Bøker i Topoi - Berlin Studies of the Ancient World/Topoi - Berliner Studien der Alten Welt-serien

Does the soul have parts? What kind of parts? And how do all the parts make together a whole? Many ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers discussed these questions, thus providing a mereological analysis of the soul. Their starting point was a simple observation: we tend to describe the soul of human beings by referring to different types of activities (perceiving, imagining, thinking, etc.). Each type of activity seems to be produced by a special part of the soul. But how can a simple, undivided soul have parts? Classical thinkers gave radically different answers to this question. While some claimed that there are indeed parts, thus assigning an internal complexity to the soul, others emphasized that there can only be a plurality of functions that should not be conflated with a plurality of parts. The eleven chapters reconstruct and critically examine these answers. They make clear that the metaphysical structure of the soul was a crucial issue for ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers.

This work investigates the Carthaginian territories in Sicily from the period of Punic settlement of the western portion of the island in the 6th century BC through the creation of the Roman province and the Augustan administration. It analyzes fundamental questions regarding the Punic and Roman presence in Sicily. Specific areas of emphasis include topography, town planning, fortifications, residential architecture, temples, and necropolises. nd necropolises.

This volume presents new research by the Topoi group "The Conception of Spaces in Language" on the expression of spatial relations in ancient languages. The six articles in this volume discuss static and dynamic aspects of the spatial grammars of Ancient to Medieval Greek, Akkadian, Hittite, and Hieroglyphic Ancient Egyptian, as well as field data on eight modern languages (Arabic, Hebrew, English, German, Russian, French, Italian, and Spanish). Among the grams discussed are spatial particles, motion verbs, case and, most prominently, spatial prepositions. All ancient language data are fully explained in linguistic word-by-word glosses and are therefore accessible to scholars who are not themselves experts on the respective languages. Taken together, these contributions extend the scope of research on spatial grammar back to the third millennium BCE.d millennium BCE.

This book contains a collection of papers discussing questions related to space and movement in the framework of computational archaeology, landscape archaeology, historical geography and archaeological theory. The contributions, written by recognized experts in the field, show how the study of settlements pattern and movement has been dramatically transformed by the use of technology like Geographic Information System (GIS). The papers focus on the ways to approach past movement using GIS in archaeological landscape studies: theoretical, technical and interpretative issues are addressed and explored. They provide the state of the art in theory and methodology and show, by using case studies, the potential of the developed approaches for the understanding of factors and effects of landscape formation and transformation in the long term.

This book, consisting of 12 contributions, amalgamates the most recent results from archaeological research in the Upper Mesopotamian piedmont. Under the growing influence of expanding territorial states which had become established during the 2nd millennium BC, this region experienced a substantial change in social and political life during that time. The discussion is centered around settlement shapes, developments in the material culture, as well as written documents that attest to this change. In summary, this book emphasizes the significant roll of archaeological research in the reconstruction of models concerning the formation and transformation of political space in the ancient world.

Questions concerning mobility and migration as well as subsistence strategies of past societies have always been of major importance in archaeological research. The West Eurasian steppes in the Eneolithic, the Early Bronze and the Iron Age were largely inhabited by cultural communities believed to show an elevated level of spatial mobility, often linked to their subsistence economy. In this volume, questions concerning the mobility and potential migration as well as the diet and economy of the West Eurasian steppes communities during the 4th, the 3rd and the 1st Millennia BC are approached by applying isotope analysis, specifically 87Sr/86Sr, I 18O, I 15N and I 13C analyses. Adapting a combination of different isotopic systems to a study area of vast spatial and chronological dimension allowed a wide variety of questions to be answered and establishes the beginning of a database of biogeochemical data for the West Eurasian steppes. Besides the characterisation of mobility and subsistence patterns of the archaeological communities under discussion, attempts to identify possible Early Bronze Age migrations from the steppes to the steppe-like plains in parts of Eastern Europe were made, alongside an evaluation of the applicability of isotope analysis to this context.

Mit Rom als kultureller und Mailand als politischer Hauptstadt im 4. und 5. Jh. befassen sich die multidisziplinären Beiträge dieses Sammelbands. Beide Städte werden in der Literatur dieser Zeit als Räume wahrgenommen, in denen die für den lateinischen Westen bedeutenden politischen und klerikalen Machtkämpfe sowie die politischen und kulturellen Veränderungen stattfanden. Die Städte werden damit als ¿Bühnen¿ verstanden, auf denen sich macht-, kultur- und kirchenpolitisches Welttheater abspielt. Grundlage für die Rekonstruktion der beiden ¿Bühnenbilder¿ sind Texte, Inschriften und archäologische Befunde.