scholarly journals From the Judaean Desert to the Great Sea: Qumran in a Mediterranean Context

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 378-406
Author(s):  
Dennis Mizzi
Keyword(s):  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Ecological History ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Comparative Case Studies ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Dining Room ◽  
The One ◽  
Splendid Isolation ◽  
Marginal Zones

Abstract The time when Qumran was studied in splendid isolation is long gone, but much work remains to be done when it comes to situating the site in its wider context. In this paper, Qumran is contextualized, on the one hand, within the larger ecological history of the Mediterranean and, on the other, within the Mediterranean world of classical antiquity. Questions regarding the functions of the Qumran settlement are addressed from the perspective of “marginal zones” in the Mediterranean, which provides an ideal backdrop through which to illumine aspects of daily life at Qumran. Furthermore, it is shown how comparative case studies from the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean help us to nuance the discussion concerning “Hellenization” or “Romanization” with regard to Qumran. Finally, a new understanding of L4, which is here interpreted primarily as a dining room, is proposed on the basis of archaeological parallels from the Graeco-Roman world. A pan-Mediterranean perspective, therefore, allows us to generate new insights on old questions and novel interpretations.

Karl Polanyi’s Anthropological Theory of Economy

Naukratis ◽  
2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Moller
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

In accordance with the hermeneutical principles laid down in the introduction, this chapter will be devoted to an account of the theoretical models underlying the analysis and interpretation of the source material. Karl Polanyi’s empirical observations resulted in a series of ideal-types such as can be employed for the evaluation of the evidence from Naukratis in the following chapters. Polanyi’s works do not form one single, complete theory of economy; rather, they should be seen—as Sally Humphreys has put it so aptly—as sketches of areas within largely unexplored territory. It is of course true that George Dalton went to great lengths to develop Polanyi’s ideas further; the fact nevertheless remains that they continue to be far from accepted as paradigms for all further research in the field of economic anthropology or economic history. Indeed, such continuations of Polanyi’s approach have served only to limit unduly the openness that is the very advantage of his ideal-types. It is for this reason that one should return to Polanyi himself and employ his original ideas. His work has been taken up by only a few within the realm of the economic history of classical antiquity, something due partly to his own—problematic—statements on the subject of Greek history, and partly to lack of interest shown for anthropological approaches within ancient history. Polanyi disagreed with the view that markets were the ubiquitous form of economic organization—an attitude regarding the notion of the market as essential to the description of every economy—and also with the belief that it is the economic organization of any given society which determines its social, political, and cultural structures. For his part, Polanyi contended that an economy organized around the market first came into being with the Industrial Revolution, and that it was not until then that the two root meanings of the word ‘economic’—on the one hand, in the sense of provision with goods; on the other, in the sense of a thrifty use of resources, as in the words ‘economical’ and ‘economizing’—merged.

Early Christian Mosaics in Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 274-295
Author(s):  
Karen C. Britt
Keyword(s):  
Short Discussion ◽  
Regional Approach ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Universal Themes ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter provides an introduction to early Christian mosaics that emphasizes the important role played by archaeology in improving our understanding of their geographical and architectural contexts. After a short discussion of the position of early Christian mosaics in the history of the medium, a brief review of the most productive methodologies used in research on mosaics is undertaken, followed by a survey of mosaic technology that includes the workshops and artists involved in mosaic production. In the rest of the chapter, a selection of mosaics in churches, martyria, chapels, and Christian mausolea located in various parts of the Mediterranean world is examined. The evidence from archaeology demonstrates that although early Christian mosaics share universal themes, the diversity reflected in their iconography and the presence of secondary themes rooted in local traditions necessitate a regional approach to their interpretation.

Rough Waters: American Involvement with the Mediterranean in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: An Introduction

Rough Waters ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Silvia Marzagalli ◽  
James R. Sofka ◽  
John J. McCusker
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Transport Services ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

In his path-breaking study of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean world, Fernand Braudel identified the “invasion” by Atlantic ships and merchants as one of the major, long-lasting events in the history of the Mediterranean Sea in early modern times.2 According to Braudel, the arrival of English, Flemish and French Atlantic vessels and their captains began discretely in the early sixteenth century as a result of an increased Mediterranean demand for cheap transport services. Within a few decades, however, northern Europeans evolved from a complementary to a commanding position in the region. Atlantic shipping and trade came to dominate the most lucrative Mediterranean trades, and the Atlantic powers steadily imposed their rules and politics on Mediterranean countries, progressively subordinating the region to Atlantic interests. Their ...

