The Devil’s Writing April 6, 2024mayoid Stephen Houston and Felipe Rojas (Brown University) The Spaniards expressed a certain ambivalence about Maya glyphs. They called them letras, a neutral word suggesting an equivalence to their own writing system. But they could also describe the script in...
The Spaniards expressed a certain ambivalence about Maya glyphs. They called them letras, a neutr... more The Spaniards expressed a certain ambivalence about Maya glyphs. They called them letras, a neutral word suggesting an equivalence to their own writing system. But they could also describe the script in terms of caracteres. This implied, among other nuances, a cipher or emblem of magical import (Drucker 2022:61-62; Hanks 2010:3).[1] At the time, charaktêres, an obvious cognate with caracteres, were mystical signs created by adding circles or other embellishments to preexisting scripts (Gordon 2014:266-67). Devoid of grammar, often written for single use, they were thought to be "unutterable," being visionary in origin and direct conduits to mystical meaning (Gordon 2014:263). John Dee, the Elizabethan-era occultist, even claimed to have received his own esoteric script from angels (Harkness 1999:166). Maya glyphs, by contrast, were understood to be legible if challenging to read. Like other writing, they recorded, among their quite varied content, "the deeds of each king's ancestors" and reports of "years, wars, pestilences, hurricanes, inundations, hungers" (Houston et al. 2001:26, 40).
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Books by Felipe Rojas
Otros pasados es una invitación a explorar algunas de las muchas y diversas formas en las que los humanos han entendido y construído sus propios pasados—y los de otros. El libro reúne ensayos de antropólogos, historiadores y arqueólogos que trabajan en momentos y lugares diversos para explorar la variabilidad de la conciencia histórica humana. Estos ensayos incitan preguntas sobre los límites de este tipo de investigacion académica: ¿Será posible reconocer y estudiar temporalidades e historicidades entre comunidades cuyas nociones de ontología, causalidad y agencia difieren fundamentalmente de las actualmente dominantes? ¿Si es así, cómo? Y más importante aún: ¿será posible entablar un diálogo con esos sistemas de conocimiento?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/pasts-of-roman-anatolia/DEFC312DE09EB59A513CC722EA182450#fndtn-information
Papers by Felipe Rojas
Greek, Arabic, and English between the sixth and the twenty-first centuries
CE to probe different episodes in the long-term history of the monument's
interpretation.
were of intense interest to Greek historians and to the communities and
individuals who lived in their vicinity. It focuses on two ancient historians’
discussions of pre-classical rock-cut reliefs to highlight the debates among
ancient interpreters about the origins of such remains and their significance in local and universal history. Our analysis challenges Arnaldo Momigliano’s clearcut distinction between antiquarianism and history, as well as Elias Bickerman’s influential notion that the only “prehistory” available to the Greeks and their neighbors was that imagined by the Greeks.
Hittite and Neo-Hittite rock-cut reliefs and inscriptions. It brings together archaeological and textual evidence
that demonstrates the intensity, variety, and sophistication of interactions with Bronze and Iron Age
material remains between the classical and early Byzantine periods. It also calls attention to the ways in which
indigenous inhabitants and foreign visitors alike used such remains to construct or verify narratives about
local and universal history. The evidence analyzed here should be of interest to those studying social memory
as well as cross-cultural interaction within and beyond the Mediterranean.
Keywords: afterlife of monuments, Anatolia, antiquarianism, memory, rock-reliefs
Although ancient aqueduct bridges and tunnels have been visible in the Morsynos river valley and neighboring Tavas plain since antiquity, the material remains of waterworks in and around Aphrodisias have never been systematically documented or comprehensively studied. The Aphrodisias Regional Survey has produced an up-to-date and detailed account of the city’s extraurban aqueducts, engineering works that enabled the enhancement of the city’s public infrastructure as well as the development of the countryside.
We have identified and documented six separate aqueducts, named after local toponyms: Seki, Işıklar, Derince Dere, Kavaklı Dere, Ören Deresi, and Timeles. Three of these, the Seki, Işıklar, and Timeles aqueducts, supplied Aphrodisias in the Roman period. The Derince Dere aqueduct may have supplied two small baths in Aphrodisias during the Ottoman period. The Kavaklı Dere and Ören Deresi aqueducts, remains of which are located at elevations lower than the city, may have supplied a village, farmstead, or villa, or provided water for irrigation during the Roman or Byzantine period.
