Numinous Archivist

Master's Student in Religious Studies with an insatiable hunger for knowledge | Main Interests: ancient Greek and Roman religions - Specialization: Greco-Roman Mystery Cult of Isis [still learning]

[numinous-archives]

Welcome to my Tumblr!

About me

Master's student in Religious Studies

Studying to become a teacher in History and Religion, and maybe a professor in the future

Written a 6000-word Bachelor's thesis (about Ancestor Worship in Shang and Roman religions)

Writing a Master's thesis (about Isaic temple iconography and imperial themes under Roman/Augustan EgyptI

I'm Interested in history of religion in the ancient world, mainly ancient Greek and Roman religions, special interests for Near Eastern cross-cultural interactions

I write on Substack where I share ideas about my academic interests

What to expect from me and my blog:

Studyblr content, especially relating to my academic interests

Love for the Humanities (and Social Sciences)

History & Archaeology content - mostly Ancient History

Appreciation for Indigenous Religious Traditions

My undying love for Academic Literature (& References)

Here are some of my most recent Substack posts!

The Narrativization of Vergil's Aeneid: ''Arma Virumque Cano''

Brief Inquiries on Vergil's Aeneid, part 1

Ritualization of Grave Offerings and Spatialized Communication with the Manes in Ancient Roman Religion

A Brief Inquiry

Tomb of Fu Hao: A Spatialized Medium of Communication and Ancestral Veneration

Ritualization and Spatialization of Fu Hao's tomb in the context of Shang Ancestor Cult

Ancestor Cult in the Shang Dynasty: Ritualization of Offerings and Transactional Communication

Conceptualization of Communication with Ancestors in ancient Shang Religion through the Ritualization of Offerings

Funerary Offerings in the Roman Cult of the Manes: Regional Variations and Vernacular Manifestations

A Brief Inquiry in Light of Ovid's Fasti (II. 533-542)

[numinous-archives]

On Roman Religion and Multicultural Amalgamation(s)

A Brief Critical Inquiry

In ‘’Religions of Rome: Volume 1, A History‘’ Mary Beard, John North, & Simon Price (1998a, p. 12) states:

[…] Recent work, particularly in archaeology, has cast doubt on the idea of an early, uncontaminated, native strand of genuine Roman religion; and it has suggested that, rather than seeing pure Roman traditions gradually polluted from outside, Roman religion was an amalgam of different traditions from at least as far back as we can hope to go. Leaving aside its mythical prehistory, Roman religion was always already multicultural.

This tendency to absorb other cultures can even be identified in Rome’s founding myths when Romulus—according to Livy (in book 1 of Ab Urbe Condita) and Plutarch (about the Life of Romulus in Parallel Lives)—accepted people from diverse backgrounds (like slaves and fugitives) when the City was still new and growing, or even in Vergil’s Aeneid narrativizing a coherent linear structure of Aeneas escaping Troy and eventually founded Lavinium by intermingling with the local Latin population.

Like many ancient—and even modern—religious traditions, Roman religion was not static, it was always in motion beyond Rome’s pomerium, constantly adapting to its external conditions as Rome’s boundaries kept fluctuating—whether it was expanding, shrinking, or frozen—and intermingled with people of foreign soil and various cultures, even if that intermingling was through trade, diplomacy, and/or conquest.

Haruspicy; the Etruscan ritual practice of divination and reading omens by observing the entrails and liver of animal sacrificial offerings, and Haruspices; the Etruscan priests and ritual specialists, are good examples of the theme of cultural amalgamation in Roman religion. They were not acknowledged as ‘‘fully’’ Roman yet were significant in Roman religious life and tradition (Beard, North, Price, 1998b, p. 175).

In an attempt to understand foreign deities in the context of their own cosmology, Romans would interpret them in parallel with the deities in their own pantheon based on the characteristics they thought were similar. This process of translation is also known as interpretatio romana.

One example being Isis from Egypt whom the Greeks and Romans interpreted as Demeter/Ceres, Hera/Juno, Aphrodite/Venus, or Artemis/Diana. Isis was not only an Egyptian goddess who could be interpretated as Greek and Roman goddesses with similar characteristics, but she herself also had various epithets and manifestations. This reflects that Isis had a highly polysemous nature (Mazurek, 2022, p. 102). Furthermore, the epithets can vary based on specific contexts and characteristics. For example, Isis-Pelagia (of the sea) who was worshipped by sailors, or based on their proximity to another deity; for example, Isis-Fortuna which was a syncretic manifestation of both deities. Her polysemous nature made facilitated the diffusion of her cult. The presence of the Isaic Cult existed in the Ptolemaic Kingdom and even before the annexation of Egypt, her cult came to Italy around late 2nd century BCE where the earliest temples date around 105 BCE and her priesthood—college of pastophoroi—eventually formed in Rome around 80 BCE (Bowden, 2023, p. 193).

Another example being Kybele—a.k.a. Magna Mater—from Phrygia who was also interpreted as Ceres or even Terra Mater. Whereas as the cult of Isis was accepted into the Roman pantheon, Magna Mater and her cult were rather actively sought after by the Romans to be accepted into the Roman pantheon as a prophecy according to the Sibylline Books during a time when Romans sought for answers to ongoing hardships.

Livy (Bowden, 2023, p. 116) wrote: (in Ab Urbe Condita, book 29.10):

About this time [205 BC] a sudden wave of religious concern swept over the citizenry. The Sibylline Books had been consulted because it had rained stones that year more than usual and in the books a prophecy had been found that if ever a foreign enemy should invade Italy, he could be defeated and driven out if the Idaean Mother were brought from Pessinus to Rome.

Furthermore, Kybele was also associated with Mount Ida near the site of Troy which was considered the ancestral land of Aeneas. This detail is also even mentioned in Vergil’s Aeneid (9.80-82).

However, even though Isis and Kybele could be understood as Roman deities—or even sometimes as each other1—they could still be venerated in their own respective cults just like their supposed Roman interpretations, albeit they still went through romanization which deterritorialized them from their own land and culture/people.

In other contexts, certain foreign deities did not have Roman interpretations of themselves (as in interpreting Isis as Ceres) but rather received direct translations and were unambiguously imported. Such examples being Apollo and Asclepius from the Greek pantheon.

However, even such ‘direct’ translations were filtered through elements of 1) interpretatio romana for prioritizing and ignoring certain characteristics from their native cult and 2) romanization through reconstruction of their visual and artistic representations in the style of the Romans.

For example, Apollo was included in Vergil’s Aeneid (an Augustan Epic Poem) and was represented ‘‘as the prophet of Rome’s future greatness.’’ (Agard, 1935, p. 101). In this context, even though Apollo didn’t have a direct translation, he was still adapted into Roman literature, cosmology, and subsequently a nation-building project initiated by Augustus. To complicate things even further, deities like Apollo can go through further adaptations even after being incorporated into other religious traditions and civilizations. Vergil’s depiction of Apollo in the Aeneid (8.703) has also been used as a tool for propaganda embedded with Augustan ideologies framing the narrative of how Apollo ‘‘vouchsafed the climactic battle of Actium for Octavian’’ as per Miller (2004, p. 168). Vergil’s narrativization of Apollo contributing to the Battle of Actium acted also as a strategy of legitimization by appealing to divine will. This version of Apollo portrayed in Augustan literature is also claimed to be known as ‘‘Apollo Palatinus’’ or Apollo Actius’’2 as per Miller (2004, p. 168).

