The Middle East as Middle Ground? Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Middle East revisited

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The Middle East as Middle Ground? Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Middle East revisited

Organizer
Dr. Julia Hoffmann-Salz, Historisches Institut, Abt. Alte Geschichte, Universität zu Köln
Venue
Schloss Wahn, Burgallee 2, 51175 Köln
Location
Köln
Country
Germany
From - Until
27.04.2017 - 28.04.2017
Deadline
27.04.2017
Website
https://blog.uni-koeln.de/middleeastasmiddleground/home/
By
Julia Hoffmann-Salz

The Middle East has always been a meeting point of different cultures, empires and peoples. Particularly for classical antiquity, this interaction has long been at the center of academic research.
The impact of “alien” cultures like the Roman or Hellenistic ones after the conquest of a region by a Hellenistic Empire or the Roman Empire has been much studied. At least since the 1970s when groundbreaking studies like M. Benabou’s “La résistance africaine à la romanisation” (Paris 1976) appeared, the focus shifted from highlighting the various ways in which native societies took over Hellenistic or Roman costumes, building traditions, gods etc. to how they also preserved their own native inheritance.
This has lead to two schools in scholarship - those who discuss the phenomena of Hellenisation, Romanisation and Acculturation and those who look more at local identities and how they were preserved under the new veneer. Due to the nature of the evidence, these local identities have mostly been traced in religion and architecture or art.
Several recent studies offer a third approach where the various forms of adaptation of Hellenistic or Roman elements by local communities are understood as non-exclusive, that is to say as conscious decisions incorporation new forms into old meanings. This “polymorphism”- approach wants to stress different layers of meanings of cultural forms such as dress or architecture and their adaptability to both an indigenous and a Hellenistic/Roman setting.
The conference aims at bringing together specialists from a variety of fields within ancient studies – epigraphy, archaeology, ancient history, religious studies etc. – to discuss how these various approaches describing cultural interaction could be brought together.

Programm

Thursday, 27th April 2017

13.00h
Opening Statement

Section 1: „Visual“ Middle Ground

13.15h
Achim Lichtenberger, Münster: Die hellenistischen Münzen Syriens und Phöniziens
13.50h
Peter Mittag, Köln: Seleukidisches auf den postseleukidischen Münzen Mesopotamiens
14.25h
Anne Sartre-Fauriat, Tours : Proche-Orient: une épigraphie pour écrire l'Histoire

15.00h
Coffee Break

15.30h
Bettina Fischer-Genz, Berlin: "Where and When - the changes in rural settlement patterns in the Beqaa valley at the beginning of the Roman period"

Section 2: What the Gods have to do with it

16.05h
Rubina Raja, Aarhus: Negotiating social and cultural interaction through priesthoods. The iconography of priesthood in Palmyra
16.40h
David Graf, Miami: The Nabataean Ruler Cult and Ptolemaic Egypt
17.15h
Ted Kaizer, Durham: Pagans, Jews and Christians in Dura-Europos: questions regarding religious interaction in a provincial small town

18.30h
Dinner with the Speakers

Friday, 28th April 2017

Section 3: Successor States - Interaction or Conflict

9.00h
Edward Dąbrowa, Krakau: Origins and function of Hellenistic patterns in the Hasmonean kingship
9.35h
Julia Hoffmann-Salz, Köln: The Itureans as a Hellenistic Dynasty
10.10h
Lucinda Dirven, Amsterdam: Hatra and Rome. Cultural interaction versus political conflict

10.45h
Coffee break

Section 4: Cities, Communities and the negotiation of power

11.05h
Corinne Bonnet, Toulouse : La place et le rôle de l’agôn dans le middle ground phénicien à l’époque hellénistique et romaine
11.40h
Katharina Knäpper, Wien: Die Seleukiden im Umgang mit den Asyliegesuchen kleinasiatischer Städte. Facetten zwischen königlichem Euergetismus und Mediation

12.15h
Lunch Break

13.15h
Paul Newson, Beirut: Hybridization and non-hybridization: socio-cultural interactions of the Graeco-Roman Bekaa.
13.50h
Hannah Cotton, Jerusalem: Back to the Nomos Hellenikos in the Papyri from the Judaean Desert, and the concept of eleuthera in them

Section 5: The Middle Ground and the long durée

14.25h
Sabine Müller, Marburg: Lukian von Samosata und das hellenistische Erbe
15.00h
David Engels, Brüssel: Hellenisierung, Iranisierung, Arabisierung und Sinisierung - Überlegungen zum Konzept des Kulturtransfers in den Kulturen der Vormoderne

15.35h
Closing Discussion

16.00h
End of Conference

Contact (announcement)

Julia Hoffmann-Salz

Historisches Institut, Abt. Alte Geschichte
Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Köln

julia.hoffmann-salz@uni-koeln.de

https://blog.uni-koeln.de/middleeastasmiddleground/home/