scholarly journals religion, Phoenician and Punic

Author(s):  
Corinne Bonnet

The Phoenician and Punic religion was a polytheistic system, characterized by local specificities and some common features. It is attested in the whole Mediterranean basin throughout the first millennium bce, with significant evolutions since the Archaic period, due to frequent contacts with many different cultures, such as Greece, Egypt, Etruria, etc. Each kingdom or city-state (Arwad, Beirut, Byblos, Sidon, Sarepta, Tyre, to mention the most important) shapes its own pantheon, which becomes a crucial expression of micro-identities. However, many gods are shared and present both in Phoenicia and in the Mediterranean diaspora, where they undergo transformations and integrate multicultural environments. The absence of Phoenician and Punic literature is a huge obstacle to a precise understanding of the religious dynamics. Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Assyrian, and Egyptian sources fortunately provide a consistent body of evidence on gods, rituals, myths, or narratives, but they need to be accurately deciphered. The Phoenician and Punic religion appears as particularly open to foreign influences and borrowings; it often employs composite images between anthropomorphism and aniconism. As in many other religions, sacrifices represent the core of the ritual system, a “middle ground,” where gods and men interact.

Author(s):  
Joshua M. White

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the shape and impact of piracy in the eastern half of the Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire’s administrative, legal, and diplomatic response. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, piracy had a tremendous effect on the formation of international law, the conduct of diplomacy, the articulation of Ottoman imperial and Islamic law, and their application in Ottoman courts. Piracy and Law draws on research in archives and libraries in Istanbul, Venice, Crete, London, and Paris to bring the Ottoman state and Ottoman victims into the story for the first time. It explains why piracy exploded after the 1570s and why the Ottoman state was largely unable to marshal an effective military solution even as it responded dynamically in the spheres of law and diplomacy. By focusing on the Ottoman victims, jurists, and officials who had to contend most with the consequences of piracy, Piracy and Law reveals a broader range of piratical practitioners than the Muslim and Catholic corsairs who have typically been the focus of study and considers their consequences for the Ottoman state and those who traveled through Ottoman waters. This book argues that what made the eastern half of the Mediterranean basin the Ottoman Mediterranean, more than sovereignty or naval supremacy—which was ephemeral—was that it was a legal space. The challenge of piracy helped to define its contours.


Author(s):  
Matthew D. C. Larsen

The concept of textual unfinishedness played a role in a wide variety of cultures and contexts across the Mediterranean basin in antiquity and late antiquity. Chapter 2 documents examples of Greek, Roman, and Jewish writers reflecting explicitly in their own words about unfinished texts. Many writers claimed to have written unfinished texts on purpose for specific cultural reasons, while others claimed to have written texts that slipped out of their hands somehow with their permission.


Author(s):  
Madadh Richey

The alphabet employed by the Phoenicians was the inheritor of a long tradition of alphabetic writing and was itself adapted for use throughout the Mediterranean basin by numerous populations speaking many languages. The present contribution traces the origins of the alphabet in Sinai and the Levant before discussing different alphabetic standardizations in Ugarit and Phoenician Tyre. The complex adaptation of the latter for representation of the Greek language is described in detail, then some brief attention is given to likely—Etruscan and other Italic alphabets—and possible (Iberian and Berber) descendants of the Phoenician alphabet. Finally, it is stressed that current research does not view the Phoenician and other alphabets as inherently simpler, more easily learned, or more democratic than other writing systems. The Phoenician alphabet remains, nevertheless, an impressive technological development worthy, especially by virtue of its generative power, of detailed study ranging from paleographic and orthographic specifications to social and political contextualization.


Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 472
Author(s):  
Fabio Verneau ◽  
Mario Amato ◽  
Francesco La La Barbera

Starting in 2008 and lasting up until 2011, the crisis in agricultural and, in particular, cereal prices triggered a period of riots that spread from the Mediterranean basin to the rest of the world, reaching from Asia to Central America and the African continent. [...]


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 567
Author(s):  
Eyal Ben-Dor Cohen ◽  
Micha Ilan ◽  
Oded Yarden

Marine sponges harbor a diverse array of microorganisms and the composition of the microbial community has been suggested to be linked to holo-biont health. Most of the attention concerning sponge mycobiomes has been given to sponges present in shallow depths. Here, we describe the presence of 146 culturable mycobiome taxa isolated from mesophotic niche (100 m depth)-inhabiting samples of Agelas oroides, in the Mediterranean Sea. We identify some potential in vitro interactions between several A. oroides-associated fungi and show that sponge meso-hyl extract, but not its predominantly collagen-rich part, is sufficient to support hyphal growth. We demonstrate that changes in the diversity of culturable mycobiome constituents occur following sponge transplantation from its original mesophotic habitat to shallow (10 m) waters, where historically (60 years ago) this species was found. We conclude that among the 30 fungal genera identified as associated with A. oroides, Aspergillus, Penicillium and Trichoderma constitute the core mycobiome of A. oroides, and that they persist even when the sponge is transplanted to a suboptimal environment, indicative of the presence of constant, as well as dynamic, components of the sponge mycobiome. Other genera seemed more depth-related and appeared or disappeared upon host’s transfer from 100 to 10 m.


Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 995
Author(s):  
Theodoros Varzakas

The prevention and bioactivity effects associated with the so-called “Mediterranean diet” make olive oil the most consumed edible fat in the food intake of the Mediterranean basin [...]


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