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Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of Ancient Civilizations

Projects & Collaborations

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EGRAPSA: Retracing the evolutions of handwritings in Greco-Roman Egypt thanks to digital palaeography

Research Project  | 4 Project Members

Papyri preserved by the dry climate of Egypt are an unparalleled source of information on the Ancient World. Around 80,000 papyri written in ancient Greek have already been published, covering a millennium between the time of Alexander the Great and the Arab conquest of Egypt (end of 4th c. BCE to early 8th c. CE). However, their large number, their diversity and their current dispersion have impeded a comprehensive grasp of their nature and content. In particular, palaeography, as the study of handwritings that has the potential to unveil who, where and when a text has been written, still relies on experts' assertions which rarely reach consensus. New technological advances in Computer Science allow now building the big picture of the writing culture of Greco-Roman Egypt and developing scientific analyses of scripts. The goal of EGRAPSA project (literally "I have written" in Ancient Greek) is to provide a new theoretical framework to the palaeography of Greek papyri. Starting from sound evidence, it aims at retracing the evolutions of handwritings, generating a model that, in turn, can contribute at organizing the papyrological documentation in a coherent panorama, improving the solidity of dates and writer identifications made on palaeographical grounds. The ground-breaking dimension of the project is not only in its scope that encompasses the entire papyrological documentation in its complexity, and in its conceptual approach to make sense of the plurality of scripts by discerning evolution phenomena but also in its methodological choice to measure similarities and explain evolutions by focusing on the reconstruction of the dynamics of writing, thus to literally re-trace handwritings.

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The Albanian Language in Antiquity

Research Project  | 4 Project Members

Within the Indo-European language family, to which most of the languages of Europe belong, Albanian forms a branch of its own. Along with Greek and the Romance languages, Albanian is the only direct descendant of those languages spoken in the Balkans in ancient times. Content and aim of the research project Albanian has only been known from written sources since the 16th century AD. Therefore, we do not know exactly what the language looked like in ancient times and in the early Middle Ages. It is also disputed in which region of the Balkans the precursor of Albanian, called Proto-Albanian, was spoken. Our project tries to find an answer to the questions of what the precursor of the Albanian language looked like between 1500 and 2000 years ago, and where this precursor was spoken. This can only be answered indirectly. The linguistic-historical comparison of words and the grammar of Albanian with other related languages allows certain conclusions about the earlier linguistic state of Albanian. In addition, the project is investigating the extensive ancient Greek and Latin vocabulary that Proto-Albanian borrowed, as well as the Proto-Albanian words that were incorporated into early Romanian. This will also allow us to determine the shape of Proto-Albanian more precisely. Scientific and social context The project aims first and foremost at the linguistic and cultural history of Albanian. The results will also be relevant for Greek, Latin, Romance and Indo-European linguistics. Furthermore, our results will contribute to a more balanced linguistic and cultural history of the Balkan Peninsula.

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Au-delà du texte. Les nouvelles compositions funéraires d'époque gréco-romaine : textualité et archéologie à Thèbes

Research Project  | 5 Project Members

L'Égypte ancienne nous a légué une littérature funéraire extrêmement riche, dont le fameux Livre des morts constitue un exemple connu de tous. L'époque ptolémaïque (332-30 av. J.-C.) voit l'émergence de nouvelles compositions funéraires aux contenus et aux formats variés qui vont progressivement supplanter ce célèbre compendium. Ce projet propose une étude globale de ce phénomène en offrant une connaissance approfondie et contextualisée de cette littérature émergente, récipiendaire d'un usage millénaire et élément d'une tradition reformulée. Contenu et objectifs du travail de recherche Ce projet propose d'analyser l'évolution des compositions funéraires émergentes au travers de leurs exemplaires et d'étudier la transmission de ces textes pour l'appréhender au travers de la notion de tradition (re)productive. Les recherches porteront notamment sur les rapports régissant les versions longues et abrégées d'une même composition et l'élaboration de documents dérivés ou composites en essayant d'expliquer les processus de dé-formalisation et de re-formalisation de la textualité. Bien que leur origine exacte demeure le plus souvent méconnue, ces nouveaux témoins sont réputés provenir de Thèbes, ce qui incite à considérer le rôle particulier de cette région dont le projet entend exploiter les caractéristiques archéologiques et religieuses afin d'inscrire cette documentation au sein des pratiques funéraires locales et de prendre en considération l'influence des cultes voisins. Les recherches se concentreront par ailleurs sur les bénéficiaires de ces compositions, en tant qu'individus et groupes, afin de mettre en évidence les facteurs socio-culturels qui ont favorisé l'émergence, puis façonné l'évolution de cette littérature. Ces travaux replaceront de ce fait les compositions funéraires émergentes au cœur des préoccupations des vivants et des mutations socio-culturelles qui ont modelé la région thébaine durant l'époque ptolémaïque et romaine. Contexte scientifique et social du projet de recherche Alliant sources textuelles et archéologiques, ce projet développe des outils d'analyse philologiques et linguistiques et met en œuvre des méthodes propres à l'archéologie et à l'iconographie pour contextualiser l'écrit, tandis qu'une approche prosopographique l'inscrira dans son époque. Ce projet intègre donc de manière interdisciplinaire la littérature et les pratiques funéraires thébaines dans l'histoire d'une Égypte gréco-romaine désormais multiculturelle, contribuant non seulement à l'histoire des religions mais aussi à celle du dialogue interculturel.

