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Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Harland et al., website on Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World

PHILIP HARLAND: Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World. Another useful website/blog by Professor Philip A. Harland (and collaborators), this one drawn to my attention by David Meadows at Rogue Classicism. I have mentioned it long ago under another name. I am happy to see it is still thriving. It is now added to my blogroll.
“Ethnographic culture,” as we intend it, moves beyond the idea of “ethnography” as a Greek and Roman literary genre describing non-Greek and non-Roman peoples (“barbarians”). Instead, ethnographic culture refers to the ways in which the classification and description of “other peoples” was an active imagination that played out in large-scale and small-scale ways across societies, in local social interactions, and in connection with diasporic communities of immigrants. Judeans (Jews) and Jesus adherents (Christians) were very much a part of this larger sphere of ethnic encounters, so they have a place here too as instances of minorities (see especially categories 1 and 5).

This website then combines literary, epigraphic, and visual data in order to aid students and researchers in a fuller understanding of ethnographic culture. It also facilitates the reconstruction of minoritized ethnic groups spread across time (from the fifth century BCE to the sixth century CE) and geography (across the Mediterranean and near east).

There are many posts on matters of interest to PaleoJudaica.

Some PaleoJudacia posts on Professor Harland's books and websites are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.