Alternatively, Whilst the Roman Empire was navigating the hardships caused by the Antonine plague (165–180 CE) the Roman state began minting out more coins with the image of Apollo ‘the healer’ (Kennedy, 2024, p. 94) as a response to the spread of the plague by evoking Apollo’s association with disease and medicine. This also exemplifies how cult activity and priorities can vary and fluctuate in reaction to external conditions and circumstances.

ℹ️ Evocatio An example of how foreign deities could have been accepted into Roman culture and religion was Evocatio, a war strategy and ritual performed by Roman generals to ‘persuade’ foreign deities to abandon the settlement and people they were protecting and be welcomed into Rome instead. One historical (and well-known) case is the evocatio of Juno Regina from Veii, an Etruscan city in 396 BCE (Beard, North, Price, 1998, pp. 34-35) and dedicated a temple for her on the Aventine Hill in 392 BCE (Orlin, 2002, p. 1).

Conversely, as a result of outward territorial expansion and subsequent cultural diffusion, Romans could also bring their own deities and syncretize with a local foreign deity using their name as an epithet. One example being Jupiter Dolichenus (Nash-Williams, 1952, p. 72), a syncretic amalgamation of Jupiter with a Hittite-Hurrian deity, from Doliche, in Roman Syria. In this context, instead of a foreign deity adopting a local Roman deity’s name as epithet (as seen with Isis), a deity from Rome has rather syncretized with the local deity in their own land as an attempt to adapt to the boundaries beyond Rome’s borders and perhaps even vernacular contexts of the region.

Alternatively, within the theme of cultural diffusion of Roman religion and adaptation into the local landscape of foreign soil, aspects of Roman religious tradition could also syncretize with the local cultural, religious, and political landscape. After the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE and the eventual conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE, Augustus constructed temples in honor of Isis wherein certain reliefs of the temple iconography represented himself as a pharaoh, often standing in front of Isis—and other Egyptian deities—giving offerings. Such reliefs displayed Augustus’ pietas as symbolic representations of appeasement in effort to legitimize authority by perpetuating narratives of succession through romanization of Egyptian temple architecture and iconography representing Egyptian deities) which would also reinforce Roman cultural hegemony. Isis’ association with divine motherhood and relation to her son Horus/Harpocrates—who was also typically understood to be materially represented through the Pharaoh—was also utilized as a political symbol of legitimacy. Additionally, in the Temple of Isis in Dendur, Augustus is represented not only giving offerings to Isis and Egyptian deities like Osiris and Harpocrates, but also to Nubian deities like Pedesi and Pihor (see Stünkel, 2018).

Roman (re)constructions of Isaic temples are solid examples of how religious traditions—including deities—can go through several layers of adaptation where the temples aren’t only adapted into romanized versions of their Egyptian inspirations but temples like Dendur can also include vernacular aspects of the local region.captioDetail depicting Augustus (left) offering milk to Osiris, Isis, and Harpocrates.n...Detail depicting Augustus (left) burning incense and making a libation (a liquid offering) to the deified brothers Pedesi and Pihor (center and right).

Per contra, scholars (Kaizer, 2006, p. 29, Orlin, 2002, p. 2) have also scrutinized the framing of deities—including various aspects of religious traditions—as ‘‘foreign’’ for its wording often being embedded with presuppositions of religious traditions and deities as homogenous standards from their ‘‘native’’ origins (i.e. ‘‘native’’ pantheon or landscape). To elaborate, even though Isis’ ‘‘original’’ or ‘‘native’’ pantheon and landscape may have been Egypt, her cult had already gone through centuries of veneration and iterations (i.e. Isis being associated, syncretized, and venerated alongside other various deities) among Greeks since 5th century BCE (Beard, North, & Price, 1998b, p. 297) until her arrival in Italy around late 2nd century BCE. In addition, Isis’ name can even be found in pyramid texts that trace back to the fifth dynasty around 2494-2345 BCE (Glomb, 2022, p. 7). Isis was not a static deity, even to the Egyptians themselves, and the same logic can be applied to Roman deities as well; furthermore, the same logic can and should also be applied to religious traditions as a whole too. Deities, like their relational religious tradition(s), can be better understood as assemblages that go through perpetual dialectical evolution in relation to their external conditions and circumstances.

Such critical commentaries are crucial to take into consideration because it problematizes rather overgeneralized and oversimplified notions of ‘‘Syncretism.’’ Furthermore, this might even lead one to question the ‘‘nativity’’ of Roman religion itself, which brings us back to the earlier passage by Beard, North, and Price: ‘‘Roman religion was always already multicultural.’’

In a future article I will elaborate upon these recent commentaries by exploring and discussing the reframing of Roman religious tradition as a machinic assemblage to further deconstruct monolithic notions of a homogenous Roman religion.

Reference List

Agard, W. R. (1935). Apollo Polymorphous. The Classical Journal, 31(2), 99–107. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3290818.

Beard, M., North, J., & Price, S. (1998a). Religions of Rome: Volume 1, A History. Cambridge University Press.

Beard, M., North, J., & Price, S. (1998b). Religions of Rome: Volume 2, A Sourcebook. Cambridge University Press.

Bowden, H. (2023). Mystery Cults in the Ancient World. Thames & Hudson.

Glomb, T. (2022). Connecting the Isiac Cults: Formal Modeling in the Hellenistic Mediterranean. Bloomsbury Academic

Kaizer, T. (2006). In Search of Oriental Cults. Methodological Problems concerning “the Particular” and “the General” in near Eastern Religion in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, 55(1), 26–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436797.

Kennedy, J. (2024). Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History. Penguin (Transworld).

Miller, J. (2004). Ovid and Augustan Apollo. Hermathena, (177/178), 165–180. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23041546.

Mazurek. L. A. (2022). Isis in a Global Empire: Greek Identity through Egyptian Religion in Roman Greece. Cambridge University Press.

Nash-Williams, V. E. (1952). Iuppiter Dolichenus. Greece & Rome, 21(62), 72–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/640970.

Orlin, E. M. (2002). Foreign Cults in Republican Rome: Rethinking the Pomerial Rule. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 47, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/4238789.

Further Readings

Burton, P. J. (1996). The Summoning of the Magna Mater to Rome (205 B.C.). Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, 45(1), 36–63. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436406.

Tobin, V. A. (1991). Isis and Demeter: Symbols of Divine Motherhood. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 28, 187–200. https://doi.org/10.2307/40000579.

Stünkel, I. (2018, November 2). The Temple’s Cult and Decoration. Metropolitan Museum. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/temple-of-dendur-cult-and-decoration.

Footnotes

1 | according to ‘’Hymns to Isis’‘ ​ by Isidorus (in Hymn I, 14-22), Isis was also interpreted as the Mother of the gods by some (specifically Thracians).

