The third volume in the `Studies in Hellenistic Civilization' series contains eight essays arising from the second international conference organized by the Danish research project on the Hellenistic period in 1990. Contributors include: U Ostergard (What is national and ethnic identity?); D J Thompson (Language and literacy in early Hellenistic Egypt); J Blomquist (Alexandrian science: the case of Eratosthenes); K Goudriaan (Ethnical strategies in Graeco-Roman Egypt); A Kasher (The civic status of the Jews in Prolemaic Egypt); P Borgen (Philo and the Jews in Alexandria); C R Holladay (Jewish responses to Hellenistic culture); J P Sorensen (Native reactions to foreign rule and culture in religious literature).
Goudriaan, K. Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt. 1988 This study takes as its starting point a complaint made by the late Claire Préaux with regard to Ptolemaic Egypt, that one does not know how to tell Greeks and Egyptians asunder. The author tries to find an answer to this question by making use of the concept of ethnicity developed in modern anthropology. He also deals with the problem whether or not the Ptolemaic administration took ethnicity into account. DMAHA 5 (1988), 185 p. - 32.00 EURO, ISBN: 9050630227
Hundreds of different ethnic terms occur in well over a thousand papyri, ostraca and inscriptions in Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphic Middle Egyptian in reference to around 3000 specific individuals. The precise meaning of ethnic terms is however often problematic. Ethnic terminology thus presents papyrologists, epigraphers, ancient historians and legal historians with some of the most puzzling problems of interpretation. In addition, ethnic terms are fundamental to a better understanding of a wide range of problems of social and cultural history, including immigration, ethnicity and social and cultural integration. The first ever comprehensive collection of ethnic terminology was published by the present author in his book Foreign Ethnics in Hellenistic Egypt in 2002. This volume represents an update of his original work, offering a critical collection of the sources that appeared since its publication, with an introductory study of ethnic terminology in the multilingual documentary evidence from Hellenistic and early Roman Egypt.0.
In Jewish Ethnic Identity and Relations in Hellenistic Egypt, Stewart Moore investigates the foundations of common assumptions about ethnicity. To maintain one’s identity in a strange land, was it always necessary to band tightly together with one’s coethnics? Sociologists and anthropologists who study ethnicity have given us a much wider view of the possible strategies of ethnic maintenance and interaction. The most important facet of Jewish ethnicity in Egypt which emerges from this study is the interaction over the Jewish-Egyptian boundary. Previous scholarship has assumed that this border was a Siegfried Line marked by mutual contempt. Yet Jews, Egyptians and also Greeks interacted in complicated ways in Ptolemaic Egypt, with positive relationships being at least as numerous as negative ones.
One of the great seats of learning and repositories of knowledge in the ancient world, Alexandria, and the great school of thought to which it gave its name, made a vital contribution to the development of intellectual and cultural heritage in the Occidental world. This book brings together twenty papers delivered at a symposium held at the J. Paul Getty Museum on the subject of Alexandria and Alexandrianism. Subjects range from “The Library of Alexandria and Ancient Egyptian Learning” and “Alexander’s Alexandria” to “Alexandria and the Origins of Baroque Architecture.” With nearly two hundred illustrations, this handsome volume presents some of the world’s leading scholars on the continuing influence and fascination of this great city. The distinguished contributors include Peter Green, R. R. R. Smith, and the late Bernard Bothmer.
Under the Ptolemies thousands of Greek-speaking foreigners were resident in Egypt: they were active in the armed forces, in the administration, in commerce. In official and notarial documents they are identified by their ethnic, i.e. their real or fictive origin outside Egypt. The present work provides a complete inventory of the ethnics, which refer to Greek city-states (e.g. 'Athenian', 'Syracusan'), but also to regions in Greece (e.g. 'Cretan', 'Thessalian') or elsewhere (e.g. 'Thracian', 'Jew'). The data are incorporated in the database of the Prosopographia Ptolemaica and offer a diversified view of the Greek presence in Egypt between 323 and 30 BC.
"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.
A timely and academically-significant contribution to scholarship on community, identity, and globalization in the Roman and Hellenistic worlds Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World examines the construction of personal and communal identities in the ancient world, exploring how globalism, multi-culturalism, and other macro events influenced micro identities throughout the Hellenistic and Roman empires. This innovative volume discusses where contact and the sharing of ideas was occurring in the time period, and applies modern theories based on networks and communication to historical and archaeological data. A new generation of international scholars challenge traditional views of Classical history and offer original perspectives on the impact globalizing trends had on localized areas—insights that resonate with similar issues today. This singular resource presents a broad, multi-national view rarely found in western collected volumes, including Serbian, Macedonian, and Russian scholarship on the Roman Empire, as well as on Roman and Hellenistic archaeological sites in Eastern Europe. Topics include Egyptian identity in the Hellenistic world, cultural identity in Roman Greece, Romanization in Slovenia, Balkan Latin, the provincial organization of cults in Roman Britain, and Soviet studies of Roman Empire and imperialism. Serving as a synthesis of contemporary scholarship on the wider topic of identity and community, this volume: Provides an expansive materialist approach to the topic of globalization in the Roman world Examines ethnicity in the Roman empire from the viewpoint of minority populations Offers several views of metascholarship, a growing sub-discipline that compares ancient material to modern scholarship Covers a range of themes, time periods, and geographic areas not included in most western publications Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World is a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and graduate students examining identity and ethnicity in the ancient world, as well as for those working in multiple fields of study, from Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman historians, to the study of ethnicity, identity, and globalizing trends in time.
