Islam is often seen as a religious tradition in which hell does not play a particularly prominent role. This volume challenges this hackneyed view. Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions is the first book-length analytic study of the Muslim hell. It maps out a broad spectrum of Islamic attitudes toward hell, from the Quranic vision(s) of hell to the pious cultivation of the fear of the afterlife, theological speculations, metaphorical and psychological understandings, and the modern transformations of hell. Contributors: Frederick Colby, Daniel de Smet, Christiane Gruber, Jon Hoover, Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Christian Lange, Christopher Melchert, Simon O’Meara, Samuela Pagani, Tommaso Tesei, Roberto Tottoli, Wim Raven, and Richard van Leeuwen.
Edited by Vanessa Cazzato and André Lardinois, Radboud University, Nijmegen, with an Introduction by Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, Stanford University
The Look of Lyric: Greek Song and the Visual addresses the various modes of interaction between ancient Greek lyric poetry and the visual arts as well as more general notions of visuality. It covers diverse poetic genres in a range of contexts radiating outwards from the original performance(s) to encompass their broader cultural settings, the later reception of the poems, and finally also their understanding in modern scholarship. By focusing on the relationship between the visual and the verbal as well as the sensory and the mental, this volume raises a wide range of questions concerning human perception and cultural practices. As this collection of essays shows, Greek lyric poetry played a decisive role in the shaping of both.
Edited by Anton Bierl, University of Basel and André Lardinois, Radboud University, Nijmegen
In The Newest Sappho Anton Bierl and André Lardinois have edited 21 papers of world-renowned Sappho scholars dealing with the new papyrus fragments of Sappho that were published in 2014. This set of papyrus fragments, the greatest find of Sappho fragments since the beginning of the 20th century, provides significant new readings and additions to five previously known songs of Sappho (frs. 5, 9, 16, 17 and 18), as well as the remains of four previously unknown songs, including the new Brothers Song and the Kypris Song. The contributors discuss the content of these poems as well as the consequence they have for our understanding of Sappho’s life and work
Eulexis est un lemmatiseur de textes grecs. Cette application est actuellement en version bêta. Elle est mise à disposition sans aucune garantie et reste soumise à corrections et améliorations.
Eulexis est un lemmatiseur de grec ancien. Il permet de rechercher un terme dans des dictionnaires de grec (Liddel-Scott-Jones, Pape, Bailly), de fléchir un lemme et de lemmatiser un texte. Il est développé par Philippe Verkerk (@PhVerkerk) avec l'aide de Régis Robineau dans le cadre de la "Boîte à Outils" de l'Equipex Biblissima.
Internet for Classics is a free online tutorial to help university students develop their Internet research skills. Learn how to make discerning use of the Internet to help find information for your coursework and assignments.
Als Fluchtafeln (defixionis tabellae) werden hauptsächlich mit einer Inschrift versehene, dünne Blechstücke bezeichnet, die den Zustand oder die Handlungen von Personen oder Tieren auf übernatürliche Weise gegen deren Willen beeinflussen sollen. Die bisher bekannten etwa 1600 defixiones wurden in der gesamten antiken Welt zwischen 500 v. Chr. und 500 n. Chr. hergestellt. Sie sind also einerseits ein universales Phänomen des Altertums, weshalb im Projekt Umfang und Art der Gemeinsamkeiten innerhalb dieser Quellengattung untersucht werden sollen. Andererseits sind sie geographisch und chronologisch ungleich verteilt und weisen beträchtliche lokale Besonderheiten auf. Dies führt zur Frage, in welchem Verhältnis die allgemeinen Merkmale dieser Quellengattung, ihre Universalität, zu ihrer spezifischen Ausprägung im jeweiligen Kulturraum, also ihrer Ortsgebundenheit, stehen.Dabei ist auch zu ermessen, wie viel Raum sich die Verfasser genommen haben, um ihre individuelle Perspektive einzubringen. Das ist eine wesentliche und bisher vernachlässigte Forschungsdimension, die neuen Hinsichten zur allgemeinen Debatte zum Ausdruck von Subjektivität außerhalb der Kunst im antiken Alltag beitragen wird.Zur Bearbeitung dieser und weiterer Fragen aus dem Bereich der Kultur-, Religions-, Mentalitäts- und Rechtsgeschichte, ist es notwendig alle defixiones mit ihren verschiedenen äußeren, aber umso mehr textimmanenten Merkmalen zu erfassen. Dafür ist diese Datenbank, der TheDeMa (Thesaurus Defixionum Magdeburgensis), erstellt worden, die der Wissenschaft ein aktualisierbares Corpus der Fluchtafeln zur Verfügung stellen soll.