All mortals who live on the boundless earth, ​ Thracians, Greeks and barbarians, ​ Express Your fair Name, a Name greatly honoured among all, but​ Each speak in his own language, in his own land​ The Syrians call You: Astarte, Artemis, Nanaia​ The Lycian tribes call You: Leto, the Lady;​ The Thracians also name You as Mother of the gods​ And the Greeks call you Hera of the Great Throne, Aphrodite,​ Hestia the good, Rheia and Demeter.

2 | Apollo Actius is said to have existed since 7th century BCE with the construction of the Temple of Apollo Aktios or Actian Apollo, but his cult rose in popularity under Augustus after the battle of Actium.

[jjestierr]

dante with his vergil ita bag (colorized 2026)

[numinous-archives]

''Arma Virumque Cano'' Vergil's Narrativization of the Aeneas-myth

Analyses of Vergil's Aeneid, part 1/3

Vergil’s Aeneid starts with the famous line:

‘‘Arma virumque cano’’ ‘‘I sing of arms and the man’’

Which primes the audience as to what the epic poem will be about.

In the ancient world, epic poems relied on some level of narrativity for the reader/audience to follow along with what the poet aims to communicate.

Narrativity refers to the extent to which something is presented as a story with a coherent structure and linear sequential events leading to an outcome.

High Narrativity refers to stories that have coherent structures and clear linear events, often clearly presenting contexts, conflicts, and goals.

Low Narrativity refers to stories that lack structure and coherence, they are often non-linear and fragmented, with unclear contexts, conflicts, or goals.

We know that Aeneas was historicized or at the very least acknowledged (beyond Homer’s Iliad) by other primary sources preceding Publius Vergilius Maro.

Before Vergil’s Aeneid, the legend of Aeneas was fragmented and narrated by many differing sources and voices.

Rather than a single text or myth, there were several myths and narratives.

However, those myths of Aeneas had rather Low Narrativity for being fragmented, thus lacking coherence, structure, and linearity.

According to certain fragments1, Roman writers like Ennius (c. 239 BCE) (Knapp, 1924, p. 200) mentioned Aeneas in historical chronicles as Annals, but these references to Aeneas often suffer from Low Narrativity for their fragmented nature.

On the topic of Annals in relation to narrativity, White (1980, p. 10) states:

‘’While annals represent historical reality as if real events did not display the form of story, the chronicle represents it as if real events appeared to human consciousness in the form of unfinished stories.’’

Additionally, Etruscan art of Aeneas2 has also been found in Veii dating further back to c. 4th century BCE displayed as a terracotta statuette carrying his father Anchises (Beard, North, & Price, 1998b, p. 3). Roman and Etruscan cultures had already been amalgamated since the 6th century BCE (Beard, North, & Price, 1998a, p. 24):

‘‘[…] it is certain (from archaeological and other evidence) that Rome fell under increasing Etruscan influence at the end of the regal period.’’

Aeneas was evidently well known even within the historical memory (Bommas, 2011, p. 10) among Roman society and culture through various cultural forms such as artistic depictions, which also upheld his image as an ancestor of Rome through his connection to Troy and Greek historical memory as communicated through Homer’s Iliad.

However, due to the fragmentary nature of myths and stories of heroes such as Aeneas, such miscellaneous accounts could also reflect a rather pluralistic landscape of various conceptions of the same character/hero through different myths that may have been roaming.

Furthermore, a person hearing the same myth (of Aeneas) may ‘crystallize their prior conception, but ‘re-crystallize’ upon receiving variations and/or new details of their prior knowledge (Johnston, 2018, p. 52).

Narrativization (Jensen, 2016, p. 300), on the other hand, refers to the process of forming a story with coherent structure and trajectory of events (narrative) by assembling miscellaneous storied events and parts.

Vergil’s Aeneid narrativizes Roman history and historical events of the past as deterministic trajectories prophesied through a mythical past by claiming that Aeneas’ actions were not of his own will, but rather by the will of the gods, which would subsequently lead to the formation of Rome leading to the time of Romulus and eventually to its contemporary time of Augustus.

Vergil’s Aeneid attempted to narrativize the myth of Aeneas with High Narrativity by turning the myth into an epic poem of a singulative event with a coherent linear structure and temporal order spread throughout 12 books.

Vergil’s Aeneid is ambiguous in nature due to the author’s goals of not only narrativizing a comprehensive history of Rome’s ancestral past preceding the Romulus’ founding of Rome, but also for his role in writing a work of literature that could be utilized as an institutional tool of legitimating power in the construction and enforcement of a conceived past that could be etched into the collective and historical memory of Rome as well as the broader Roman cosmology, especially during and after the reign of Augustus.

Furthermore, Vergil’s Aeneid could also be utilized as a tool to reinforce a sense of collective/national identity3 (Bell, 2008, p. 11) which is important to forming a sense of collective memory (Gedi & Elam, 1996, p. 35) within a society based on shared cultural traits, traditions, customs, including myths.

Due to Vergil’s literary tendency to allude to the material world within the Aeneid’s narrative world, Vergil’s Aeneid tends to fluctuate levels of verisimilitude, (Bruner, 1991, p. 4) the degree to which something is commensurate to the truth and material realities. In the context of literature and narratives, verisimilitude refers to how much a text aligns with with the real world and material realities (Stoehr, 1969, p. 1272).

It was common for ancient authors and poets to utilize Referentiality (Bruner, 1991, p. 6) in their works to make references and refer to ideas and things from the real world to make their stories and narratives not just simply ‘believable’ but to make them feel more tangible.

However, it is important to remember that from the perspectives of the Romans, like many ancient civilizations, myths and history were often perceived under the same epistemological systems of understanding the world and cosmos.

Therefore, myths and history can be understood as components of epistemic assemblages that constructed worldviews, cosmologies, and entire realities.

Thus, the fluctuation of verisimilitude in Vergil’s Aeneid is reflected through the text’s referentiality to the material world and historical events (this will be explored in the next part: the historicization of Vergil’s Aeneid).

Jensen (2016, p. 300) states:

‘’Religious narratives are important because they are able to posit imaginary worlds in relation to this present physical world. [...] Religious narrative plays crucial role in producing, organizing, maintaining shared collective, and imaginary worlds. This is what myths do.’’

Myths tend to be embedded with their own implied systems of logic that presupposes the narrative’s verisimilitude commensurate with truth and reality due to their tendency to explain and rationalize the nature of the known world and cosmos or at least certain aspects.

Munz (1956, p. 3) states:

‘’A myth, then, is a true story not because it relates a particular historical event; but because it exhibits universally true features.’’

In relation to history and the collective memory of a society’s past, myths help explain the origins of a people and their society, as well as their trajectory and development.

Munz further elaborates:

‘’Mythological thinking is therefore thinking in concrete universals. Th fashioning of a myth is the fashioning of a concrete story which embodi universal features which make it more important to us than any particul historical event. A story of any particular historical happening involve if accurately told, hundreds of details that concern nobody. But the concrete universal story has a universal fascination.’’

Within the narrativity of the Aeneid, the story’s narrative framing constantly fluctuates between 2 Narrative Worlds:

1) the Actual World; the known and actualized world from the perspective of the main character, and

2) the Possible World; the prophesized future events of Aeneas’ journey and the future history of Rome.

