Ancient Geography

The 8th-century astronomer Lalla first articulated the dispute with the Paurāṇikas on the view of the cosmos. His arguments were supported by later astronomers such as Bhāskara. Christopher Minkowski summarized the dispute in five parts relating to the Earth, eclipses and the Moon and dubbed it the virodha problem.
The paper uses a critical study of a dozen Purāṇas to establish that they are, in reality, consistent with the Sūrya Siddhānta in all five aspects. The Sūrya Siddhānta is meant for scholars and contains numerous computations. The Purāṇas are for the layperson and use storytelling and metaphors to stay accessible to their audience. The paper unravels these narratives and metaphors and demonstrates, for example, that the Purāṇic Earth was of the right shape and size. The texts also described continents such as Africa and the Americas. The paper should open a fresh perspective on understanding the Purāṇic texts.

This chapter explores the interplay between medicine and natural philosophy in the Peripatetic tradition, focusing on ps.-Aristotelian Problemata Physica 26.13 in relation to Aristotle's Meteorologica II 5 and Theophrastus' De Ventis 55. It examines how seasonal winds, especially in summer and autumn, were explained through a synthesis of astronomical, meteorological, and medical knowledge, while also accounting for popular beliefs surrounding Orion. By situating these explanations within Hippocratic environmental medicine, the chapter highlights the principle of synchrony between bodily and environmental stability. It argues that recurring attempts to rationalise turbulent seasons reveal a shared intellectual framework in which natural philosophy and medicine converged to explain the effects of environmental change on health and human life.

This is the first of two volumes on Ptolemy’s Geography. I argue that we must go in our research beyond the limited view of tradition. We must study what exactly was the original mappa mundi associated with the Geographia, what are the relations between roman itineraria and the data collected by Marinus. In my opinion, many interpretations are obsolete -e.g. the ptolemaic length of  the meridian. I see the map of oikoumene as a marvelous geometrical construction wich tries to re-create intellectually the world from the distances between known points. My calculations prove that 1. The original map had great dimensions – probably 4 X 2 m for the map proper – and that is the reason we have no replicas in manuscripts; 2. The degree of latitude used by Ptolemy can be obtaind comparing the arc between two known points and their distances in itineraria. The results of repeated measurements show that the degree of latitude used by Marinus and Ptolemy had a length of ≈75 roman miles; 3. On this basis a series of accurate ancient distances can be found on the Ptolemaic maps, within a margin of error of maximum 5’ – the limit fraction of degree admitted by the scale of the map.

The name of the region is unstable in its own manuscript tradition: Κυρρηστική stands beside the readings Κυρριστική and Κυριστική, forms the reference tradition classifies as mistakes made by the scribes. The witnesses behind the name attest different things. Polybius attests a people under arms. Strabo attests a description whose acropolis is Gindarus and whose stated extent runs to the territory of Antioch. Ptolemy attests a heading over a city list. Pliny corroborates in Latin through an edited tradition. None of these supplies the bounded district that modern reference works present. This note separates the categories of evidence contributing to the modern conception of Cyrrhestica and identifies the stages through which they were consolidated: ancient testimony, editorial intervention, nineteenth-century synthesis, gazetteer stabilization, and canonization in the modern reference tradition. It does not propose an alternative geography.

Codex Augiensis is best known as one of a family of three Greek-Latin bilingual manuscripts grouped together because of similarities noted by scholars beginning in the 18th century. Scholars in the modern period have often concerned themselves with an analysis of the text in the hopes of uncovering older forms of the Pauline Epistles. However, new methods in codicology and paleography allow scholars the tools to research Augiensis as an object of inquiry in its own right rather than merely as a piece of data used in search of the Ausgangstext.

This thesis analyzes 2 Timothy and Titus in Augiensis with reference to these newer methods in order to better understand the material setting of the text. This thesis provides an analysis of both the textual and paratextual features of Codex Augiensis, showing how its biblical texts are translated and transmitted by looking at 2 Timothy and Titus with a view to its material makeup, scribal habits, and idiosyncrasies. A study of Augiensis both for its own sake and in the context of relevant Greek-Latin bilingual manuscripts (in this study, Claromontanus and Boernerianus) tells us more about the history of the transmission of 2 Timothy and Titus and the transmission of these texts in their original and translated languages. It also provides a launch point for other scholars desiring to analyze Augiensis in the future.

