930 Geschichte des Altertums bis ca. 499, Archäologie
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This paper describes the ongoing efforts of the authors to present ancient Greek and Roman numismatic data on the public internet, with an emphasis on efforts to integrate information from multiple sources using Linked Data and Semantic Web techniques. By way of very modern metaphor, it is useful to think of coins as intentionally created packages of 'named entities'. Each coin was struck by a particular authority, often at a known site, and coins often make reference to familiar concepts such as deities, historical events, or symbols that were widely recognized in the ancient world. The institutions represented among the authors have deployed search interfaces that allow users to take advantage of this aspect of numismatic databases. The American Numismatic Society's database provides faceted search to its collection of over 550,000 objects. The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) in the UK presents individual finds (and hoards) recorded throughout the country. The Römisch-Germanische Kommission and the University of Frankfurt (DBIS) are developing a prototype metaportal (INTERFACE) that accesses national databases of coin finds held in in Frankfurt, Vienna and Utrecht. Each of these resources is beginning to explore Semantic Web/Linked data approaches so that the role of numismatic standards is immediately coming to the fore. DBIS and INTERFACE are developing a numismatic ontology. At the ANS and PAS, the public database already presents RDF serializations based on Dublin Core. Together, the authors have begun to explore standardization of conceptual names on the basis of the vocabulary presented at the site http://nomisma.org . Nomisma.org is a collaborative effort to provide stable digital representations of numismatic concepts and entities. It provides URIs for such basic concepts as 'coin', 'mint', 'axis'. All of these are defined within the scope of numismatics but are already being linked to other stable resources where available. This is particularly the case for mints. For example, the URI http://nomisma.org/id/corinth is intended to represent that ancient city in its role as a minter/issuer of coins. The URI is linked via the SKOS ontology to the Pleiades Gazetteer of ancient places. This allows Nomisma to be the basis for a common representation of the concept that an object is a coin minted at Corinth. The ANS has already deployed such relationships in its public database. The work of all these projects is very much in progress so that this paper hopes to generate discussion on how multiple large projects can move forward in their own work while encouraging sufficient commonality to support large scale research questions undertaken by diverse audiences.
Earliest expansion of animal husbandry beyond the Mediterranean zone in the sixth millennium BC
(2017)
Since their domestication in the Mediterranean zone of Southwest Asia in the eighth millennium BC, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle have been remarkably successful in colonizing a broad variety of environments. The initial steps in this process can be traced back to the dispersal of farming groups into the interior of the Balkans in the early sixth millennium BC, who were the first to introduce Mediterranean livestock beyond its natural climatic range. Here, we combine analysis of biomolecular and isotopic compositions of lipids preserved in prehistoric pottery with faunal analyses of taxonomic composition from the earliest farming sites in southeast Europe to reconstruct this pivotal event in the early history of animal husbandry. We observe a marked divergence between the (sub)Mediterranean and temperate regions of Southeast Europe, and in particular a significant increase of dairying in the biochemical record coupled with a shift to cattle and wild fauna at most sites north of the Balkan mountain range. The findings strongly suggest that dairying was crucial for the expansion of the earliest farming system beyond its native bioclimatic zone.
Until recently the Nigerian Nok Culture had primarily been known for its terracotta sculptures and the existence of iron metallurgy, providing some of the earliest evidence for artistic sculpting and iron working in sub-Saharan Africa. Research was resumed in 2005 to understand the Nok Culture phenomenon, employing a holistic approach in which the sculptures and iron metallurgy remain central, but which likewise covers other archaeological aspects including chronology, settlement patterns, economy, and the environment as key research themes. In the beginning of this endeavour the development of social complexity during the duration of the Nok Culture constituted a focal point. However, after nearly ten years of research and an abundance of new data the initial hypothesis can no longer be maintained. Rather than attributes of social complexity like signs of inequality, hierarchy, nucleation of settlement systems, communal and public monuments, or alternative African versions of complexity discussed in recent years, it has become apparent that the Nok Culture, no matter which concept is followed, developed complexity only in terms of ritual. Relevant information and arguments for the transition of the theoretical background are provided here.
Rezension zu: H.-M. von Kaenel and F. Kemmers (eds.). 2009. Coins in Context I: New Perspectives for the Interpretation of Coin Finds. Studien zu Fundmünzen der Antike 23 (Mainz: von Zabern).
Responding to studies on prejudice in the Greco-Roman world, E. Gruen argues that Greeks and Romans had more nuanced and complex opinions about foreigners than often recognized. G. observes that the Greek and Romans could discover or invent links with these other societies through cultural appropriations of the past. These connections, G. contends, show that the Greeks and Romans cannot be ‘blanketed’ with xenophobia, ethnocentrism, and “let alone racism” (p. 3). G. argues that the Greeks and Romans were more interested in drawing connections with the other through cultural appropriation. G. contends that this approach reveals a positive outlook which does not reject or degrade the foreign other.
“Shades” of Postmortem Personal Identity: ψυχή καὶ εἴδωλον in the Dream Passage (Il. 23.103-104)
(2013)
In a recent contribution entitled, “Homer’s Challenge to Philosophical Psychology,” Fred Miller proposes an “aporetic approach” to the Homeric poems. That is to say, a close reading of the epics reveals “serious aporiai,” at least insofar as philosophical consistency is concerned. Homeric readers, ancient and modern alike, have found irreconcilably-different answers to our perennial questions about humanity and divinity, fate and free will. To his credit, Miller rightly relieves Homer of an undue burden – viz., that of addressing the philosophical problems of later generations. “The analysis of concepts and the resolution of aporiai”: these are, as Miller notes, definitively not the priorities of an epic bard. Instead, such poets, working freely within the parameters of their oral traditions, understandably use language in ways not strictly-philosophical. Ultimately, Miller wants to argue that the ambiguities of Homer’s poetic language hastened Greece’s philosophical awakening...