As a consequence of Vergil’s Aeneid implementing and maintaining these 2 Narrative Worlds, Vergil managed to construct 2 distinct yet simultaneous temporal realities within the Narrative World of the Aeneid:

1) the present past; Aeneas’ Actual World where his present experiences are framed as the contemporary Rome’s historical past, and

2) present future; Aeneas’ Possible World where his present future actions are framed as series of events that will lead to the formation of Rome’s contemporary reality.

In addition to Vergil’s narrativization of the 2 distinct temporal realities, the Aeneid also reveals the distinct Knowledge Worlds (Ryan, 1985, pp. 722-723) depending on the text’s point of view.

Aeneas as the main character and an agent that pushes the narrative’s Actual World forward, but such perception and understanding of the narrative’s Actual World is limited to Aeneas’ own horizons of knowledge.

On the other hand, Vergil, as the author and poet, also represents a distinct Knowledge World of the same Actual World that Aeneas is perceiving and experiencing. The poet’s participation in the Narrative World of the Aeneid can even be found in the beginning with the famous line ‘’Arma virumque cano,’’ and the poet’s evocation upon the Muses to sing of the story of Aeneas. By calling upon the muses, Vergil himself engages in the manipulation of verisimilitude by passing between the reciprocal interconnection between his own material world and the world of the narrative he aims to present.

Yet Vergil ‘s narrativization is still navigating within the shared narrative culture shaped by the collective identity and memory of the Romans. It is also important to remember that Vergil’s narrativization was also shaped by Augustan ideologies exemplified in his recurrent attempts at making metaphorical parallels between Aeneas and Augustus representing their actions as prophesized events and will of the gods. Such a narrative representation arguably reflects elements of historical reconstructionism (Feeney, 1993, p. 94) by Vergil attempting to tie the time of Aeneas with the time of Augustus, subsequently framing the time and history between them as historically determined and blurring the lines between myth and history. This will be expanded upon in the second part by exploring and discussing the topic of the historicization of Vergil’s Aeneid.

References

Beard, M., North, J., & Price, S. (1998a). Religions of Rome: Volume 1, A History. Cambridge University Press.

Beard, M., North, J., & Price, S. (1998b). Religions of Rome: Volume 2, A Sourcebook. Cambridge University Press.

Bell, K. K. (2008). “Translatio” and the Constructs of a Roman Nation in Virgil’s “Aeneid.” Rocky Mountain Review, 62(1), 11–24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20479487

Bommas, M. (2011). Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies. Continuum.

Feeney, D. (1993). The “Aeneid” As a Poem of History. The Classical Outlook, 70(3), 94–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43937473

Gedi, N., & Elam, Y. (1996). Collective Memory — What Is It? History and Memory, 8(1), 30–50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25618696.

Jensen, J. S. (2016). Narrative. In M. Stausberg & S. Engler (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of The Study of Religion (pp. 290-301). Oxford University Press.

Johnston, S. I. (2018). The Story of Myth. Princeton University Press.

Knapp, C. (1924). Legend and History in the Aeneid. The Classical Journal, 19(4), 198–214. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3288817.

Munz, P. (1956). History and Myth. The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), 6(22), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/2217333.

Ryan, M.-L. (1985). The Modal Structure of Narrative Universes. Poetics Today, 6(4), 717–755. https://doi.org/10.2307/1771963.

Stoehr, T. (1969). Realism and Verisimilitude. Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 11(3), 1269–1288. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40754061.

White, H. (1980). The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 5–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343174.

Footnotes

1 Loeb 294; volume 1 of ‘‘Fragmentary Republican Latin’’:

Book 1 — F 11-26: Aeneas Abandons Troy and Travels to Italy, Where He Establishes Peace with the King of Alba Longa.

2 Fig. 1.1. (Beard, North, & Price, 1998b, p. 3)

Terracotta statuette of Aeneas carrying his father Anchises, one of several found in a votive deposit in Veii, fourth century B.C. Aeneas’ escape from burning Troy symbolizes the birth of a new Troy in Italy, a myth widely known in archaic Latium and Etruria – and not at that time restricted to Rome. (Height 0.21m.)

3 Bell (2008, p. 11) also states that Vergil aimed to develop a sense of collective and national Roman identity as a reaction to the preceding history of internal conflicts and civil wars,

[numinous-archives]

Metropolitan Museum

Marble stele (grave marker) of a woman

Period: Late Classical

Date: mid-4th century BCE

Culture: Greek, Attic

This noble image of a woman brings to mind the philosopher Aristotle's description of commonly held beliefs about the dead: "In addition to believing that those who have ended this life are blessed and happy, we also think that to say anything false or slanderous against them is impious, from our feeling that it is directed against those who have already become our betters and superiors" (Of the Soul, quoted in Plutarch, A Letter to Apollonius 27). Larger than life and seated on a thronelike chair, this figure assumes almost heroic proportions.

[numinous-archives]

Metropolitan Museum

Statue of Dionysos leaning on a female figure ("Hope Dionysos")

[Restored by Pacetti, Vincenzo]

Roman copy of Greek original. Adaptation of a Greek work of the 4th century B.C.

Period: Augustan or Julio-Claudian

Date: 27 BCE–68 CE

Dionysos, god of wine and divine intoxication, wears a panther skin over his short chiton and his high sandals with animal heads on the overhanging skin flaps. He stands beside an archaistic female image whose pose and dress imitate those of Greek statues carved in the sixth century B.C. It is difficult to know whether the original Greek bronze statue of Dionysos, of which this is a copy, included the female figure. Supports in the form of pillars, herms, and small statues were not uncommon in Classical art, but this figure may have been added to support the outstretched arm and may represent Spes, a Roman personification of Hope, who was commonly shown as an archaistic maiden.

[numinous-archives]

🗣️📢 Hear ye, hear ye!

Landscape Archaeology Conference 2026 | LAC2026

18-20 March

Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg

Landscape Archaeology Conference 2026 - LAC2026

The University of Bamberg in Germany invites you to the 9th international Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC). 18. - 20. March 2026

[Overview of Program below]

Description

The University of Bamberg invites you to the ninth international Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC), which will take place between 18-21 March 2026 in the historical city center of Bamberg (Germany). The LAC provides an excellent opportunity for experts and students of different disciplines to discuss new research on past landscapes. Landscape archaeology studies the relationships between human occupation strategies, material culture, and the natural environment in the past. It is essentially interdisciplinary and employs a broad range of approaches and methods from the humanities and the natural sciences. As such, the LAC brings together archaeologists, earth and environmental scientists, cultural scientists, and researchers from neighboring disciplines. The main goal of the conference is to enhance and synthesize our understanding of human-environment interactions in the past, in particular of cultural responses to changing conditions.

The LAC meetings showcase the broad scope of landscape archaeology research across the globe. These meetings take place every two years under the auspices of the International Association for Landscape Archaeology (IALA). 14 years after the meeting in Berlin (2012), the LAC returns to Germany. 

Bamberg’s well-preserved Medieval center with its unique city garden landscape is UNESCO World Heritage. Situated near the spectacular Frankenjura plateau, it became a major cultural, religious, and economic node in Central Europe during the Middle Ages. As such, Bamberg promises to be an excellent base to explore new directions in landscape archaeology – in the city itself, the region of Franconia, and the wider world.

