Universal Properties of Mythological Networks

As in statistical physics, the concept of universality plays an important, albeit qualitative, role in the field of comparative mythology. Here we apply statistical mechanical tools to analyse the networks underlying three iconic mythological narratives with a view to identifying common and distinguishing quantitative features. Of the three narratives, an Anglo-Saxon and a Greek text are mostly believed by antiquarians to be partly historically based while the third, an Irish epic, is often considered to be fictional. Here we show that network analysis is able to discriminate real from imaginary social networks and place mythological narratives on the spectrum between them. Moreover, the perceived artificiality of the Irish narrative can be traced back to anomalous features associated with six characters. Considering these as amalgams of several entities or proxies, renders the plausibility of the Irish text comparable to the others from a network-theoretic point of view.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Updated to incorporate corrections from EPL acceptance proces

Creating a map of the underground heritage in the Mediterranean area: A visual representation for a comprehensive research

Interest in man-made (or artificial) cavities in the countries of the Mediterranean Basin led the Commission of the Italian Speleological Society to study and catalogue some of the most common troglodyte types in the region. Since 2000, the Commission has drawn up a study of the geographical distribution of rock-cut structures through a project initially developed by Mario Mainetti and Erica Besana in 1994. This geographical catalogue has been realised through integrating the information available in the international bibliography with the scientific research carried out by the Commission and the research groups affiliated therewith. The result of this work is a list of 1948 rupestrian sites distributed throughout 31 countries and represented on a general map. In this chapter, a general overview of the project is presented, along with a description of some case studies from different countries, including Tunisia, Libya, Turkey and Italy