The so-called curse tablets (defixionis tabellae) are mostly thin lead sheets, finely engraved with an inscribed text, which aims at adversely influencing the condition or actions of humans or animals by supernatural means.So far around 1600 defixiones have been recorded. They have been discovered all over the ancient Mediterranean and their chronology spans from 500 BCE to 500 CE. Hence they are a universal phenomenon of ancient societies.For this reason, the project takes into account both the amount and the type of shared features within this collection of texts. At the same time, the local peculiarities among the sources, which are due to the wide geographical and chronological distribution, need to be highlighted. This leads us to ask what sort of balance exists between the trans-historic and trans-geographic elements and those traits that are specific of a given cultural context.Moreover, it is necessary to consider whether and how much freedom the authors may have granted themselves to personalise their curses. This is a central and by now neglected direction of research, which will contribute new insights to the general debate about the forms of individual expression in the everyday life of the Ancients.To be able to work on these and related issues in the field of the history of culture, religion, thought and right, it is essential to gain an overview of all extant defixiones in their outer and, even more, text-immanent features. The TheDeMa (Thesaurus Defixionum Magdeburgensis) database has been created for this very purpose. Indeed it offers scholars an updatable corpus of all known curse tablets.
America’s engagement with Greece and Rome constitutes a continuous thread in the conversation that has created our culture and institutions. Classicizing Philadelphia, a digital research and outreach project at Bryn Mawr College, seeks to document, study, and continue this important conversation in its many forms throughout the history of the city of Philadelphia.
Classicizing Philadelphia is at an early stage in its development, and this web site will continue to grow. For news about this project, see our blog. For further information, contact classicizingphiladelphia(at)gmail.com.
The Bridge enables students and instructors to generate customized vocabulary lists from its database of Greek and Latin textbooks and texts. A list might include all the vocabulary from a core list, an ancient text, or a textbook. But users can focus on a selection of a list or work and also customize their lists to take into account textbooks that they have used, core lists they have mastered, and texts they have already read. These lists can then be filtered to focus on one or more parts of speech, among other options, and then printed or downloaded in a variety of formats.
e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha is a comprehensive bibliography of Christian Apocrypha research assembled and maintained by members of the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (NASSCAL). Entries for each text include a detailed description (a summary, the various titles used in scholarship, clavis numbers, and identification of related literature), an inventory of manuscript sources (with online images where available), an extensive bibliography (including online resources), and information about the text’s use in iconography and popular culture.
One of the primary goals of this resource is to encourage interaction and collaboration among scholars of the Christian Apocrypha. Entries are prepared by scholars working with the texts; users are encouraged to contact the contributors with suggestions for improvement or enhancement. The success of e-Clavis is contingent upon the willingness of users and contributors to exchange information and consistently update the entries.
e-Clavis is looking for volunteers to contribute entries for unassigned texts. Contact members of the editorial board for more information.
Colloquia Maruliana I-XVI were entirely devoted to the study of the life and works of Marko Marulić. From volume XVII on, Colloquia Maruliana, in conjunction with articles about Marko Marulić, also publish articles about other writers and themes from Croatian Humanist and Renaissance literature. Besides the papers addressed to the conference held every year in Split, other worthwhile contributions can also be accepted.
The main goal of the The Bornblum Eretz Israel Synagogues website is to display the world of synagogues from the Land of Israel for the scholar, student and layperson. This website provides information such as bibliographical references, geographical location, photos, plans and brief descriptions of ancient synagogues from the Roman and Byzantine periods in the Land of Israel. It also presents information on selected historically significant synagogues from the Middle Ages through the beginning of the 20th century. This site will be constantly updated including the latest relevant research news and scholarly works. A search of bibliographical references is currently in preparation.
Public structures in the Land of Israel dating as early as the beginning of the 1st century BCE have been identified by excavators, surveyors and researchers as synagogues. This region contains the largest concentration of identified ancient synagogues in the world. The number of identified ancient synagogues reaches a peak in the Roman and Byzantine periods, mainly from the 3rd through 7th centuries CE, and decreases during the 7th through 10th centuries with the collapse of the Jewish population. From the Middle Ages to the early modern period, the size of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel was relatively limited, and usually perceived as secondary to the major thriving Jewish communities in the diaspora. The relatively few synagogues, which were established and functioned in the Land of Israel during this period, had a significant social and spiritual status. From the beginning of modern times, the number of synagogues serving the different Jewish communities grew gradually to over 500 by 1948, and were diverse in terms of their appearance, social significance and liturgical nature.
This website is dedicated to the study of funerary cones (Grabkegel, Friesziegel, cônes funéraires, conos funerarios, Grafkegel, pohřební kužel, Νεκρικοι κωνοι).
ANE 2 is a moderated academic discussion list that focuses on topics and issues of interest in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, from the Indus to the Nile, and from the beginnings of human habitation to the rise of Islam. It is intended to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas on these topics between and among scholars and students actively engaged in research and study of the Ancient Near East.