The region known as the Middle East, with its geographical location, rich resources and cultural diversity, is regarded as the cradle of world history. It is the place where humankind transitioned from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled life based on agricultural production, and where the first villages and cities were established, giving rise to social order and the concept of the state; it is also the region where written culture originated. In this cradle of culture and civilisation, archaeological excavations conducted since the 19th century have unearthed numerous artefacts belonging to ancient civilisations, as well as cuneiform texts. With the translation of these texts into modern languages, the process of humanity’s transition from villages to cities and from cities to states can now be traced in much greater detail. The discovery of archaeological and written sources has revealed the first city-states, the first kingdoms, the first empires, and the first laws, alongside the first temples, cities, royal tombs, pottery, sculptures, and various writing systems and styles, clearly demonstrating the extent to which modern civilisation owes a debt to Middle Eastern civilisation. When the history of the Middle East is examined through the historical periods from the Sumerians, who invented writing, through the Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman eras, a continuous process of development can be observed. This study aims to provide a general overview of the pre-Islamic period of the ancient Middle East. Of course, over a period of approximately 3,500 years, the Middle Eastern region has witnessed countless events, cultures, peoples, religions, states, struggles, famines and interactions that cannot be covered in this study. However, rather than examining all these elements, this study focuses on the major political structures of the ancient Middle East and their contributions to world civilisation, with the aim of forming an understanding of the ancient periods and developments of the modern-day Middle East.

Sri Lanka, a small island in the Indian Ocean, has long held strategic importance in global trade, exploration, and geopolitics. This prominence is mirrored in how foreign cartographers recorded the island's presence on maps over centuries, using various names derived from different linguistic and cultural sources. To understand the history of island, one must begin with its evolving name. Known in ancient times as Lanka (meaning "island"), it was rendered Taprobana by the Greeks, Serendib by Arab geographers, Ceilão by the Portuguese, Zeylan or Ceylan by the Dutch, and Ceylon by the British. In 1972, the island reclaimed its traditional name by adopting Sri Lanka, with "Sri" meaning "resplendent," hence "Resplendent Island." For centuries, scholars, geographers, and cartographers identified Taprobana, a name that appears in Greco-Roman texts with modern-day Sri Lanka. However, a closer examination of classical sources, early maps, and contemporary scholarship reveals that this identification arose from persistent misinterpretations. Taprobana, as it emerges through the historical record, is not a specific island but rather a geographical composite, likely blending characteristics of several Southeast Asian locations. John R. Baker (1948) superbly described it as a hybrid of rumor, myth, and partial knowledge, poorly aligned both spatially and descriptively with Sri Lanka. This article explores the literary and cartographic origins of Taprobana, the evolution of its misidentification, and modern interpretations. It presents a central hypothesis: Taprobana is not Sri Lanka.

This paper presents and contextualises a number of previously unpublished funer-ary inscriptions recently discovered during archaeological investigations carried out by the University of Chieti-Pescara in the Cyrenaican settlement of Phykous, which from early Roman times onwards became an important maritime port for Cyrene, particularly after Apollonia attained the status of an independent polis. These are the first epigraphic documents to emerge from this site, which is known in literary sources almost exclusively through geo-graphical descriptions and the letters written by Synesius to his brother, who lived there. The onomastic records reveal signs of cultural intermingling within a stratified social structure, where Greeks and indigenous peoples coexisted and collaborated with the Romans and their familiae, who had established their commercial and economic activities here since the consti-tution of the Provincia up to the Late Empire.

This manuscript was prepared and developed entirely by me as the sole author. Language refinement tools were used only for grammar and readability; the analysis, arguments, and interpretations are wholly my own. All photographs and figures have been used with the necessary permissions and credits.

This presentation examines how coastal communities in antiquity conceived of the sea not merely as a physical environment, but as a powerful, living force endowed with agency. Such perceptions became especially vivid in the aftermath of coastal catastrophes. The Gulf of Cádiz, on the southwestern edge of the Iberian Peninsula, serves as the primary case study. Its broad floodplains and pronounced tidal regimes made it highly vulnerable to extreme events, including storm surges and tsunamis, which repeatedly reshaped both the landscape and human experience. By tracing how societies from antiquity to the present have responded to episodes of catastrophic marine flooding through religious practice and ritualized forms of engagement, the paper explores the complex interplay between human action and the morethan-human agency of the sea.