18-March-2026 | Wednesday

19-March-2026 | Thursday

20-March-2026 | Friday

2 | From Point Clouds to Patterns: Machine Learning in Landscape Archaeology

Organizer: Axel Posluschny (Keltenwelt am Glauberg), Susan Curran (The Discovery Programme), Jürgen Landauer (CAA Germany), Simon Maddison (Institute of Archaeology, UCL), Žiga Kokalj (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Giacomo Fontana (Texas Tech University), Nejc Čož (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Anthony Corns (The Discovery Programme) Keywords: Archaeological landscapes, Machine Learning, Remote sensing data

3 | Side effects from the construction of large linear infrastructure projects in Europe – chances for new insights on our landscapes

Organizer: Florian Hirsch (Brandenburgische TU Cottbus-Senftenberg), Holger Schweitzer (CifA – Institute for Archaeologists) Keywords: Soil landscape, Geoarchaeology, Large linear infrastructure projects

4 | Phenomenology of Vertical Spaces: New perspectives on the archaeology of cliffs, shafts, and chasms

Organizer: Uri Davidovich (Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Micka Ullman (School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures, University of Haifa) Keywords: Vertical Landscapes, Liminality, Adaptation, Extreme Archaeology, Cognitive Challenges

5 | Marginal economies or economies on the margins?

Organizer: Agostino Sotgia (University of Groningen), Dario Monti (UC Louvain), Elena Scarsella (Barcelona Supercomputing Center) Keywords: Marginal landscape, Economic integration, Resource use in challenging environments, Longue durée, Environmental and social interplay

6 | Coastal landscapes through the ages

Organizer: Pière Leon Frederiks, Kira Raith, Svea Mahlstedt, Moritz Mennenga (Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research) Keywords: coastal landscape, coastal settlements, sea-level, adaptation, marine trade

7 | Landscapes of change: data, methods, interpretations

Organizer: Ylenia Paciotti (University of Genoa), Carlo Citter (University of Siena) Keywords: Transitions, Climate Change, Multidisciplinarity, Methods, Human-Environment Interactions

8 | Exploring the Decolonisation Discourse in Mountain Landscapes: Rethinking Margins, Methods, and Meaning-Making

Organizer: Francesca Chelazzi (University of Glasgow / University of Pisa), Kirsten Hopper (Durham University), Stefania Fiori (Kiel University), Lisa Doro (University of Turin) Keywords: Mountain Landscapes, Decolonising, Community Engagement

9 | Settlement dynamics in floodplain landscapes

Organizer: Iris Nießen (University of Tübingen / Leipzig University), Martin Offermann (Leipzig University), Jens Schneeweiß (LEIZA), Johannes Schmidt (Leipzig University / TU Dresden), Alexander Voigt (University of Bamberg) Format: regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes Keywords: Fluvial Landscape Archaeology, Settlement Dynamics, Human–Environment Interaction, Geomorphological Processes, Fluvial Anthroposphere

10 | Modelling demography through archaeological data: from theoretical approaches to global case studies

Organizer: Michele Abballe (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Francesca Chelazzi (University of Glasgow / University of Pisa), Alessio Palmisano (University of Turin), Dan Lawrence (Durham University) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes Keywords: archaeological sites, settlement patterns, frequency distributions of radiocarbon dates, archaeodemography, computational archaeology

12 | Abrupt Environmental Change of Human-Environmental Systems in the Sedimentary Records

Organizer: Ayaka Nguyen (University of Tübingen / Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Stuttgart), Sara Saeidi (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Stuttgart), Stefan Dreibrodt (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Stuttgart) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: Rapid Environmental Change, Human-Environmental Interaction, Palaeoecological Reconstruction, Landscape Archaeology, Biodiversity

13 | Dynamic adaptations on dynamic landforms: Multidisciplinary perspectives on Quaternary populations

Organizer: Parth R. Chauhan (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research) and Prabhin Sukumaran (Charotar University of Science and Technology) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: Quaternary Adaptations, Paleoenvironmental Change, Hominin Dispersal, Dynamic Landscapes

14 | Re-discovering Mountainscapes: An interdisciplinary approach to mountainous areas

Organizers: José Abellán Santisteban, Ylenia Paciotti (University of Genoa) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: Mountain landscape, Interdisciplinary, Landscape dynamics, Multiscalar analysis, Cultural landscapes

15 | Terraced landscapes as longterm socio-ecological archives

Organizers: Ralf Vandam (Free University Brussels), Soetkin Vervust (Free University Brussels), Axel Cerón González (Free University Brussels), Antony Brown (Arctic University of Norway) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: Terracing, Land-use history, Soil archives, Paleoenvironmental reconstructions

17 | Living Landscapes: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Heritage and Environment in Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and beyond

Organizers: Ralf Kilian (University of Bamberg), Dennis Mitschke (University of Bamberg), Martin Michette (University of Oxford), Suramya Bansal (ACCE), Pia Kastenmeier (Fraunhofer IBP), Katrin Wilhelm (University of Oxford) Format: Round table with invited speakers Keywords: Cultural heritage, Landscape conservation, Environmental change, Capacity building, Pedagogy

18 | Tracing back historical land-use and its legacies: common insights and perspectives of landscape archaeology and historical landscape ecology

Organizers: Sjoerd Kluiving (IALA, Free University Amsterdam), Rebekka Dosche (IALE, University of Genoa), Nik Petek-Sargeant (IALA, University of Cambridge), Valentina Pescini (IALE, Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology), Anneli Ekblom (IHOPE, Uppsala University), Paul Lane (University of Cambridge), Giovanna Pezzi (IALE, University of Bologna), Bennie Shen (University of Cambridge), Marianna Biró (IALE, HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, Budapest), Matthew Davies (University College London / University of Cambridge) Format: Round table with keynote; short presentations Keywords: Human-environment interactions, Long-term processes, Land use legacies, Methods of landscape archaeology

19 | XXL Challenge: new power lines on old remains

Organizers: Jessica Meyer, Burkart Ullrich (Eastern Atlas GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: power lines, geophysical prospection, big data

20 | The Future of Landscape Archaeology in the Anthropocene

Organizers: Sjoerd Kluiving (Free University Amsterdam), Pilar Diarte-Blasco (Institute of History, Dept. of Archaeology and Social Processes, Madrid), Joris Aarts (Free University Amsterdam), Anneli Ekblom (Uppsala University), Wolfgang Alders (New York University), Thomas Meier (University of Heidelberg), Paul Lane (University of Cambridge) Format: Round table Keywords: Future of research and education, Polycrisis and Anthropocene, Community archaeology, Biocultural heritage

21 | Forests as Archives: Interdisciplinary approaches to explore the woodland geoarchaeological record

Organizers: Anna Schneider (BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg), Jens Schneeweiß (LEIZA), Max Grund (University of Kiel), Oliver Nelle (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Stuutgart), Koen Deforce (Ghent University)  Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: land use legacies, historical forest use, woodland archaeology

22 | Geoarchaeology in Vertical Landscapes – Methods, Potentials, and Emerging Questions