Active (on-list) participation in ANE 2 assumes an informed knowledge of the ancient Near East and adherence to List Protocols (which are available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANE-2/files/ANE%202%20Protocols and are sent to each new subscriber upon approval of subscription application).
The act of subscribing to the list signifies the agreement of the subscriber to follow these protocols and to accept the adjudications of the Moderators.
ANE 2 is international in scope. List Members should expect to be able to read postings in English, French and German. Participants are free to post in any of these languages, and, upon occasion, in other languages used in the study of the Ancient Near East.
Moderators:
Trudy S. Kawami, Ph.D. Columbia University Art History & Archaeology Director of Research, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation
N. P. Lemche Professor Dr.Theol. Department of Biblical Exegesis The University of Copenhagen
Marc Cooper Missouri State University Department of History
The designation magical gem is a category of modern archaeology, which denotes the most sophisticated amulet type of the Roman Imperial Period. Magical gems were carved of precious stones sized 1 to 3 centimeters, chiefly between the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD, and were designed to bring their owners health, prosperity and love. Their typology follows the shapes of Graeco-Roman glyptics complemented with a few Mesopotamian and Egyptian variants. They are distinguished by their characteristic engravings of inscriptions, signs and images, which usually appear on both faces of the gems, sometimes even on the edge. (For a more detailed definition of magical gems, see our Glossary.)
The Campbell Bonner Magical Gems Database
Magical gems known today number about 4000 pieces and are preserved in different museums and private collections worldwide, often inaccessible for the public. The groundbreaking, and still fundamental, study on magical gems was published in 1950 by American scholar Campbell Bonner, who then described a tenth of the corpus in his Studies on Magical Amulets. In 2004 Simone Michel listed over 2800 pieces in her monograph Die Magischen Gemmen.
Named after Bonner, the primary aim of the Campbell Bonner Magical Gems Database (CBd) is to bring the entire corpus of magical gems online in order to make them better accessible for both scholars and the public, and to facilitate their study through the potentials offered by a digital database. Since its launch in 2010 the database has grown to be a much used research tool, and has helped recognize the genre of magical gems as an important object group of the classical material tradition.
A further incentive of CBd is to publish the second, online edition of Bonner’s Studies on Magical Amulets within the framework of the database, revised and enlarged by leading scholars of the field.
Le VÉgA, ou Vocabulaire de l’Égyptien Ancien, constitue une innovation dans le domaine de l’égyptologie. Ce dictionnaire numérique en ligne inédit est le fruit d’une collaboration public/privé dans le cadre du LabEx Archimede au sein de l’Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, ainsi que des recherches des égyptologues et des méthodologies du design et de l’informatique. Il vise à devenir pour l’égyptologie une source incontournable et sans cesse actualisée, ainsi qu’un support de collaborations scientifiques internationales pour les décennies à venir. Grâce au VÉgA et à ses divers niveaux de lecture, chaque utilisateur, qu’il soit amateur ou professionnel, étudiant débutant ou linguiste, pourra étudier les mots du vocabulaire égyptien, en accédant en ligne à l’information académique la plus récente disponible sur le sujet.
VÉgA, Vocabulary of Ancient Egyptian, is an innovation in the field of Egyptology. This new online digital dictionary is the result of private/public collaboration within the LabEx Archimede at the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier. It is also the product of research carried out by Egyptologists as well as design and computer software methodologies. The aim is not only to be an indispensable and regularly updated source of information for Egyptology, but this online dictionary also strives to be a medium for international scientific collaborations for many years to come. Thanks to VÉgA, every user, whether they be an amateur, professional, student or linguist, will be able to study the Egyptian words through online access to the most up-to-date academic information available on the subject.
Evagrius Ponticus (b. 345 in Ibora; d. 399 in Egypt), a monastic theologian, was one of the most talented intellects of the fourth century. Circulating in elite ecclesiastical circles of Cappadocia and Asia Minor, he began his career under Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus, serving with the latter in Constantinople through a stormy tenure that culminated in the Second Ecumenical Council (381). Known then as a brilliant heresiologist, Evagrius seemed destined for a successful ecclesiastical career. He chose a different course, and fled to Jerusalem, where he took vows in the monastic communities of Rufinus and Melania. From there he traveled to Egypt and lived in monasteries in Nitria and Kellia. In Egypt he wrote extensively in a variety of genres—letters, proverbs, brief sayings (chapters), and treatises—nearly all geared toward explaining and analyzing vice and virtue, demons and angels, psychological and psychosomatic phenomena—in sum, the life of the ascetic. His accounts are set, sometimes explicitly, oftentimes pensively, within a well-developed metaphysical system that responded to both classical philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism) and the theology of some of the most accomplished Christian intellectuals (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus).
