Accepting Globalisation means accepting diffusion, but globalisation has much to offer archaeologists, i.a. a monopoly on the sources of information for the early history and nature of globalisation. Beyond that, the elementary units of globalisation are not the states and boundaries we cannot find, but rather the cultures and civilisations we do and thus, there is less of a methodological confrontation with theory. Furthermore, globalisation offers a different approach to questions of economics which vex archaeological research. Approaching history from this vantage point allows a clearer means of structuring our understanding of history by combining cognitive, political, economic, social and cultural elements relating to identity and exchange to organise spatial and temporal groupings.

Der hier thematisierte Ansatz des Cityscaping bestimmt für die Analyse antiker Städte das Zusammenspiel aus normativen städtischen Mustern sowie dem Wirken unterschiedlicher Akteursgruppen mit ihren wirtschaftlichen, politischen und religiösen Interessen. Er fragt nach den daraus resultierenden baulichen bzw. performativen Raumformungsmechanismen, welche sich oft als Aushandlungsprozess oder Kampf um städtische Räume manifestierten. Die Impulse für aktuelle Debatten liegen in der Verbindung des Blicks auf städtische Eigenlogiken mit der Berücksichtigung von städtischen Netzwerken als Impulsgeber für urbanistische Entwicklung wie die Übernahme kultureller Muster gleichermaßen, was Städtevergleiche ermöglicht. Anliegen ist die präzisere Bestimmung der Bedeutung antiker Städte für die Geschichte der Stadt.

This article focuses on theories and discourses in cultural studies that deal with the concept and phenomenon of memory and analyzes the relevance of such content for professional discussions in ancient studies and the preservation of monuments. Using examples of my own and “borrowed” examples from others, I seek to show how the concepts from sociologist Maurice Halbwachs and historian Pierre Nora have an especially fruitful effect on our research and can generate new associations. I begin my observations at a natural temporal and spatial starting point: a historicist church interior in Berlin. The focus then moves to the medieval-looking Wartburg Castle, in Eisenach, and the western facade of the Metz Cathedral, concluding with the “ancient” ruins of Didyma and Pompeii.

The essay proposes the term ‘topopoetics’ in order to explain how cultural meanings, ideas and topoi originating in classical antiquity change and are transformed in and by artefacts. The artefacts under consideration are especially, but not exclusively, textual ones; they tend to unfold their topological dimensions by means of allegorical procedures. The contribution exemplifies the workings of topopoetics in early modernity by discussing central devices in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Richard Crashaw’s poetry and the front matter of Kepler’s Rudolphine Tables.

Hellenistic scholars have been the first to link the geographical description of the known world with a mathematical investigation of the terrestrial sphere. The definition of mathematical concepts devoted to geography and cartography – meridians and parallels, geographical coordinates for example – enabled the development of a specific branch of geographical knowledge. Already in the second century CE, Ptolemy was able to produce maps based on the latitude and the longitude of localities. Compared to more traditional literary geography, mathematical geography did not arise a strong interest among scholars of the Roman and Byzantine periods. This has incited modern historians to impute a global disregard for mathematical sciences to the “Roman geography”.

Space and landscape are central terms in the investigation of past societies and their interrelationship with the environment. However, even though these terms are so central, their definition is ambiguous what hinders a successful communication of research results and an open discussion. In this contribution we sketch the historical development of the understanding of space and landscape. Based on this summary we propose to think of these terms inclusively by integrating four different viewpoints on space, i.e. space as container, space as system of relations and connections, space as product of human perception, and space as construct. We employ our integrative viewpoint by developing different research questions for a holistic analysis of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic archaeological site Göbekli Tepe.

This paper focusses on concepts of space and ritual in Ancient Near Eastern visual art. Two very different types of visual media are confronted: representations on cylinder seals from the third and second millennium BC and reliefs from the palace of the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, from the 7th century BC. Both media are a rewarding source for reconstructing ancient Mesopotamian spatial cognition and its realistic practice which goes beyond the efficacy of textual records. Within the imagery of ritual scenes on cylinder seals, strategies of self-assertion by members of society who are not royals can be observed. Contrary, within the visual narrative of the royal lion hunt on Assyrian palace reliefs, the mythological perception of space is effortfully blended with geopolitical and economic interests.