The most impressive aqueduct was the Timeles, which carried water to Aphrodisias from the neighboring valley of the Yenidere Çayı. It was a major piece of Roman engineering, more than 20 km long, running in tunnels up to 50 m deep, and crossing at least a dozen bridges, which ranged in height from 5 m to nearly 30 m. This is surely the aqueduct commemorated by coins and inscriptions of the mid-second century A.D. that document the “introduction” of the river Timeles into Aphrodisias. The identification of the Timeles with the Yenidere Çayı presumably indicates that at least a portion of this river lay within or on the edge of the territory of Aphrodisias.
This chapter provides the first detailed account of the extraurban aqueducts that supplied Aphrodisias in antiquity. It also represents the first attempt to document all the major waterworks in the region, including aqueducts with destinations other than Aphrodisias and the Ottoman cisterns located throughout the valley.
In this paper I offer several snapshots of cultural and political rivalries involving Anatolian lakes spanning many centuries from the Roman period to the Bronze Age. Although the specific debates that I examine took place at very different moments, under very different cultural circumstances, the matters of contention were strikingly similar: chronological precedence in the territory and the exact nature of the relationship between lakes, gods, and kings. The conflicting narratives told about those lakes were one of many ways in which the people of Anatolia defined who they were and remembered who they had been.
Otros pasados es una invitación a explorar algunas de las muchas y diversas formas en las que los humanos han entendido y construído sus propios pasados—y los de otros. El libro reúne ensayos de antropólogos, historiadores y arqueólogos que trabajan en momentos y lugares diversos para explorar la variabilidad de la conciencia histórica humana. Estos ensayos incitan preguntas sobre los límites de este tipo de investigacion académica: ¿Será posible reconocer y estudiar temporalidades e historicidades entre comunidades cuyas nociones de ontología, causalidad y agencia difieren fundamentalmente de las actualmente dominantes? ¿Si es así, cómo? Y más importante aún: ¿será posible entablar un diálogo con esos sistemas de conocimiento?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/pasts-of-roman-anatolia/DEFC312DE09EB59A513CC722EA182450#fndtn-information
Greek, Arabic, and English between the sixth and the twenty-first centuries
CE to probe different episodes in the long-term history of the monument's
interpretation.
were of intense interest to Greek historians and to the communities and
individuals who lived in their vicinity. It focuses on two ancient historians’
discussions of pre-classical rock-cut reliefs to highlight the debates among
ancient interpreters about the origins of such remains and their significance in local and universal history. Our analysis challenges Arnaldo Momigliano’s clearcut distinction between antiquarianism and history, as well as Elias Bickerman’s influential notion that the only “prehistory” available to the Greeks and their neighbors was that imagined by the Greeks.
Hittite and Neo-Hittite rock-cut reliefs and inscriptions. It brings together archaeological and textual evidence
that demonstrates the intensity, variety, and sophistication of interactions with Bronze and Iron Age
material remains between the classical and early Byzantine periods. It also calls attention to the ways in which
indigenous inhabitants and foreign visitors alike used such remains to construct or verify narratives about
local and universal history. The evidence analyzed here should be of interest to those studying social memory
as well as cross-cultural interaction within and beyond the Mediterranean.
Keywords: afterlife of monuments, Anatolia, antiquarianism, memory, rock-reliefs
Although ancient aqueduct bridges and tunnels have been visible in the Morsynos river valley and neighboring Tavas plain since antiquity, the material remains of waterworks in and around Aphrodisias have never been systematically documented or comprehensively studied. The Aphrodisias Regional Survey has produced an up-to-date and detailed account of the city’s extraurban aqueducts, engineering works that enabled the enhancement of the city’s public infrastructure as well as the development of the countryside.
We have identified and documented six separate aqueducts, named after local toponyms: Seki, Işıklar, Derince Dere, Kavaklı Dere, Ören Deresi, and Timeles. Three of these, the Seki, Işıklar, and Timeles aqueducts, supplied Aphrodisias in the Roman period. The Derince Dere aqueduct may have supplied two small baths in Aphrodisias during the Ottoman period. The Kavaklı Dere and Ören Deresi aqueducts, remains of which are located at elevations lower than the city, may have supplied a village, farmstead, or villa, or provided water for irrigation during the Roman or Byzantine period.
The most impressive aqueduct was the Timeles, which carried water to Aphrodisias from the neighboring valley of the Yenidere Çayı. It was a major piece of Roman engineering, more than 20 km long, running in tunnels up to 50 m deep, and crossing at least a dozen bridges, which ranged in height from 5 m to nearly 30 m. This is surely the aqueduct commemorated by coins and inscriptions of the mid-second century A.D. that document the “introduction” of the river Timeles into Aphrodisias. The identification of the Timeles with the Yenidere Çayı presumably indicates that at least a portion of this river lay within or on the edge of the territory of Aphrodisias.
