses the sometimes difficult relationship between archaeology and philology, is the fact that often the tablets have been considered "apart" from the archaeological record, as text-matter. Obviously, however, the tablets are themselves also objects and considering them thus, they render new data, apart from the inscribed text. Through this and other examples the lecture will discuss various aspects of the interphase between texts and archaeology, mostly drawn from the lecturer's own experience and research projects, and hence from Iraqi and Syrian contexts.

Farmers, Rabbis, Fishermen. European Excavations on Horvat Kur in Galilee 

Despite of a lot of work in recent years, rural Galilee is still very much terra incognita. The Kinneret Regional Project (www.kinneret-excavations.org) wants to contribute to the ongoing dabate about the structure of villages and their relationship with the surrounding landscape in this small, but important region of the Eastern Mediterranean. After two preliminary campaigns, the first systematic season has produced significant results: a synagogue and parts of domestic architecture from the Byzantine period. More is to follow in 2011!