Research
Ancient geography can be described as an academic discipline which explores both the environmental (“physical”) conditions peoples and individuals in antiquity were living and acting in, and the (“mental”) images, maps and models the Greeks and Romans made about their “world” while orienting and navigating in it. It may be considered as important background for Ancient History as well as other disciplines concerned with the ancient world. The historical geography of the ancient Mediterranean employs all methods and techniques typical for humanities, social, cultural or cognitive sciences (like the traditional historical-critical method), but also, increasingly, methods originally developed and refined in the natural sciences (like GIS).
Fields of research of the department "Historical Geography of the ancient Mediterranean" on the one hand consist of editing and commenting ancient authors and their works (Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Peutinger Table etc.); on the other hand, ancient images and knowledge of space (geographical common knowledge; measuring techniques; knowledge-saturated instruments) are examined.
Recent major research is done upon Common Sense Geography - construction of mental models, scripts and frames of ancient geographical images - , identification of socio-economic networks on the basis of ancient distances, ancient cultures in the peripheral regions (especially the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, North-Western Africa, Armenia) as well as reconstructions of ancient measuring instruments and techniques by using artefacts and ancient (and also post-ancient) texts and image-sources (sundials, meteoroscope, maps etc.).
Further projects upon Herodotus, Polyaenus and other fields of historical geography, astronomy and metrology are being prepared.
Prof. Dr. Klaus Geus will write the volume "Ancient Geography" for the "Handbook of classical and ancient studies", the "flagship" of the classical program of C.H. Beck. The release is planned for 2016.
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