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Antinoopolis: an Urban Biography of the Roman and Late Antique Worlds

Research Project  | 1 Project Members

The project aims to integrate textual and material data and develop new digital tools to bring back into life the sights and smells of Antinoopolis, a city from ancient Egypt in the Roman and late antique periods. By ancient historical standards, the evidence for this city is voluminous, with more than one thousand texts-inscriptions and texts from the manuscript tradition as well as papyri. Besides, continuing archaeological excavations at Antinoopolis make it one of the currently most prolific sites for Greco-Roman and Byzantine Egypt. In this documentation, the late antique data hold pride of place, with great potential for historical analysis in the longue durée . Cities and their people, from the Pharaonic to Islamic periods, have often been considered cogs and gears in the administration of Egypt and denied meaningful agency in the country's long-term evolution. At a series of workshops and international conferences, the project team will analyze the parameters for urban development in Roman and late antique Egypt so as to reverse this general perspective. More specifically, the PI will write an "urban biography" of an important site, in which all the available evidence will be brought to bear on broader questions of political, economic, cultural, and religious change-beyond the theme of the classical city's demise in Late Antiquity. In addition to a book monograph, peer-reviewed articles, and edited volumes, the tools for the integration, analysis, and visualization of the data pertaining to people-digital urban prosopography-and places-a GIS platform for the contextualization and interpretation of archaeological data-will make the results of the project easily searchable and widely accessible. Virtual exhibitions hosted on the project's homepage will finally expose the broader public to two fascinating aspects of the project: the history of excavations at Antinoopolis and schools and literacy in the cities of late antique Egypt.

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Climate Science & Ancient History Lab

Research Project  | 1 Project Members

The Basel Climate Science and Ancient History Lab is a pioneering interdisciplinary collaboration between ancient historians and climate scientists and bridges the traditional gap between the natural sciences and the humanities. Climate science has started to expand the spectrum of historical evidence to an extent inconceivable just a few years ago. The time is ripe to make use of this new evidence for elucidating the Graeco-Roman world whose study has relied so far largely on the written and archaeological record. The combined analysis of various materials promises an entirely new perspective on the ancient Mediterranean: paleoclimate archives literary sources biological evidence archaeological remains coins papyri Compared with most parts of the world, the Mediterranean region offers a wealth of natural proxies including lake sediments, speleothems, and many more that resolve parts of the past hydrological cycle, historical, and archaeological evidence. Egypt in particular provides a unique historical laboratory in which to study social vulnerability and responses to abrupt hydroclimatic change based on historical evidence, including Nile flooding data. The climate conditions may be caused by the influence of external factors, such as changes in solar and volcanic activities, or by purely internal variations in oceanic and atmospheric circulation. By using novel palaeoclimate model simulations in tandem with hydroclimate reconstructions climate variability and climate change can be connected to economic, social, and political transformations. The interaction between climate change, environmental stress, and socio-political systems is increasingly attracting the interest of the scientific community and the general public, as contemporary concerns about global warming grow. Climatic fluctuations are rarely the only contributor to major societal collapse, but they can impact political structures, economic relationships, and cultural habits to varying degrees. Historical and scientific analytical and quantification techniques and statistical applications can be used to understand causes and effects and to link socio-economic developments to climate and environmental changes.

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University of Basel Kings' Valley Project

Research Project  | 1 Project Members

The University of Basel Kings' Valley Project investigates a number of undecorated tombs in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt. The tombs can be dated to the 18 th Dynasty (14 th century BCE) and were conceived for members of the royal family and entourage. The subterranean shaft tombs are mostly documented for the first time and the archaeological remains (fragments of the funerary equipment, coffins, cartonnages, textiles, pottery as well as human remains) are analysed. The focus lies on the reconstruction of the social group buried in the royal necropolis, in the dating of the different burials, and the cultural and material analysis of burial equipment. A second part of the project is dedicated to the documentation and identification and relocation of some 8000 fragments of wall decoration from the tomb of pharaoh Seti I st (KV 17, 19 th Dynasty, 13 th century BCE). The aim of the project is the virtual and physical reconstruction of the tomb in its final stage of decoration as well as in an earlier phase preceding ancient architectural modifications.