This paper revisits Claudius Ptolemy's depiction of Germania Magna through a multidisciplinary approach, integrating computer-aided distortion analysis of Donnus Nicolaus Germanus's medieval cartography with geological insights. The study proposes that the region underwent significant and complex transformations, likely influenced by tectonic activity, such as the reactivation of the Caledonian Deformation Front (CDF), a major geological structure in Europe that separates ancient orogenic belts, and possibly by cosmic events like the Chiemgau impact, a proposed meteorite impact in southern Germany. A reevaluation of Germanus's map, aligned with modern cartographic data, challenges long-held interpretations of Germania Magna's boundaries. The analysis suggests that Ptolemy's Vistula Fluvius corresponds more closely to the present-day Schwarze Elster in Germany rather than the Vistula River (Weichsel) in Poland. Building on this reinterpretation, the study further examines the potential regression of the Oceanus Germanicus, attributing it to tectonic shifts, volcanic activity, or changes in relative sea level. These environmental processes may have profoundly shaped settlement patterns and cultural development, influencing not only coastal areas but also extending to all regions of Germania Magna, as communities presumably adapted to substantial environmental changes. By situating Germania Magna within the broader framework of geological, cosmic, and climatic phenomena, this study offers new insights into pivotal events and processes that could have shaped the environmental and cultural landscape of Northern and Central Europe in antiquity. It aims to encourage further interdisciplinary research and a critical reassessment of historical and archaeological interpretations.

This brief paper draws to everyone's attention an irregularity on an old map which is not seen on any others that might be showing Plato's mystery Island of ATLANTIS. Whatever it is, it seems to be been something that may be tangible at one time.

"Classical Studies", or the study of Classical Antiquity, is an ample category covering several disciplines: philology, history, archaeology. They all have to work with written sources at some point, but they rarely do it in a coordinated way. More often than not, material remains or topographical studies don´t play a role in philological interpretations, while archaeologists and historians don´t see the need for a philological reading of texts written by ancient authors, considering them mere tools to confirm their own conclusions or even deceptions to be discredited. This lack of organization is, as we will argue here, at the root of continued misconceptions like those which surround the identity and location of the island of Erytheia, which can be solved by an interdisciplinary approach.

The book examines the founding of Thessaloniki, one of the most important and enduring Hellenistic cities. It brings together various topics relating to Cassander’s foundation, some of them reconsidered and others examined for the first time, and is informed by the results of the archaeological research of the region around modern Thessaloniki that has taken place in the last 40 years and significant topographical observations that result from them, including the huge impact that the foundation of Thessaloniki had on the settlement map around the Thermaic Gulf.
Most important is the examination of the data on the founding of Thessaloniki that may be derived from Strabo’s work, the only ancient source that describes the event. The two relevant fragments are discussed in detail. Finally, the book examines some issues relating to the founding of Thessaloniki that were not touched upon by Strabo, including the motivations and ambitions behind Cassander’s founding of the new city, as well as the outcomes and general impact of its establishment.
In this monograph, all the components of both the textual and the current archaeological evidence are analytically and comparatively examined, while comparisons with other cases of synoecism, especially within the same timeframe, that are described in the ancient literature are made in an effort to shed more light on the topography around Thessaloniki before and immediately after its founding. Among the main objectives of the book are: to produce an original contribution to modern scholarship by advancing our understanding of the way an
important Hellenistic city was founded through the procedure of synoecism; to demonstrate that when it comes to historical/archaeological questions of a topographical nature, the literary and archaeological evidence is deficient if it is not supplemented by topographical data, something for which there are many more convenient tools available today than there were some decades ago; to encourage further research on key aspects of the archaeology and ancient history of central Macedonia.

This guideline provides a comprehensive account of the technical‑editorial protocol for semantic encoding adopted in the digital library “Thebarum fabula.” By employing the universal TEI‑XML standard to structure both the textual witnesses and variants and all other encoded textual instances, it ensures that the philological work is not confined to a single publication format. This standardization enables the reuse of the material, facilitating the integration, retrieval, and processing of data from ancient Greek and Latin works in future research and across different digital platforms. This guide may be of great value to researchers undertaking digital projects of a similar nature to that of the “Thebarum fabula” digital library.