Organizers: Kerstin Kowarik and Valentina Laaha (Austrian Archaeological Institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: Mountain Archaeology, Vertical landscapes, Geoarchaeology, Sediments, Multi-Proxy

23 | Geospatial Analysis in Archaeological Heritage Management

Organizers: Stefanie Berg, Philipp Hagdorn and Marc Miltz (Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: Geospatial analysis, Archaeological data, Heritage management, Remote sensing, Preventive protection

24 | Heterarchies in Rural Landscapes. Exploring asymmetric power relations from a diachronic perspective

Organizers: Luigi Pinchetti and Valerie Palmowski (University of Bonn)  Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: Power Relations, Settlement Patterns, Spatial Analysis, Rural Agency, Heterarchy

25 | Past and Present Perspectives on Geopolitical Landscapes

Organizers: Eduardo Herrera-Malatesta (University of Bonn), Jesus García-Sánchez (Spanish School of History and Archaeology in Rome (EEHAR-CSIC), David González-Álvarez Institute of Heritage Sciences, Spanish National Research Council (INCIPIT-CSIC) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: Geopolitics, Territoriality, Mobility, Decolonization, Resilience

26 | Spatial Approaches to Bronze Age Landscapes in the Mediterranean: Linking Archaeological Theory and Quantitative Methodology

Organizers: Davide Schirru (Musei Nazionali di Cagliari), Matteo Alessi (Sapienza University of Rome), Alessandro Vanzetti (Sapienza University of Rome), Emily Holt (Cardiff University) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: GIS, Spatial modelling, Archaeological Theory, Mediterranean

27 | In the grip of resources: Human presence in harsh environments – A case for the concept of the “resource-scape”?

Organizers: Aydin Abar (University of Innsbruck), Elena Silvestri (Soprintendenza per I beni e le attività culturali, Provincia Trento) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: resources, resource-scape, harsh environments, mountain archaeology, resource archaeology

28 | Landscape Archaeology of Riverine Environments

Organizers: Markus Fuchs (University of Giessen), Hans von Suchodoletz (University of Jena / University of Leipzig), Christian Tinapp (University of Leipzig / Saxony Archaeological Heritage Office) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters  Keywords: Fluvial Environments, Floodplains, River catchments, Slope-floodplain coupling, Geoarchives

29 | Landscapes on the Border: (Public-) Archaeological Perspectives on Boundaries and Marginal Spaces

Organizers: Viviane Diederich (University of Bamberg), Michael Preusz (University of West Bohemia in Pilsen) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: boundary, archaeology, landscape, space, material culture, public archaeology

30 | Manipulated and artificial bodies of water as archaeological landscape relics

Organizers: Andreas Vött (University of Mainz), Thomas Becker (Hessian State Office for Monuments and Sites) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters  Keywords: Manipulated Water Bodies, Archaeology, Geoarchaeology, Landscape Relics

31 | What is the future of surface survey? Rethinking new and old methods for landscape archaeology

Organizers: Enrico Giorgi (University of Bologna), Federica Carbotti, Giacomo Sigismondo (University of Bologna, University of Salento), Veronica Castignani (University of Catania), Francesca D’Ambola (Sapienza University of Rome) Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters Keywords: remote sensing; landscape archaeology; field-walking; historical imagery

[numinous-archives]

British Museum

Isis nursing Harpocrates

Period: Roman Empire Date: 1st Century CE Location: Egypt

Terracotta group of Isis nursing Harpocrates. The group shows Isis offering her breast to her son, Harpocrates, who seems uninterested. Isis wears her usual knotted costume, which has been unbuttoned to expose the breast. Her long, corkscrew locks fall on to her shoulders. Harpocrates has a full head of hair and is wrapped in a cloak. A hole bored into the upper part of Isis' head is perhaps for a separately made crown, now missing. The fabric is a micaceous orange-brown Nile silt. There are minute traces of a white coating on the front. The back is unworked.

[covenawhite66]

Study finds Levantine ivory came from Ethiopia not Egypt

In a recent study, Dr. Harel Shochat from the University of Haifa and his colleagues analyzed the biological and geographical origins of ivo

[my-dailydreams]

[numinous-archives]

Human migration: the big data perspective

Sîrbu et al. [+15] Published: 23-March-2020 | Updated: 21-May-2021 International Journal of Data Science and Analytics, 11(4), 341–360. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41060-020-00213-5

Open Access

Human migration: the big data perspective - International Journal of Data Science and Analytics

How can big data help to understand the migration phenomenon? In this paper, we try to answer this question through an analysis of various p

Abstract

How can big data help to understand the migration phenomenon? In this paper, we try to answer this question through an analysis of various phases of migration, comparing traditional and novel data sources and models at each phase. We concentrate on three phases of migration, at each phase describing the state of the art and recent developments and ideas. The first phase includes the journey, and we study migration flows and stocks, providing examples where big data can have an impact. The second phase discusses the stay, i.e. migrant integration in the destination country. We explore various data sets and models that can be used to quantify and understand migrant integration, with the final aim of providing the basis for the construction of a novel multi-level integration index. The last phase is related to the effects of migration on the source countries and the return of migrants.

‌

1 | Introduction

The phenomenon of human migration has been a constant of human history, from the earliest ages until now. As such, the study of migration spans various research fields, including anthropology, sociology, economics, statistics and more recently physics and computer science. We are at a moment where various types of data not typically used to study migration are becoming increasingly available. These include so-called social big data: digital traces of humans generated by using mobile phones, online services, online social networks (OSNs), devices within the internet of things. At the same time, new technologies are able to extract valuable information from these large data sets. Both traditional and novel models and data are currently being employed to understand different questions on migration, including monitoring migration flows and the economic and cultural effects on the migrants and also on the source and destination communities. In this paper, we provide a survey of existing approaches, both traditional and data-rich, and we propose new methods and data sets that could contribute significantly to the study of human migration. We concentrate on three different phases of migration: the journey—analysing migration flows and stocks; the stay—studying migrant integration and changes in the communities involved; the return—the study of migrants returning to the origin country.

1.1 The journey

At the moment, information about migration flows and stocks comes from official statistics obtained either from national censuses or from the population registries. Given that migration intrinsically involves various nations, data are often inconsistent across databases and offer poor time resolution. With the availability of social big data, we believe it should be possible to estimate flows and stocks from available data in real time, by building models that map observed measures extracted from these unconventional data sources to official data, i.e. now-casting stocks and flows. We also look at migration phenomena within smaller communities, such as scientific migration, where even prediction of migration events can be possible. An important step in understanding migration flows is suitable visualization, which we also explore.

1.2 The stay

Migration might generate cultural changes with both long- and short-term effects on the local and incoming population. Migrant integration is generally measured through indicators related to the labour market, economic status or social ties. Again, these statistics are available with low resolution and not for all countries. A new direction is that of observing integration and perception on migration through big data. For instance, OSN sentiment analysis specific to immigration topics can allow us to evaluate perception of immigration. Analysis of retail data can enable us to understand whether immigrants are integrated economically but also whether they change their habits during their stay. Scientific data can help us understand how migration benefits both the host countries and the migrants themselves. Through these data, we can derive novel integration indices that take into account the traces of human activity observed.