It has become increasingly apparent over the last decades that cooking pottery played a considerable role as a trade commodity in ancient times, yet relatively little research has yet been done on this topic for its own sake. By taking a closer look at the cooking pottery found in Priene, a small city in southern Ionia re-founded in the middle of the 4th century BCE, we want to trace some of the broader developments within the cooking wares that were used over a period of roughly 300 years. The aim is not only to outline the general shapes that were in use over this period of time, but also to register if and how these shapes correlate with the different fabrics observed in Priene so far.
Buff, red, grey – these are common descriptions of pottery in archaeology. Colour is usually part of the recording of ceramic data, but these data are rarely used for more than the most general characterisation of pottery. Despite hesitations concerning the subjective nature of these observations and other factors involved in colour notation, is has been shown that the data can lead the way to broader interpretations, and careful recording with a standardised system such as the Munsell colour charts may reduce the effects of personal perception. A sample of colour notations of pottery from Tell Mozan, Syria, is presented here as an example of the possibilities; it is hoped that this study will provide comparative data for other sites in the region.
"Shades" of postmortem personal identity : ψυχή καὶ εἴδωλον in the dream passage (Il. 23.103-104)
(2013)
The paper focuses on the problems of a juridical classification and evaluation of Ancient Near Eastern treaties with regard to the question if there existed an Ancient Near Eastern International Law or not. Alternatively treaties and their content are looked at uncommitted as mechanisms of conflict and dispute resolution. Main aspects are preliminary and prophylactic conflict resolution in treaties and the procedural context and efficiency of treaties.
The goals of this exercise are essentially threefold: (1) to rescrutinize, archaeologically, epigraphically and linguistically, the pre-Roman inscriptions of the justly famous Negau A and B helmets, (2) to identify "eastward graphemic drift" in preRoman northern Italy and (3) to reconsider and perhaps identify the origin of the Germanic runes in light of (1) and (2). While moving toward these goals, we cite but a sampling of the burgeoning literature, some of which may not be generally known or easily accessible, in these rapidly expanding venues; see Ellis (1998) for a recent overview in English.
Several types of symbolic weapons are portrayed in the hands of divinities on the most diverse artistic works of the third millennium, such as maces or sceptres, daggers, spears. hows and arrows. There is also a weapon which has a form similar to a sickle. Data referring to it may be found - in addition to the representations - in written sources. We learn from the Cy1. «A» of Gudea that the king, the en-priest of Ningirsu, was the first to reach the cedar mountains and fell the cedars with his big axe. He then made the SAR.UR, the «Floodstorm Weapon» of his god, the right hand of Lagas. The inscription of statue «B» tells us the Same. When Gudea built the temple of Ningirsu, the god aided him in reaching the cedar mountains from which he took gigantic logs to make a weapon for his god: the SAR.UR, having the power ofa flood storm and the SAR.GAZ, a mace with seven copper knobs.
This study is part of a larger work whose aim is to examine the historical significance of the tens of thousands of Islamic silver coins or dirhams which appeared in Eastern Europe during the pre-Mongol era. The first part of this work explored the questions of when and how dirhams first reached European Russia. Very briefly, this initial study led to the following conclusions: 1. Dirhams first reached Eastern Europe about 800 A.D., as R. Fasmer (Vasmer) argued a half-century ago. 2. The earliest dirham hoards from Eastern Europe are almost identical in composition with contemporaneous Near Eastern hoards (both contain a predominance of 'Abbasid coins struck after 769 in Iraq and North Africa). This suggests that the earliest Eastern-European hoards were composed from the Near-Eastern coin stock of the time. 3. The earliest dirham hoards from Eastern Europe are completely different in composition from the contemporaneous hoards found in Transoxiana indicating that the earliest dirhams to reach Eastern Europe did not come via Central Asia. 4. An analysis of the early Caucasian dirham hoards revealed that the composition of some of these hoards differs from that of Eastern-European and Near-Eastern hoards in that the Caucasian hoards contain a higher percentage of dirhams from South-Caucasian mints and a lesser percentage of coins from North-African mints. This suggests that these hoards were composed of dirhams imported from the Near East which had circulated in the Southern Caucasus for some time before being deposited. 5. Other early dirham hoards from the Caucasus, however, are very similar in composition to contemporaneous Near-Eastern and Eastern-European dirham hoards. This suggests that these hoards were composed of coins which were apparently being transported to Eastern Europe from the Near East and were buried accidentally while in route through the Caucasus. In short, the first segment of this research concluded that dirhams began to reach Eastern Europe around the year 800 and that they were imported by the Caucasus or Caspian route from the Near East. The purpose of this study is to investigate the historical circumstances which would explain why dirhams were first brought by the Caucasus or Caspian route to Eastern Europe in the early ninth century. It is pertinent to note that, to the best of my knowledge"no one has yet addressed this fundamental question in any depth. Consequently, in discussing this issue, it is not our intention to claim that the thesis which will be put forward is irrefutable or that no other thesis could explain the available data. Rather, the objective is to raise the question of why dirhams first reached Eastern Europe around 800 A.D. by the Caucasus-Caspian route and to suggest a possible solution. This study should thus be considered as the presentation of a working hypothesis which will hopefully inspire others to examine a basic question of medieval Eurasian history which has been too long ignored.