The article presents the first results of a digital project devoted to the study of ancient paradoxography, a literary tradition consisting of collections of strange-but-(supposedly-)true phenomena concerning the natural world and the human sphere. The article is structured in two parts. First, we describe the first steps towards the creation of a relational database of ancient paradoxography, in collaboration with Trismegistos (TM Paradoxography). Second, we focus on the possibilities and limitations of the digital study of the toponyms mentioned in ancient paradoxography, by discussing the digital annotation of the toponyms mentioned in the paradoxographical collection known as the Paradoxographus Florentinus. This case study shows that the digital mapping of toponyms can be a valuable research tool to better understand the structure of paradoxographical texts and, more generally, the geographical horizon of ancient paradoxography.

This paper examines Pathyris’ rich papyrological source material, highlighting its usefulness in reconstructing the town’s rural and urban landscape. It shows how its inhabitants attempted to describe and locate their land and houses in their contracts, orienting their real estate from the perspective of the flow of the Nile and the position of the temple avenue. It also discusses how these written sources, supported by insights from ethnographic studies in Nubia, help to distinguish between the qȝy and mȝy land types, the formation of mȝy of land, its exploitation and to identify those who sought ownership of it.

Este artículo analiza los capítulos que el autor hispano Pomponio Mela dedicó a la región del mar Rojo en su obra geográfica, titulada Corografía. Este autor redactó un escrito de alto valor literario, pero con un contenido bastante deudor de la tradición geográfica y paradoxográfica griega. Uno de los autores que Mela siguió más de cerca fue Heródoto, especialmente en aquello que concierne la descripción de la zona que griegos y romanos conocieron bajo el nombre de "Etiopía".

Резюме: В епохата на кръстоносните походи Западна Европа навлиза във време на подем, превърнало се в предпоставка за мащабна експанзия на Изток. Поле на тази експанзия се оказва и Византия. Нейното православно население пряко се сблъсква с военното дело, порядките и културата на западните войнства. Първоначално под формата на наемници и авантюристи на служба в империята, поклонници и кръстоносци, а впоследствие и като завоеватели, които организират свои латински владения в южните предели на Балканите, те донасят някои нововъведения, които оказват влияние върху военната култура на местното население. В продължение на няколко века в сферата на военното дело и военната култура постепенно се създава една любопитна симбиоза между местните ромейски традиции и тези на латинския Запад. Пример за това са любопитните свидетелства за провеждането на рицарски турнири и дори участието на византийски знатни воини, редом с франкските рицари в такива военни игри, организирани на територията на Византийската империя и в нейната периферия през XIV и XV в.

El presente trabajo analiza la literatura de viajes del período helenístico a partir de las fuentes clásicas, siguiendo el enfoque de Francisco Javier Gómez Espelosín. Se examina la naturaleza híbrida de estos relatos, en los que se combinan observación empírica y elementos fantásticos, dificultando la distinción entre realidad y elaboración literaria. La expansión derivada de las conquistas de Alejandro Magno impulsó una nueva cosmovisión y favoreció el desarrollo de este género. A través del análisis de autores como Heródoto, Estrabón, Megástenes y Nearco, se evidencia la coexistencia de descripciones geográficas y etnográficas con tradiciones paradoxográficas. Asimismo, se subraya la reinterpretación progresiva de las fuentes y la influencia de marcos culturales como la cosmovisión mágica fenicia. En conclusión, estos relatos cumplen una doble función: informativa, en términos geográficos y antropológicos, y propagandística, al servicio de la expansión política.

In Greek and Latin geographical literature, the understanding of spatial relationships often derives from the travel narratives of merchants. This is particularly true for the Far Eastern regions of the Asian continent, which were largely imagined through the accounts of silk traders. Thus, studying the development of the concept of silk-producing country in ancient geographical literature provides valuable insights into the evolution of the silk trade across Asia in antiquity.

The University of Bologna, Department of History and Cultures (Mattia Vitelli Casella), in collaboration with the Geographi Latini Online (Niklas Fröhlich, KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt), is hosting an academic conference in Bologna on November 5th–6th 2026 on the topic “Greek Geography in the Roman Imperial Period”.