1.3 The return

Besides effects on the receiving communities, the source communities may also see effects of migration. In fact, migrants can maintain a strong attachment to their home countries and eventually return there. This can bring multiple benefits: economic growth, new skills, entrepreneurship, better healthcare, different participation in governance issues and many others. We discuss various approaches to analysing these cases based on existing data.

Both traditional and new methods to analyse migration depend highly on the availability of data. Hence, infrastructures that can catalogue the various data sets and make them available to the community, ensuring privacy and ethical use, are very useful. At the same time, with new methods being developed, means of facilitating their use by the research community are necessary. An example of framework that aims to achieve these requirements is the SoBigData infrastructure [78] (www.sobigdata.eu). This includes a catalogue of methods, data sets and training material, grouped in so-called exploratories. Virtual research environments allow users to use some of the data and methods directly in the SoBigData engine. The exploratory on migration studies includes many of the methods and data sets presented below.

The rest of the paper is organised as follows: The study of migration flows and stocks is discussed in Sect. 2. This compares traditional data (Sect. 2.1) with social big data (Sect. 2.2) including scientific migration (Sect. 2.2.1), providing also a review of tools for visualization of migration data (Sect. 2.3). Section 3 concentrates on migrant integration and perception of migration. We start by looking at approaches based on traditional data sources (Sect. 3.1) and move on to social big data including retail data (Sect. 3.2.1), mobile data (Sect. 3.2.2), language and sentiment in OSNs (Sects. 3.2.3 and 3.2.4), ego networks (Sect. 3.2.5). The return of migrants is discussed in Sect. 4, while Sect. 5 concludes the paper with a summary and a discussion on ethical issues.

5 | Discussion and Conclusions

We have discussed three lines of research where social big data can complement existing approaches to provide small area and high-time resolution methods for analysis of migration. In terms of estimating flows and stocks, some research already exists trying to use social big data to now-cast immigration. However, models still need to be refined and validated. An important issue here is that a proper gold standard does not exist: exact current immigration rates are unknown, and those in the past can be noisy, so validation of now-casting models is not straightforward. Finding the relations between policies and immigration could be a step forward in finding means to validate model output. Another big data type that has not been included here and that can help make predictions in terms of migration related to climate is satellite data. To measure migrant integration, we believe that several new data types can be used to introduce novel integration indices, based on retail consumer behaviour, mobile data, OSN language, sentiment and network analysis. Research in this direction is slightly less developed, mostly due to low availability of ready-to-use data sets. Our consortium is making steps in this direction, using existing data sets, participating to data challenges or collecting new data. For the return of migrants, again research is limited, although potential exists in data such as retail, mobile or OSN.

In all three dimensions, research has to carefully consider the issues with the data that is being used. It is important that each study includes a well-planned data collection phase where available data are analysed to identify gaps and to devise strategies to fill the gaps by integrating other types of data. This in order to ensure that the problem being studied is thoroughly covered by the data used. In this process, research infrastructures such as SoBigData can be of great help. On the one hand, they can provide means to catalogue data, so that new data sets are available to the community for integration. On the other hand, they enable the community to share methods and experiences so that gaps identified and the solutions taken to fill these gaps can be reused. This applies not only to traditional data sources, but also to social big data. The complexity of digital demography implies that there is no free lunch with digital traces either [106]. One problem relates to the representativeness of the collected samples. For example, Facebook and Twitter penetration rates are different worldwide and tend to be different depending on the considered age of users [184]. Being unable to track specific categories of users can steer policies on migration in a direction that unwillingly perpetuates discriminations or neglects the needs of the invisible groups. For the above reasons, analytical and technical challenges to extract meaning from this kind of data, in synergy with more traditional data sources, remain an open and very important research area, with some recent efforts made in this direction [93]. Model validation using existing statistics and the relation to migration policies is important. Furthermore, careful data integration could help in overcoming some of the selection bias, resulting in novel, multi-level indices based on big data.

A different issue is that related to the ethics dimension of processing personal data, including sensitive personal data, describing human individuals and activities. As also stated in [187], the first rule that a researcher must follow is to acknowledge that data are people and can do harm. In particular, the context of migration is very sensitive to this problem, since individuals described in the data are often particularly vulnerable: refugees and their families might be persecuted in their home countries, so avoiding their re-identification is a critical matter. Moreover, mass media and social media impact our society and integration itself since a negative tone systematically relates to lower acceptance rates of asylum practices [102], so extreme care has to be taken in publishing results. Nevertheless, migration studies can have a significant impact to improve our society and to help the inclusion process of migrants; thus, encouraging data sharing is one of our main goals for achieving public good.

For all these reasons, it is essential that legal requirements and constraints are complemented by a solid understanding of ethical and legal views and values such as privacy and data protection, composing an actual ethical and legal framework. To this end, a number of infrastructural, organizational and methodological principles have been developed by the SoBigData Project, in order to establish a Responsible Research Infrastructure, allowing users to make full use of the functionalities and capabilities that big data can offer to help us solve our problems, while at the same time allowing them to respect fundamental rights and accommodate shared values, such as privacy, security, safety, fairness, equality, human dignity and autonomy [66]. In particular, we strongly rely on Value Sensitive Design and Privacy-by-Design methodologies, in order to develop privacy-enhancing technologies, privacy-aware social data mining processes and privacy risk assessment methodologies. These methods are developed mainly in the fields of mobility data (such as GPS trajectories), mobile and retail data, which are some of the (unconventional) big data used in our migration studies. Moreover, some other general tools have been implemented to assist researchers in their activities, create a new class of responsible data scientists and inform the data subjects and the society about our work and our goals, such as an online course, ethics briefs and public information documents.

[echo-loves-flowerboy]

[geologyin-blog]

Stunning opal find from Mintabie, South Australia!

Photo: South Australian Opal Traders

[anamcaramia]

Sammich

[goblinbugthing]

[only-cat-memes]

[inspofromancientworld]

The Nika Riots

By Cplakidas -CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3623077

Within the Roman Empire, chariot racing had 'well-developed associations known as demes, which supported the different factions (or teams) to which competitors…belonged', which began as four major factions that wore different colors of uniforms—'the Blues (Veneti), the Greens (Prasini), the Reds (Russati), and the whites (Albati)'—with the Blues and the Greens being the most prominent during the 6th century CE, to the point where they were 'the only teams with any influence'. When Emperor Justinian I, who reigned from 527-565, first took the throne, he supported the Blues, but then came to take a 'more neutral stance as he looked to limit the power of the factions', which caused them to unite, with his 'previous ardent support of the Blues [making] him seem biased and contributed to his waning control of the capital of the capital leading up to 532. Each demes, or suburb, 'combined aspects of street-gangs with taking positions on claimants to the throne' and tried to influence the emperor by yelling their demands between races. The emperor could use the demes to gain support for his actions.

Justinian and those officials closest to him, including John the Cappadocian, a praetorian prefect of the East, a patrician—a member of the ruling class, and consul ordinarius, and Tribonian, a jurist and advisor, were quite unpopular due to the high tax rate and there were allegations of corruption against John and Tribonian, and John was particularly harsh in his treatment of debtors. While there were allegations against John, Justinian and John worked to reduce corruption within the civil service, thus reducing spending. These reforms were unpopular with the senatorial elites, who benefited from obscure laws to get around punishments and taxes, who were being made to pay more taxes by John's reforms, which likely led to their involvement in the riots.

