PRIN 2017_2017EYZ727_SH6_IDA OGGIANO_Peoples of the Middle Sea. Innovation and Integration in ancient Mediterranean (1600-500 BC) (DUS.AD013.031)

Thematic area

Social sciences and humanities, cultural heritage

Project area

Structure responsible for the research project

Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale (ISPC)

Project manager

IDA OGGIANO
Phone number: 06/90672
Email: ida.oggiano@cnr.it

Abstract

This project aims at disentangling the relationship between the spread of ideological, technological and social INNOVATIONS & INTEGRATION of different cultures in ancient Mediterranean in the time span 1600-500 BCE. The transmission of INVENTIONS & INNOVATIONS (e.g. the alphabet, the potter's wheel, the concept of city) triggered cultural mix up and hybridization, and, vice-versa the integration of different groups favored the birth of new ideas, models and enterprises. The flame of civilization enlightening the Mediterranean from the Levant to the West ("Ex Oriente Lux") has been a powerful historical paradigm, which the Project overthrows. Recent discoveries in the Iberian Peninsula, the Baleares, Sardinia, Sicily, Southern Italy, North Africa, and Malta have shown that these Lands hosted original and complex cultures and that the interaction with the East was basically bi-directional. A well-integrated team of experts of different periods and disciplines (SH/PE/LS), under the coordination of a leading scholar in Mediterranean and Levantine archaeology, starting from a solid archaeological Databank, and applying refined PE and LS approaches, will explain the progressive formation

Goals

SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT & INNOVATIVE APPROACH
This Project explores ancient Mediterranean cultures during the time span 1600-500 BCE. It aims at a full scientific appraisal of the mechanisms of INNOVATION & INTEGRATION between cultures. The leading heuristic concept of the Project is that innovation fosters integration and vice-versa.
How did inventions, new technologies, and social changes trigger cultural interconnections? At what extent did ancient Mediterranean communities manage to share their cultures, and which new elements contributed to their confrontation, entanglement and integration?
To answer such questions the Project pursues scientific Targets:
a) To explore "patterns, motivations and modalities of migration, with a focus on new geographies and temporalities" (SC6 MIGRATION-01-2019) in ancient Mediterranean
b) To gather, study and made available archaeological information on inventions and innovations and their transmission across the Mediterranean

Start date of activity

18/03/2020

Keywords

PRIN 2017, innovation and integration, Mediterranean

Last update: 18/04/2024