Although well connected in his own time, Evagrius fell into disrepute in the sixth century, when his writings, along with those of Origen and Didymus the Blind, were associated with a theological strain of Origenism condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553). The more speculative of Evagrius's writings fell out of circulation in the Byzantine Greek manuscript tradition. Those works survive in a number of other languages, principally Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, and Arabic—linguistic traditions whose reception of Origen and Evagrius were not as controversial. His writings deeply influenced many theologians and monastic writers, including Sts. John Cassian, "Dionysius the Areopagite," Maximus Confessor, John Climacus, Isaac of Nineveh, and Simeon the New Theologian. The Armenian Orthodox Church commemorates him, as did some Syriac-speaking Orthodox churches, but his condemnation is maintained by the Eastern Orthodox Church and, with important caveats (e.g., his recent inclusion in Butler's Lives of the Saints), the Roman Catholic Church.
This Guide provides definitive lists of Evagrius's works, of editions and translations of those works, and of studies related to his life and thought. It includes an inventory of key ancient sources that refer to Evagrius and a display of imagery from the ancient world. Updated quarterly, the Guide will gradually introduce a manuscript checklist, images of manuscripts, transcriptions of those manuscripts, and open source critical editions of Evagrius's writings.
Michel JORDAN (dessins), Susanne BICKEL & Jean-Luc CHAPPAZ, avec des contributions de Faried ADROM et Éric RICHARD, La Porte d’Horemheb au Xe pylône de Karnak (CSÉG 13), Genève 2015. Entrepris sous le règne d’Amenhotep III et entièrement décoré sous celui d’Horemheb, le Xepylône de Karnak signalait l’entrée méridionale du grand temple d’Amon, tout en magnifiant l’accès au dromos conduisant vers les sanctuaires de Mout, Khonsou ou Kamoutef. La qualité et la finesse d’exécution des décors – non exempts d’irrégularités graphiques – en rehaussent la majesté et rendent toujours actuel le jugement de Champollion. Cet ouvrage, fruit de plusieurs missions des équipes du Fonds pour l’Égyptologie de Genève, situe le monument, resté inédit à ce jour, dans son contexte historique et topographique, puis analyse les principes architecturaux de son élévation. L’attention est ensuite portée sur la porte de granite, dont les scènes sont reproduites, reconstituées et commentées de différents points de vue (notamment religion ou histoire de l’art). L’avant-porte en grès et le socle du colosse sud-ouest, également restés inédits, constituent les deux derniers chapitres de l’étude. Planches épigraphiques:
The project Monuments of Mosul in Danger (Ohrožená architektura města Mosulu) aims to document and research Mosul monuments that have been destroyed by ISIS since June 2014 (see About the Project). As the first output of the project, we are releasing a list and interactive map of destroyed monuments created through analysis of satellite imagery. The list and map are interconnected with profile lists of individual monuments showing satellite images documenting the scope of the destruction. The map documents the situation as of the end of August 2015. We have failed to identify six of 38 destroyed structures (labeled as unknown structure). We would be grateful for any additional information that would help us to identify them.
Do not hesitate to contact us should we have made any mistakes in our identifications. Also, any supportive documentation related to the endangered Mosul architecture would be appreciated.
Coptic SCRIPTORIUM is a platform for interdisciplinary and computational research in texts in the Coptic language, particularly the Sahidic dialect. As an open-source, open-access initiative, our technologies and corpus facilitate a collaborative environment for digital research for all scholars working in Coptic. We provide:
tools to process Coptic texts
a searchable, richly-annotated corpus of texts using theANNISsearch and visualization architecture
visualizations of Coptic texts
a collaborative platform for scholars to use and contribute to the project
research results generated from the tools and corpus
We hope Coptic SCRIPTORIUM will serve as a model for future digital humanities projects utilizing historical corpora or corpora in languages outside of the Indo-European and Semitic language families. Read our Frequently Asked Questions for more information on the project, methodologies, and terminology.
The blog aggregates news about publications, activities, etc. related to Arabic scholarship in the field of classics and thus seeks to provide greater access to non-Arabic scholars. The news comes mainly from Egypt without excluding other Arabic countries. It aims also at directing the attention of my Egyptian/Arabic colleagues to relevant classics materials from an Arabic context, whether this is Graeco-Arabicum or Arabico-Latinum.
From 2012 this is a full Open Access journal, which means that all articles are freely available, ensuring maximum, worldwide dissemination of content, in exchange for an article processing fee. For more information, see our Open Access Policy page.
This journal is published under the auspices of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies. The international editorial board is headed by Professor John Finamore of the University of Iowa. This exciting journal covers all facets of the Platonic tradition (from Thales through Thomas Taylor, and beyond) from all perspectives (including philosophical, historical, religious, etc.) and all corners of the world (Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, etc.).