Diversity and standardization

From the historiographic perspective of the longue durée, the history of the cultures of the ancient Near East appear to have been shaped by astonishingly durable forms of governance or structures of authority. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that these essentially monocratic systems engendered highly divergent forms of authority, each oriented to a specific set of regional relations. This process produced a series of institutions which served to implement governmental authority in specific territories. In style and configuration, these types varied dramatically between the city state and the large-scale territorial state, yet at the same time (and this is the central thesis of our research group), processes of norming and standardization played a decisive role in generating spatial and societal identity in every type of early state. An awareness of the significance of such processes of normativity is reflected in the significance attributed for example to the utilization of texts and the application of metric standards in all ancient Near Eastern kingdoms. The relationship between local, regional, and supraregional regulations in the context of such standardizing systems and their transformations in the wake of changing political structures testify to the active deployment of commensurate knowledge in the assertion of territorial authority. A project on norming and standardization processes in the cultures of the ancient Near East, carried out in 2008/2009 in the framework of Topoi, was conceived as basic research whose initial objective was to generate a database that could be reconfigured in the context of the examination of subsequent issues. Investigated here is the relationship between the establishment of territorial authority and norming and standardization in the realm of cultural techniques, with a focus on metrology, primarily on the basis of reference objects bearing inscriptions pertaining to metrical units, and on a special type of writing, specifically Hieroglyphic Luwian

Berliner Konstellationen am Ende der Weimarer Republik. Eduard Norden und die Altertumswissenschaft in Jerusalem

Les « pères fondateurs » de l’institut des Études Classiques à l’Université Hébraïque de Jérusalem – Max (Moshe) Schwabe, Victor (Avigdor) Tcherikover, Hans (Johanan) Lewy – ont fait leurs études à l’université de Berlin pendant les années ‘20 de la République de Weimar ; ils y ont reçu leurs degrés. Expulsés par les national-socialistes, ils ont porté avec eux un idéal scientifique – Altertumswissenschaft – et la mémoire de leurs maîtres, parmi eux le latiniste Eduard Norden. Celui-ci, né dans une famille juive, baptisé à l’âge de dix-sept ans, patriote nationaliste et même admirateur du « Führer », a néanmoins encouragé des études sur les relations entre judaïsme et hellénisme. Tout en étant confronté à des difficultés personnelles qui devaient aboutir à l’émigration en 1939, il fit de son mieux pour encourager la carrière de ses disciples bannis. À partir de documents divers, cette étude enquête sur les constellations complexes, compliquées et contradictoires de l’époque.The « founding fathers » of the institute of Classical Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – Max (Moshe) Schwabe, Victor (Avigdor) Tcherikover, Hans (Johanan) Lewy – studied at Berlin university during the twenties of the Weimar Republic, where they took their degrees. Expelled by the national-socialists, they carried away with them a scientific ideal – Altertumswissenschaft – and the memory of their masters, among whom the Latinist Eduard Norden. The latter, born into a Jewish family, baptized at the age of seventeen, a nationalist patriot and even admirer of the « Fürher », nevertheless encouraged the studies on the relations between Judaism and Hellenism. While confronted with personal difficulties which were to wind up into emigration in 1939, he did his best in supporting the carreers of his banished disciples. Stemming from various documents this study sets out to seek the complex, complicated and contradictory constellations of the times

