scholarly journals The Justinianic Plague: An inconsequential pandemic?

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (51) ◽  
pp. 25546-25554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Mordechai ◽  
Merle Eisenberg ◽  
Timothy P. Newfield ◽  
Adam Izdebski ◽  
Janet E. Kay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Causal Factor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Mortuary Archaeology ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Mortality Estimates ◽  
Written Sources

Existing mortality estimates assert that the Justinianic Plague (circa 541 to 750 CE) caused tens of millions of deaths throughout the Mediterranean world and Europe, helping to end antiquity and start the Middle Ages. In this article, we argue that this paradigm does not fit the evidence. We examine a series of independent quantitative and qualitative datasets that are directly or indirectly linked to demographic and economic trends during this two-century period: Written sources, legislation, coinage, papyri, inscriptions, pollen, ancient DNA, and mortuary archaeology. Individually or together, they fail to support the maximalist paradigm: None has a clear independent link to plague outbreaks and none supports maximalist reconstructions of late antique plague. Instead of large-scale, disruptive mortality, when contextualized and examined together, the datasets suggest continuity across the plague period. Although demographic, economic, and political changes continued between the 6th and 8th centuries, the evidence does not support the now commonplace claim that the Justinianic Plague was a primary causal factor of them.

TECHNOLOGY AND IDEAS: ARCHITECTS AND MASTER-BUILDERS IN THE EARLY BYZANTINE WORLD

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 379-405
Author(s):  
Enrico Zanini
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
Master Builders

Eastern literary and epigraphic sources from the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. mention several architects/engineers in the service of the imperial court at Constantinople. They give us an idea of the scientific knowledge, technical expertise and social status of these men. A larger group of architects and master-builders are also attested. They operated mainly in a lower-key, local context, but they also moved abroad to answer the requests of patrons. A comparison between the written sources and archaeology allows us to reconstruct some examples of the mobility of people and ideas, and to advance some hypotheses about the development of building material culture in the late antique eastern Mediterranean world.

The Making of the Medieval Middle East

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Tannous
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Middle Ages

In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. This book argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called “the simple” in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East's history. What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, the book provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East. The book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them.

Alexandria, Kom el-Dikka. Fieldwork in the 2019 season

2020 ◽  
pp. 469-496
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Majcherek
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Geometric Design ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Construction Work ◽  
Floor Tiles ◽  
Stone Material ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Late Roman

The report offers an account of archaeological and conservation work carried out at the site. Excavations in the central part of the site (Sector F) were continued for the fourth season in a row. Exploration of remains of early Roman houses led to the discovery of a well preserved multicolored triclinium mosaic floor with a floral and geometric design. A large assemblage of fragments of polychrome marble floor tiles, recorded in the house collapse, showed the scale of importation of decorative stone material from various regions of the Mediterranean. Overlying the early Roman strata was direct evidence of intensive construction work carried out in the vicinity in the form of large-scale kilnworks, supplying lime most probably for the building of the late Roman bath and cistern. Included in the presentation is a brief review of the limited conservation work that was conducted in the complex of late antique auditoria.

Marine and terrestrial investigations in the Norse Eastern Settlement, South Greenland

2001 ◽  
pp. 65-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naja Mikkelsen ◽  
Antoon Kuijpers ◽  
Susanne Lassen ◽  
Jesper Vedel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Original Series ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
The Middle Ages

NOTE: This article was published in a former series of GEUS Bulletin. Please use the original series name when citing this article, for example: Mikkelsen, N., Kuijpers, A., Lassen, S., & Vedel, J. (2001). Marine and terrestrial investigations in the Norse Eastern Settlement, South Greenland. Geology of Greenland Survey Bulletin, 189, 65-69. https://doi.org/10.34194/ggub.v189.5159 _______________ During the Middle Ages the Norse settlements in Greenland were the most northerly outpost of European Christianity and civilisation in the Northern Hemisphere. The climate was relatively stable and mild around A.D. 985 when Eric the Red founded the Eastern Settlement in the fjords of South Greenland. The Norse lived in Greenland for almost 500 years, but disappeared in the 14th century. Letters in Iceland report on a Norse marriage in A.D. 1408 in Hvalsey church of the Eastern Settlement, but after this account all written sources remain silent. Although there have been numerous studies and much speculation, the fate of the Norse settlements in Greenland remains an essentially unsolved question.

Ildar Garipzanov, Caroline Goodson, and Henry Maguire, ed., Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Cursor Mundi, 27, Turnhout: Brepols, 2017, xviii, 392 p., 141 ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 377-379
Author(s):  
Kriszta Kotsis
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Visual Communication ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cursor Mundi ◽  
Definition Of

Late antique and early medieval graphic signs have traditionally been studied by narrowly focused specialists leading to the fragmentation and decontextualization of this important body of material. Therefore, the volume aims “to deepen interdisciplinary research on graphic signs” (7) of the third through tenth centuries, with contributions from archaeologists, historians, art historians, a philologist, and a paleographer. Ildar Garipzanov’s introduction defines the central terms (sign, symbol, graphicacy), calls for supplanting the text-image binary with “the concept of the visual-written continuum” (15), and argues that graphicacy was central to visual communication in this period. He emphasizes the agency of graphic signs and notes that their study can amplify our understanding of the definition of personal and group identity, the articulation of power, authority, and religious affiliation, and communication with the supernatural sphere.

scholarly journals Predicting sample success for large‐scale ancient DNA studies on marine mammals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xénia Keighley ◽  
Maiken Hemme Bro‐Jørgensen ◽  
Hans Ahlgren ◽  
Paul Szpak ◽  
Marta Maria Ciucani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Large Scale

Private Associations in the Ancient Greek World

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Private Associations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Greek World

Private associations abounded in the ancient Greek world and beyond, and this volume provides the first large-scale study of the strategies of governance which they employed. Emphasis is placed on the values fostered by the regulations of associations, the complexities of the private-public divide (and that divide's impact on polis institutions) and the dynamics of regional and global networks and group identity. The attested links between rules and religious sanctions also illuminate the relationship between legal history and religion. Moreover, possible links between ancient associations and the early Christian churches will prove particularly valuable for scholars of the New Testament. The book concludes by using the regulations of associations to explore a novel and revealing aspect of the interaction between the Mediterranean world, India and China.

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