Hagiography, Historiography, and Identity in Sixth-Century Gaul

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Rotman
Keyword(s):  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean

Gregory of Tours, the sixth-century Merovingian bishop, composed extensive historiographical and hagiographical corpora during the twenty years of his episcopacy in Tours. These works serve as important sources for the cultural, social, political and religious history of Merovingian Gaul. This book focuses on Gregory’s hagiographical collections, especially the Glory of the Martyrs, Glory of the Confessors, and Life of the Fathers, which contain accounts of saints and their miracles from across the Mediterranean world. It analyses these accounts from literary and historical perspectives, examining them through the lens of relations between the Merovingians and their Mediterranean counterparts, and contextualizing them within the identity crisis that followed the disintegration of the Roman world. This approach leads to groundbreaking conclusions about Gregory’s hagiographies, which this study argues were designed as an “ecclesiastical history” (of the Merovingian Church) that enabled him to craft a specific Gallo-Christian identity for his audience.

Classical Antiquity: the maritime dimension

Antiquity ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (243) ◽  
pp. 335-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Parker
Keyword(s):  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Roman Art ◽  
Underwater Communications ◽  
Frequent Motif ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Lost And Found ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Inshore Waters ◽  
The Mediterranean

IntroductionShips and the sea were an omnipresent theme of Greek and Roman art and life. Shipwreck was a well-recognized risk, and an essential ingredient of ‘lost and found’ stories in novels and comedies. Conversely, safe arrival in harbour, the successful end of a journey, was a frequent motif, especially of Roman art. These ideas were obviously underpinned by economic facts: the need for metals, the sea-girt nature of Greece, Rome’s central position in the Mediterranean, and the constant threat of food shortage in the cities of the Mediterranean world generally, necessarily involved transport and trade by sea.Into this scene has stepped, still less than 50 years old, a new character, namely underwater archaeology. Since 1945, over 1000 ancient and medieval shipwrecks have been reported in the Mediterranean, and the roll continues to grow at an unslackened pace. This rapid increase in archaeological resource has been due, of course, mainly to the widespread use of compressed-air diving gear for sport, so that most of the known wreck sites lie in inshore waters, and in popular diving areas. However, recent developments in offshore position-fixing and in underwater communications and robotics have made it possible to explore much deeper sites; the deepest so far to have been surveyed under archaeological direction (by A.M. McCann) is a late Roman wreck at 800 m deep between Sicily and Sardinia.

scholarly journals Rats, Communications, and Plague: Toward an Ecological History

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Rattus Rattus ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Great Contribution ◽  
Ecological History ◽  
Black Rat ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean

During the last twenty years, archaeozoological research has significantly transformed the picture of the black rat (rattus rattus) in classical antiquity and medieval Europe. These new data, in conjunction with extant texts from these periods, make a great contribution to the understanding of the bubonic plagues of the sixth and the fourteenth centuries, as well as to the history of the communications and economic systems linking the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. The study of ancient rats and their colonization extends the temporal and geographical groundwork for a fully historical global ecology.

The Geohistory of Fernand Braudel

1950 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melvin M. Knight
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Temporal Field ◽  
Fernand Braudel

Any historian feels free to shift, enlarge, or contract his spatial or temporal field of attention, but the building of formal conceptions of time and space as flexible is something else. Fernand Braudel's recent book contains many revisions of judgment concerning the economic history of the centuries it treats, and also a way of handling space and time that gives the volume theoretical as well as historical interest. In his title, “the Mediterranean” refers to the region as well as to the sea. His “Mediterranean world” includes various outside areas, some remote, that have been related to the region by the activities of man in society. Peripheral mountains and deserts, for example, are considered in much detail, and four historic corridors (he calls them isthmuses) to northern waters are formally discussed. His “Epoch of Philip II” is in the first third of the book hardly a temporal “home port”; it is touched more frequently in Part II and is much used in the final section.

A Note on the Embassy of Q. Marcius Philippus, 172 B.C.

1941 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 82-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. W. Walbank
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean

Fifty years separated the Declaration of Corinth in 196 and the destruction of Corinth in 146, two milestones in the history of Graeco-Roman relations. Exactly midway between these two events comes the embassy of Q. Marcius Philippus, notorious for a piece of sharp practice which aroused the compunction of a section of the Roman Senate itself, and as the prelude to a war regarded by many in Greece as the first step in a policy which was to end in the ruin of two of the greatest cities of the Mediterranean world. The object of the following note is to examine in some detail the date and purpose of this embassy.

The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries

1980 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Reid
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The World ◽  
Principal Source ◽  
International Trading ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The One ◽  
Trading Routes ◽  
Vital Factor

Maritime Southeast Asia is one of those parts of the world destined by geography to be an international marketplace. Not only is it the largest of the world's archipelagos, penetrated throughout by sea and river, it also lies athwart one of the major international trading routes, between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean on the one hand and China and Japan on the other. These factors have always given to maritime Southeast Asia a role akin to the Mediterranean world, in which sea-borne trade was the vital factor in urban growth and in political power. In addition, however, Southeast Asia was the principal source of the items in greatest demand in the world's markets in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and camphor.

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