Plenary Agenda Report for Research Group B-II-1

Political authority over extensive territories is a well-known phenomenon of the ancient world, and one conceptualized already in antiquity through the image of the succession of empires. Each such politico-spatial order was based on the successful interrelationship of heterogeneous symbolic and concrete forms of governance in the context of contingent structural conditions. While each major empire must be regarded as a singular historical case, the question nonetheless presents itself of how an awareness of such structures of political administration were constituted in premodern states. In the framework of Area B »Mechanisms of Control and Social Spaces« large-scale phenomena of governance were examined particularly with regard to the forms of knowledge associated with the organizational implementation of these of hegemonic structures. This research group investigates the interdependency of spatial structures and the organization of authority with reference to four major empires. Brought to light through the analysis of contrasting interventions into these territories are continuities and discontinuities of practice within which the spectrum of forms of knowledge as well as the object of knowledge itself become discernible. The geographic region of investigation is the Near East. Three ancient Near Eastern case studies, namely the Hittite and Mittani Kingdoms and the Middle Assyrian Empire, illustrate the region of Anatolia-Upper Mesopotamia in a dense chronological stratification which traverses a period lasting circa 500 years. Emerging within this chronotope both geographically and chronologically are intersections through which commonalities and differences in the organization of governance are revealed, not least of all in their spatial conditionality. In contrast, the subproject in Ancient History dealing with the system of rule of the Imperium Romanum in the Ancient Near East focuses on the early period of the Principate, with a special focus on the Palestinian-Syrian realm. In terms of systematics and chronology, two detailed studies contrast the relatively homogeneous perspectives of the four above-named empires: the first examines »trade relations« in the Neo-Babylonian empire of the 1st millennium BCE, and the second »multiethnicity« in the formation of the ancient Near Eastern empires of the later 1st millennium BCE. The analysis proceeds via archaeological, philological, and historical methods and focuses on concrete forms of political authority as exercised in interdependency with the governed regions on various scales. Settlement structures, artifacts, and border formations have been investigated along with a multiplicity of textual genres, including historical documents such as treaties, but also epigraphic materials, legal, and commercial documents. Some of the sources are being made accessible and published for the first time in the framework of these investigations. A web- supported map project will permit links to be created between geographically defined discursive horizons and object data such as settlement patterns, areas of settlement, and texts

La muerte de Lucius Annaeus Seneca

En la primavera del año 65 después de Cristo moría, por orden del emperador Nerón, el filósofo Lucius Annaeus Seneca, antes protegido de la madre del emperador, educador del príncipe y consejero del césar. Sobre su muerte no nos ha llegado ninguna documentación, ni el informe de su médico, ni el relato del acontecimiento de alguno de los amigos presentes, ni un protocolo del centurión al que se había confiado la vigilancia de la ejecución. La muerte de Séneca es trasmitida sólo como una pieza de historiografía romana, redactada unos cincuenta años después por Cornelius Tacitus en el libro 15 de sus <i>Annales</i>. <i>(Párrafo extraído del texto a modo de resumen)</i>Centro de Estudios Latino

Plenartagungsbericht der Forschergruppe D-III-2

With our point of departure in the concept of cultural technology/technologies, the work of our research group strives first to gain an understanding of the conditions under which the description and representation of spatiality are possible within particular modalities of communication (geometric, algebraic, verbalized, as well as in drawings, models, and ›diagrams‹), and secondly, to analyze the role of the recording medium (in this case textuality) in these processes. Bearing in mind the focus of Research Group D-III the problematic of research group D-III (»Spatial Models and Spatial Thinking«) and that of Area D (»Theory and Science«) in the broadest terms, we seek on the basis of concrete case studies to describe the earliest instances of textuality, both the interdependence of materiality and object-form as well as the influence of textuality on the shaping and development of analytical thinking and the systematic acquisition of knowledge. The material focus is on documenting the cuneiform cultures of the Ancient Near East

Plenartagungsbericht der Forschergruppe B-IV

Die spezifische Zusammensetzung der Forschergruppe B-IV bedingt eine Pluralität an Gegenständen, Methoden und Zielen. Nach aktuellem Diskussionstand wollen die Mitglieder: (1) zu einer Theorie des Raumes gelangen, die insbesondere das Rahmenthema der Area B (»Mechanism of Control and Social Spaces«) repräsentiert; (2) eine Arbeitsdefinition bzw. Arbeitsdefinitionen (mit Einschluss des »Wissen«-Aspekts) auf der Basis unserer eigenen, bisher geleisteten Forschungen erstellen, die für die Fragestellungen und Zielvorstellungen der Gruppe B-IV besonders geeignet und zutreffend ist; (3) die in den Teilgruppen erzielten Einzelergebnisse weniger auf eine abstrakte Metaebene heben als vielmehr ›modular‹ verschränken und die Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede herausarbeiten. Für den »Raum« hat die Gruppe folgende Definition erarbeitet: Als Raum im historischen Sinne versteht B-IV jenen von Individuen, Kollektiven und Staaten konstruierten (bzw. von Forschern dekonstruierten) Bezugsrahmen, der durch Funktionsstandorte markiert wird, medial beschrieben ist, durch Distanzangaben in seiner Spatialität quantifizierbar ist und durch unterschiedliche Formen der Strukturierung näher qualifiziert werden kann. Der vermessene und deskribierte Raum generiert seinerseits wiederum neue Repräsentationen (›Weltbilder‹), die ihrerseits wieder ›Wirklichkeiten‹ bestimmen bzw. operationalisiert werden (›Entdeckungen‹). »Raum« ist somit keine absolute Größe, sondern eine Menge relationaler Phänomene