Il ciclo dei workshop Lopereseguite 2013-2021, promosso e realizzato dalla SDI in vista dell’ultimo centenario dantesco, si è concluso riscuotendo ampia partecipazione di pubblico e forte interesse nella comunità scientifica, anche grazie alla Collana Lopereseguite, nata nel 2018 con l’intento di raccogliere gli Atti di questi incontri sulle opere
di Dante. Considerato il successo dell’iniziativa, la SDI ha ritenuto importante proseguire con un nuovo ciclo di workshop (Lopereseguite 2025-2027, II Serie), per continuare a favorire ad un alto livello scientifico la discussione su importanti questioni interpretative e testuali con aggiornamenti critici e approfondimenti d’indagine dedicati ai contesti culturali e alla ricezione delle opere di Dante.

Algorithms, Roads, and Narratives: Navigating Ancient Crete (ARNAC) is an interdisciplinary research project that explores roads, movement, landscape, and narrative in ancient Crete through digital methods, spatial analysis, and historical interpretation. It is carried out at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation and funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation.

The study of ancient roads in Crete has often been limited to specific historical periods and subregions. The 'Algorithms, Roads, and Narratives: Navigating Ancient Crete’ (ARNAC) project, led by Dr Vyron Antoniadis, focuses on utilizing GIS tools, particularly Least Cost Path (LCP) analysis, as well as Point Process Models (PPM) and Focal Mobilty Networ (FMN) to examine ancient roads in Crete.

The research aims to reconstruct the ancient road network from the Minoan times to the Late Roman period and to develop a best practice guide for LCP analysis applicable in Crete and other regions. The project sets itself apart by emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach within History and Archaeology, which combines islandwide tests of LCP methods with all available ancient testimonies (archaeological, literary and epigraphic) and modern historical and socio-cultural evidence.

This comprehensive strategy ensures a thorough examination, facilitating a nuanced understanding of the historical and archaeological landscape. Additionally, it aims to provide free and open access to the research findings for the academic community and the public.

Nell’ambito della ricerca indoeuropeistica le labiovelari costituiscono uno degli aspetti più spinosi e delicati, che non solo hanno scandito i percorsi e le fasi del metodo comparativo-ricostruttivo della protolingua, ma anche hanno di volta in volta investito la definizione della posizione linguistica di singole lingue e delle varietà di lingue di nuova acquisizione. Il trattamento delle labiovelari rappresenta, infatti, uno dei parametri fondamentali per la descrizione dell’inventario fonico di una lingua storica o di un gruppo di lingue e delle relazioni reciproche in seno alla famiglia indoeuropea. Esempio saliente è la divaricazione del loro trattamento tra il celtico insulare e quello continentale o all’interno dei dialetti greci. Ma alla prova dei fatti non sempre le lingue si assoggettano a rigide partizioni.
La ricostruzione della labiovelare, che trova la sua giustificazione ed efficacia come modello esplicativo dei molteplici esiti nelle diverse lingue, lascia, tuttavia, aperte questioni non di poco conto, inerenti soprattutto l’effettiva natura e la plausibilità sia teorica sia concreta di ciò che si ricostruisce. Se la ricostruzione delle labiovelari è il prodotto del metodo comparativo-ricostruttivo elaborato dalla linguistica del XIX secolo, la linguistica del XX secolo ha aperto nuovi orizzonti sul versante sia storico sia teorico che sollecitano una riconsiderazione del problema soprattutto nella visione dialettica delle due prospettive direttamente chiamate in causa dall’oggetto stesso della ricerca, cioè la fonetica e la fonologia.  In sostanza, la linguistica del Novecento ha sentito il bisogno di andare oltre la media dei suoni ricostruiti dalla comparazione di lingue per lo più attestate solo dalla scrittura per verificare il grado di plausibilità e di realismo dei foni sia in rapporto all’apparato fonatorio ed uditivo dei parlanti sia all’interno di un sistema storico. 
In queste linee metodologiche si muove il presente lavoro, che si propone come obiettivo «l'esatta specificazione fonetica delle entità in oggetto nonché un'adeguata collocazione funzionale all'interno del sistema fonologico» ricostruito. L’affrontare l’argomento delle labiovelari è di per sé prova di grande coraggio e determinazione, che scaturiscono dalla passione, dall’entusiasmo, dalla scrupolosità e dalla competenza nelle discipline linguistiche e, in particolare, nella fonetica e nella fonologia, che l’autore ha manifestato nel corso dei suoi brillanti studi. In questa indagine risalta la solidità delle conoscenze e dei presupposti metodologici necessari che investono sia i vari approcci della fonetica sia la teoria fonologica classica sia le più recenti tendenze della fonologia naturale.
Il lavoro, che ha un’impronta del tutto personale ed originale, mira, dunque, a verificare la natura fonica della labiovelare nel sistema del consonantismo dell’indoeuropeo ricostruito valutandone l’ammissibilità in rapporto ai sistemi delle lingue storiche e la rispondenza teorica ai requisiti tipologici universali, cercando di saldare le linee metodologiche e i percorsi tematici del metodo comparativo-ricostruttivo con gli apporti della linguistica sincronica del Novecento nell’organicità di una sintesi critica. L’articolazione dell’analisi tra l’inquadramento del problema nei vari percorsi e metodi che hanno contrassegnato la ricostruzione dell’indoeuropeo, la determinazione dello statuto fonologico e l’interpretazione fonetica delle labiovelari rivela la capacità dell’Autore di muoversi agevolmente su versanti diversi della linguistica conferendo a quest’opera uno spessore meritevole di particolare apprezzamento.

