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.

With this paper, we present exemplary results of the Topoi A-6-6 Project „The economic landscape of the Hellenistic, Roman and Late Antique Bithynia. Iznik intensive survey project“ (2013–2016), focusing on the hinterland of Nikaia/Nicaea/Iznik during the Hellenistic, Roman and Late Antique periods. For this study we used a body of integrated landscape archaeological methods including remote sensing techniques, archaeomorphological analysis, and extensive and intensive fieldwork in test areas, as well as GIS-based mapping and spatial analysis.

This article discusses how classical studies can use the concept of heterotopia to analyze both physical and imagined spaces in ancient civilizations. Michel Foucault has adopted the notion of heterotopia to refer to spaces and places that exist in reality, but are strikingly different from the surrounding space and reflect, negate and invert it. First, Foucault’s criteria for such other spaces are presented, and the concept of heterotopia is critically discussed before applications in ancient studies are outlined. Finally it is shown, as an example, how Foucault’s approach can help to understand the ideology and practice of ascetic monasticism in the Greek East in Late Antiquity.

Interest in the analysis of the legislation governing water use and distribution in al-Andalus is evident among scholars due to two facts: the coexistence of different legal systems and the implementation of a casuistic system of law. It deals with concepts such as responsibility and participation in water management and the conservation of water. This research is an analysis focused on justifying the roots of the Andalusi irrigation system that were grounded in Mudejar legal sources, which themselves were based on the Andalusi and Arabic sources applied in al-Andalus during the 8–17th centuries and beyond. The explanation of the irrigation system methodology concerns the migration from different territories, which allowed the implementation of new hydraulic facilities and, as a result, a new system of distribution and rational utilisation of water. Now is the right time to explain the contents of the water law enforced in the Iberian Peninsula over the centuries, thanks to the knowledge of case law from the Syrians, Egyptians, Tunisians of Qayrawan, and kadis of Ceuta whom were considered technicians in terms of hisba; a matter directly linked with water supply.

In this paper, I briefly elaborate on the differences between two notions of third space, one rooted in postcolonial theory, the other in Marxist geography. Marxist geography is concerned with the production of antagonistic spatialities. I use this idea to analyze various notions of space of and in the Iranian Iron Age polity of the Medes. The main issue is the interpretation of “squatting” habitations at the two sites of Tepe Nush-i Jan and Godin Tepe. I argue that the flimsy walls set into the massive architecture of earlier levels are a sign of tensions over conflictual spatialities.

In diesem Artikel wird ein mathematisches Modell entwickelt für die Ausbreitung des Wollschafs unter Hirten im Nahen Osten und in Südosteuropa zwischen 6200 und 4200 v. Chr. In unserem Modell werden Hirten als Agenten betrachtet, deren Bewegungen durch Zufallsprozesse gesteuert werden, sodass sich die Agenten mit größerer Wahrscheinlichkeit in Regionen aufhalten, die attraktiv für die Schafhaltung sind. Das Modell berücksichtigt außerdem soziale Interaktionen zwischen Agenten und erlaubt die Weitergabe der Innovation zwischen Agenten mit einer bestimmten Wahrscheinlichkeit. Die Parameter des agentenbasierten Modells werden an die verfügbaren archäologischen Daten angepasst. Ein Simulationsverfahren für die räumliche und zeitliche Entwicklung des Ausbreitungsprozesses soll es ermöglichen, qualitative Effekte von verschiedenen Aspekten zu studieren, die den Ausbreitungsprozess beeinflussen.

This paper discusses the notions of sleeping and waking metaphors, activation of metaphoricity and deliberate metaphor use in the poem of Parmenides of Elea. I analyse certain metaphors in Parmenides’ text, which I understand as linguistic realizations of the conceptual metaphor an argument defines a path. I show that these are sleeping metaphors, and that Parmenides woke them up at the outset of his philosophical discourse. By identifying rhetorical devices which indicate Parmenides’ deliberateness when activating sleeping metaphors, I show to what extent and to what goals deliberate metaphors are powerful tools in Parmenides’ philosophical discourse.

Only one case of an unfinished ancient sundial can be found in the scientific literature. Found on the Greek island of Delos, it was first reported in 1938, although the sundial was then later considered lost. In our campaign of October 2012, we rediscovered the sundial. Using new and elaborate techniques, we created a 3D model of the sundial, which has enabled us to answer questions concerning its construction principles and the manufacturing processes used. Our first evaluation has revealed that, initially, its creators had intended to construct a cut conical sundial. Its discovery next to a workshop suggests that the sundial was left there in its unfinished state on the destruction of the island’s main town.

Images on Greek coins serve as a means of identifying the sights and inhabitants of the city-states that minted them. The reproduction of spaces and places in face design is an interesting phenomenon: alongside actually existing places, face design also depicts imaginary spatial structures representative of the city that issued the coins. This study shows, within the scope of a collection of artifacts, which spatial configurations were portrayed on archaic and classical Greek coins, and why these were chosen to characterize and represent their respective cities. Widely dispersed geographically and produced in rapid succession, Greek coins, more than almost any other art form, present an excellent opportunity for a visual-studies analysis of the representation of space and spatiality in antiquity.

Das südöstliche Siebenstromland in Kasachstan ist reich an Hinterlassenschaften der reiterkriegernomadischen skytho-sakischen Kulturverbände des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr. Vor allem sind sie durch Gräberfelder mit mächtigen Großkurganen bekannt. Eine Kartierung der Nekropolen erlaubte es bestimmte Landschaftsmarker festzustellen, die eine führende Rolle bei der Errichtung ritueller Plätze der früheisenzeitlichen sakischen Elite spielten, die gleichzeitig als zentrale Orte des kollektiven Gedächtnisses und der kulturellen Selbstidentifikation der Saken galten. Die Untersuchung sowohl der internen Struktur der Gräberfelder als auch der Kurganenform und ihrer Peripherie zeigte bestimmte architektonische Muster auf, die einerseits verschiedene rituelle Handlungen repräsentierten und andererseits eine mögliche soziale Stratigraphie der sakischen Gesellschaft zum Ausdruck brachte. Es konnten zudem zahlreiche, wahrscheinlich gleichzeitig zu den sakischen Nekropolen bestehende Siedlungsplätze erkannt werden. Die Siedlungen hatten in unterschiedlichen Gebieten des Untersuchungsgebietes verschiedene Rollen und zeugen von verschiedenen Wirtschaftsformen, die vom sesshaften Ackerbau bis zur nomadisch betriebenen Viehzucht reichen. Die Erforschung der vorangehenden Bronzezeit im 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr., die im Untersuchungsgebiet durch die sog. Kul’saj-Gruppe repräsentiert ist, hilft den Kulturwandel von der Bronze- zur Früheisenzeit besser nachzuzeichnen.