Justinian also took steps to reduce the power that the Blues and the Greens had within the city, which the Greens took as oppression, similar to how the elites took John's tax reforms, and the Blues saw as betrayal. With the view of laws as being 'a marker that distinguished the civilized Romans from "barbarians"', it was a religiously important thing for a ruler to implement 'significant legal reforms…[which] was viewed as lending legitimacy to their reign, while the lack of progress in this area was interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure'. Justinian took it up to compile the laws, something that Theodosius II undertook in 429 and took 9 years, and Justinian did in 13 months. Legal reforms slowed significantly leading up to the riots, especially as there was an unsuccessful war against the Persian Empire happening at the time after early wins in 530.

In 531, city prefect Eudaimon arrested some members of the Blues and Greens 'in connection with deaths during rioting after a chariot race'. These riots 'were not unknown at chariot races, similar to football hooliganism that occasionally erupts after association football matches in modern times, but with devastations such as arson and murder'. On 10 January 532, two of the condemned, a Blue and a Green, were to be executed by hanging, but the scaffolding broke. The monks of St Conon took the two to St Laurence church where the prefect then put them under surveillance.

While the exact timing of the riots is difficult to ascertain, the early days of the riots began as an 'extreme show of typical factional vandalism and hooliganism that was exacerbated by the emotional response of the escaped Blue and Green criminals, with the aim to have the arrested rioters released'. This was not the first time that these two joined forces, though they were 'more "conservative in nature"', pushing for accountability of the emperor at the time and expressing the will of the people. During the Nika riots, however, 'the populace was not mollified by Justinian's empty promises of change and were likely fueled by opportunistic senatorial intervention to shift the focus to Justinian's deposition', with extensive militarization when Justinian banned the throwing of stones in 527 in an anti-rioting decree.

On 13 January, an already angry crowd arrived at the Hippodrome for races, which was next to the palace complex, allowing Justinian to 'preside over the races from the safety of his box in the palace. By the end of the day, the partisan chants had become 'Nίκα' ('Nika', which could mean 'win' 'victory' or 'conquor') and the crowds began assaulting the palace. Fires destroyed much of the city, including the Hagia Sophia, which was later rebuilt.

Likely on 14 January, rather than dealing with the political unrest, Justinian offered more races and games, which the crowd ignored and was counter to what previous emperors had done. The rioters demanded that John the Cappadocian and Tribonian be dismissed. Justinian apologized and said he'd accept their demands, but the crowd refused both and declared a new emperor in Hypatius, nephew of Anastasius I, the former emperor.

Theodora, Justinian's wife, dissuaded him from leaving Constantinople by saying 'Those who have worn the crown should never survive its loss. Never will I see the day when I am not saluted as empress' even though there was a sea route for them to take, adding that 'Royalty is a fine burial shroud' or '[the royal colour] Purple makes a fine winding sheet'. Justinian had the eunuch Narses enter the Hippodrome alone with a bag of gold to distribute. He went to the Blues section, reminding them of Justinian's favor of them, and distributed the gold there. The Blues the pulled away from Hypatius' coronation, allowing the Generals Belisarius and Mundus to capture Hypatius and 'kill any remaining people indiscriminately, whether they were Blues or Greens' respectively.

Around 30,000 were killed due to the chaos of the riots themselves and due to the soldiers' actions according to Procopius of Caesarea, a Greek scholar and historian. Hypatius was executed and the senators who pushed the riots were exiled for their parts. Justinian also confiscated their property. John the Cappadocian and Tribonian were reinstated to their positions. Later, Hypatius' children received his lands and titles.

[numinous-archives]

What is an Assemblage?

Nail, T. (2017). SubStance 46(1), 21-37. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sub.2017.0001. Via: Project MUSE

Introduction

The concept of assemblage plays a crucial role in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In a 1980 interview with Catherine Clément, Deleuze describes their invention of the concept of the assemblage as the “general logic” at work in A Thousand Plateaus. However, despite its thirty years of influence on political theory, this “general logic of the assemblage” still remains obscured by the fact that Deleuze and Guattari never formalized it as a theory per se, but largely used it ad hoc throughout their work. This fact continues to pose problems for theorists today who wish to deploy something like a theory of assemblages, but also admit, as Manuel DeLanda does, that Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the assemblage “hardly amounts to a fully fledged theory” (DeLanda 3). This position allows DeLanda to relegate “Deleuzian hermeneutics” to the footnotes and focus on developing his own “neo-assemblage” theory, “not strictly speaking Deleuze’s own” (DeLanda 4).

However, for those who want to know what Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory is, DeLanda’s answer is not quite satisfying. Thus in order to render Deleuze and Guattari’s general logic of assemblages more accessible for political theorists today as part of the current special issue of SubStance, this paper develops a formalization of their theory of assemblages invented in A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy? The thesis of this paper is that, contra DeLanda, Deleuze and Guattari do in fact have a fully fledged theory of assemblages.

At present and to my knowledge, this is the first full-length journal article to focus exclusively on Deleuze and Guattari’s formal theory of assemblages. By concentrating on the structure of the theory apart from any specific kind of assemblage or application of assemblage theory such as linguistic, sociological, biological, or geological, this paper shows, in a relatively brief manner, the core formal operations shared by all kinds of assemblages and to clarify in what precise sense all assemblages are political. Elsewhere I have shown at length how this general logic of assemblages can be used as a method of concrete political analysis,1 but the focus of this paper is to show the theory behind the analysis. In short, this essay does for the concept of the assemblage what Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben did for Foucault in their essay “What is a Dispositif?”: it extracts [End Page 21] from a large body of work the core formal features of its operative methodology or logic.

[moongh-sts]

Would you mind if i send you academic articles i find that talk about aromanticism/alloaro identites?

i would love that actually, thank you!! i did manage to find something but if there's more it'd be huge

[acewatney]

I don't know how much of this is may be useful in your academic paper and you might have found some of these articles already

Amatonormativity, Aromanticism, and What Defines a Relationship

Composing Aromanticism

Understanding aromantic peoples’ experiences of intra-community discrimination within the Queer Community

Romantic love TM — terms and conditions apply

Vol 3 Issue 3 Aromantic

The Fiction of Amatonormativity: Reactions to Queer Platonic Relationships in Eighteenth-Century Literature

The Erotic Worldmaking of Asexual and Aromantic Zines

Conclusion: The Ends of Romance

“But I’m so lonely!” – Aromanticism and Amatonormativity in Little Women (2019)

Wronging a Right (An Essay about Wednesday Adams)

Not Her Cup of Tea: Aromanticism in Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women

Queer aromanticisms: Doom and bloom in Moses Sumney’s Blackalachia

Nonbinaring as Methodology, erased relationships, and the aromantic subtext of As You Like It

“Anti-?” Creative Documentary Photography and “Green” Short Film Production Introductory

Inventing the Perfect Crush: Arguing for Middle-Grade Narratives with Aromantic Leads

[moongh-sts]

HUGE omg thank you, ive found a couple of these but definitely not all!!