Ägypten am Übergang zur Spätantike - Literarische & numismatische Datensammlungen

Vortrag von Gregorio Aostalli (Basel) & Bernhard Krieter (Basel) im Rahmen des Kolloquiums «Zur neueren Forschung in der Alten Geschichte» im HS 2022.

Gregorio Aostalli "An Urban Biography of the middle Egyptian city of Antinoopolis": Despite the considerable help offered by technology, approaching ancient sources remains one of the most complex tasks in the historical field. Yet, systematic collection, as well as the development and understanding of the data, is the cornerstone of any research project. The presentation describes the process around the foundations of an urban biography of the Egyptian city of Antinoopolis, precisely the basis of our namesake project, which, through eclectic research and analysis of sources from different times, places and cultures, transcends time and space. The power of ancient texts is limitless, because through bridges of words thousands of years old, faces and magnificent buildings appear again from the sands of time. As part of the Basel SNF project The Roman Egypt Lab, all available sources on 3rd century Egypt are being collected and made accessible for analysis. As student assistant in the project, Bernhard is collecting the literary and numismatic sources in a database as part of this project. How can we structure a data set to make it fruitful for historical analysis? Egypt's special role in the Roman provincial system is also reflected in its monetary policy, because until the great monetary reform under Emperor Diocletian in 294, the province formed a closed system with coins minted in Alexandria. These coins can play an important role in structuring and analyzing the transformations and continuities of the so-called "3rd century crisis," as they are the only continuous and contemporary source for the self-representation of their rulers. At the same time, numismatic sources raise questions and challenges, both in terms of their representativeness and their number and publication status (in catalogs that have hardly been digitized so far). In this talk, Bernhard Krieter will present some approaches to address these challenges.

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