This chapter provides the first detailed account of the extraurban aqueducts that supplied Aphrodisias in antiquity. It also represents the first attempt to document all the major waterworks in the region, including aqueducts with destinations other than Aphrodisias and the Ottoman cisterns located throughout the valley.
In this paper I offer several snapshots of cultural and political rivalries involving Anatolian lakes spanning many centuries from the Roman period to the Bronze Age. Although the specific debates that I examine took place at very different moments, under very different cultural circumstances, the matters of contention were strikingly similar: chronological precedence in the territory and the exact nature of the relationship between lakes, gods, and kings. The conflicting narratives told about those lakes were one of many ways in which the people of Anatolia defined who they were and remembered who they had been.
Much scholarly attention has been paid to the moment of production of rock-cut monuments. Our purpose, by contrast, is to study their successive re-interpretations and manipulations, their cultural recycling. Rock-cut monuments incite passions: many rulers have been inspired by the endeavors of their predecessors to engage in monumental dialogues on cliff faces, sometimes doing so across centuries or even millennia. Others have sought to deface or obliterate them, outraged by what they imagine their images and texts to represent. Travelers and scholars have been drawn to them repeatedly, often leaving behind traces of themselves, their inquiries, and their interpretations. The history of their re-interpretations exemplifies the intricate interaction of ancient cultures with their own, even more ancient, past. The result is a layered landscape of cultural meaning and natural transformations (e.g. erosion) that can furnish precious evidence about the pre-modern archaeological imagination.
We aim to bring diverse specialists on the ancient world to Brown University to tackle the following questions: who in the pre-modern period was interested in rock-cut monuments? How did ancient interpreters make sense of their images and texts? What did those people think the monuments represented? In what way were conflicts resolved between conflicting interpretations? And, finally, how can we as contemporary scholars, begin to address such questions?
Felipe Rojas (Brown University)
Jonathan Ben Dov (University of Haifa)
9 :00-9 :30 Stéphane VERGER et Olivier HENRY (ENS-AOROC)
Le territoire de Labraunda
9 :30-10 :00 Axel FREJMAN (Université d’Uppsala)
The surroundings of Labraunda
10 :00-10 :30 Baptiste VERGNAUD (LaScArBx, Koç RCAC)
Le réseau de fortifications et l’acropole de Labraunda
10 :30-11 :00 Olivier HENRY (ENS-AOROC UMR8546)
Les nécropoles de Labraunda et la tombe monumentale
11 :00-11 :30 Pause
L’expression du pouvoir
11 :30-12 :00 Naomi CARLESS UNWINN (Center for Hellenic Studies)
Olympichos and Labraunda: a new inscription from the sanctuary
12 :30-13 :00 Ragnar HEDLUND (Université d’Uppsala)
Close to Zeus Labraundos. Studies in the architecture of the temple terrace at Labraunda
13 :00-14 :30 Repas
Le sanctuaire et l’eau
14 :30-15 :00 Felipe ROJAS (Université de Brown)
Water in the Sanctuary: Monumental Fountains in Hellenistic Labraunda
15 :00-15 :30 Christophe BOST et Ayse HENRY (IFEA)
Les Bains Est durant l'Antiquité tardive : reconversion et réoccupation
15 :30-16 :00 Ömür CAKMAKLI (Université de Karabük)
An Arduous Puzzle in Labraunda: Roman Water Complex
16 :00-16 :30 Discussion
This symposium aims to trouble the divide between local and foreign antiquarian traditions by focusing on case studies drawn primarily from the eastern Mediterranean and central and south America. Both regions host robust pre-modern antiquarian traditions that have continued to develop throughout the periods of colonialism and crypto-colonialism. In both regions, moreover, colonial encounters are mediated in part by the Enlightenment antiquarianisms of west- and central-European elites. The two regions also exhibit salient differences. For example, European elites claimed the “antiquities” of the eastern Mediterranean as aspects of their own, “classical,” heritage, whereas they perceived those of the Americas as essentially foreign, even as they attempted to understand them by analogy to the classical world. These basic points of comparison and contrast provide a framework for conjoint analysis of the emergence of hybrid antiquarianisms: how the “indigenous” has inflected the “colonial,” and the “colonial” the “indigenous,” in the study of the antiquities of central and south America and the eastern Mediterranean.