Buildings or Festivals?

Marco Vitale ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter in Alter Geschichte (Epigraphie, Numismatik) in Basel und Zürich. Er wurde 2010 promoviert mit einer Untersuchung zur Verwaltung der hellenistischen und römischen Asia Minor (Eparchie und Koinon). Er veröffentlichte eine weitere Monografie zum antiken Syrien (Koinon Syrias). Seine jüngste Veröffentlichung, die Habilitationsschrift, erschien 2017 (Das Imperium in Wort und Bild)

A Gymnasion at Segesta? A Review of the Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence

Obwohl zahlreiche Inschriften aus Sizilien Gymnasia und ihre Ämter erwähnen, ist die Kenntnis der zugehörigen Architektur spärlich, weil die Identifizierung von Gymnasia oft umstritten ist. Das betrifft exemplarisch die hellenistische Stadt Segesta, in der Ausgrabungen der Scuola Normale Superiore Inschriften mit Bezug zu einem Gymnasion und einen Peristylbau freigelegt haben, der als Teil eines Gymnasions identifiziert worden ist. Dieser Beitrag untersucht kritisch die entsprechenden epigraphischen und archäologischen Quellen und diskutiert, was sie aussagen und ob sie begründet verbunden werden können. Er zeigt, dass nur eine Inschrift die Existenz der Gymnasiarchie in Segesta belegt und der Peristylbau eher zu einem einheitlich geplanten Komplex politisch-administrativer Bauten gehörte

I.Iasos 220 and the regulations about the priest of Zeus Megistos

en Le présent article livre une relecture attentive de l’inscription d’époque classique I.Iasos 220 (conservée au British Museum), un règlement cultuel bien connu sur les droits du prêtre de Zeus Megistos. Des progrès dans la lecture ont été favorisés par la découverte fortuite, pendant les fouilles italiennes de 2011, d’une stèle fragmentaire conservant une partie d’une copie légèrement plus tardive du même texte. Lors du remploi de la pierre conservée à Londres, les lettres de sa partie centrale ont été intentionnellement effacées, ce qui rend le fragment récemment découvert particulièrement précieux. La nouvelle édition proposée ici corrige, dans certains cas, et confirme, dans d’autres — en dépit de conjectures ultérieures — nombre des restitutions proposées par le premier éditeur (E.L. Hicks). Les progrès effectués dans la lecture de ce texte contribuent à éclairer de nouveaux aspects des prérogatives du prêtre. Un commentaire aborde en outre tous les problèmes posés par ce document.The contribution capitalizes on a careful re-reading of I.Iasos 220, a well-known cultic regulation concerning the rights of the priest of Zeus Megistos dating to the Classical period (now preserved in the British Museum), as well as on the fortuitous discovery during the 2011 Italian excavation campaign of a fragmentary stele preserving a portion of a slightly later copy of the same text. During its reuse, the letters in the central section of the London stone were purposefully erased, thus making the newly discovered fragment particularly valuable. The new edition proposed here in some cases corrects, and in others confirms — despite subsequent conjectures — many of the first editor’s (E.L. Hicks) proposed supplements. The improvements on the reading of the text bring to light new details about priestly prerogatives and, in addition, all of the major problems posed by the document are discussed in the commentary

Una regione e la sua musica: il caso della Caria (Turchia)

Nel corso degli ultimi anni, nell’ambito degli studi musicologici riguardanti il mondo antico, è stato riscoperto il legame fra il contesto geografico e le tradizioni musicali regionali con i loro particolari elementi connessi alla identità culturale delle varie comunità. Di queste caratteristiche musicali etniche si ha testimonianza attraverso l’uso di appellativi che i Greci attribuivano alla musica delle regioni con le quali erano venuti a contatto: essi riconoscevano e distinguevano le tradizioni musicali ‘altre’ non solo per riproporle e adeguarle ai propri contesti, ma anche, talora, per prendere le distanze dalle pratiche e da quel sapere, marcandone le differenze. In questa prospettiva, risulta di grande interesse la documentazione riguardante la musica in Caria; da un lato le fonti scritte forniscono lo spunto per riflettere sulle occasioni e sugli aspetti degli eventi musicali in relazione ai luoghi in cui si svolgevano e allo status dei musicisti, dall’altro consentono di individuare le peculiarità musicali della regione

Social Standing and Latin Names in Greek : Case Studies on Name Catalogues of the Early Imperial Period

Peer reviewe

Back to black: a mineralogical and chemical characterisation of Atticising fourth century BCE black gloss ware

Most previous studies on Attic black gloss technology focused on productions from Greece, especially Athens. However, the black gloss technique constitutes the most widespread decoration practice across the Mediterranean from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. Focusing on both Attic and Atticising black gloss productions from sites in Sicily and Asia Minor, our work aims to shed new light on the technology of this decoration and its transmission throughout the Mediterranean during the fourth century BCE. Additionally, to investigate the technological relationship between black and the less common intentional red gloss decorations, a selection of bichrome black-and-red and red gloss vessels were included in this study. For this purpose, we applied an integrated analytical approach, aiming to characterise both the chemistry and the mineralogy of archaeological black and red gloss decorations. This approach includes ceramic petrography, pXRF, µ-XRD2, and SEM-EDS. Specimens from the fourth century BCE from Manfria (chora of Gela), Iasos (Caria), and Priene (Ionia) were analysed. These assemblages reflect various production groups identified by the chemical and petrographic analyses of the ceramic bodies. The µ-XRD2 and SEM-EDS measurements of the gloss show a certain degree of mineralogical and chemical variability that does not necessarily correlate with the recognised production groups but, rather, reflects different technological practices. Despite this variability, the results suggest that the various gloss productions were produced with a very similar technological process and offer new insights into the mechanisms through which the black gloss technique diffused throughout the Mediterranean