Paolo Poccetti

Balochistan, the Westernmost province of Pakistan. It borders with Iran from West), Afghanistan from Northwest, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab from Northeast and East) Sindh from Southeast and the Arabic Sea from South. Balochistan is a historical, archaeologically and geologically rich province in Pakistan. However, it has one of the earliest settlements in south Asia. Balochistan is filled with remains of the past. Sometimes even these remains are experienced after rains or just by surface walking. Balochistan embraces a virgin field to the archaeologists that until now has been discovered merely with a scanty division of its area. Remains like the discovery of Mehrgarh (8000BCE), indicates a transition phase from hunting gatherer society to settled agricultural communities. The region is called the birth of the Indus civilization or Harrapan civilization (3300BCE). This region is rich in archaeological antiquities from ancient prehistoric period to historic period. This paper explores the archaeological study of Baloch. It discovers how the ancient Baloch settled, material culture and historical significance of Balochistan's ancient geography, major rivers and cultural legacy of Baloch in Prehistoric times.

Reflexión crítica sobre artículo de J.A. Domínguez Monedero, "El viaje de Hanón de Cartago y los mecanismos de exploración fenicios" ¿Un instrumento discursivo al servicio de Cartago? El estudio de análisis producido por J. A. Domínguez Monedero sobre el viaje de Hanón presenta diversas lecturas interpretativas acerca de un texto tradicional procedente de fuentes primarias clásicas.

Il Pilastro del Mondo esplora una delle immagini più persistenti delle civiltà tradizionali: l’Asse del Mondo, il pilastro cosmico che orienta lo spazio, scandisce il tempo e collega i diversi livelli dell’essere. Muovendosi tra Grecia, Vicino Oriente, Egitto, Iran, India, Cina e tradizione biblica, il volume ricostruisce una geografia simbolica fatta di poli, cardini, montagne cosmiche, estremi del mondo, correnti celesti e soglie.

Il lavoro adotta un metodo filologico e storico-comparativo, attento alla lettera delle fonti, alle stratificazioni linguistiche e ai contesti religiosi e culturali, senza ridurre le differenze tra le tradizioni ma cercando di metterne in luce consonanze, tensioni e specificità.

Primo volume della trilogia Cosmo e anima nella sapienza antica, il libro indaga il Pilastro non solo come figura cosmologica, ma anche come principio di orientamento interiore, capace di illuminare il rapporto tra ordine del cosmo, destino umano e possibilità di smarrimento o ritorno.

This book attempts to solve a 2,000-year-old riddle of ancient geography: Where was the elusive Stone Tower located which Claudius Ptolemy wrote about as marking the mid-point on the old Silk Road, as caravans plied their trade between Europe and Asia?

Only by understanding the wider historical context during this period can this site be located with any certainty. For this reason, this book is divided into three parts: the first explains the birth of the Silk Road; the second covers key events in history that determined the Stone Tower’s establishment at the half-way mark; and the third pinpoints where the tower actually lay.

The timeline covered spans almost 300 years:  It starts in 140 BC, when a Chinese palace guard named Zhang Qian volunteered to travel west for Emperor Wu Di, in the process founding this celebrated trade route; and it ends in AD 140, when Ptolemy probably completed his Geographia and revealed the site of the Stone Tower. For the most part, this period parallels the First Silk Roads Era dating from 100 BC to AD 250.

In the corpus of ancient Latin texts of geographical content, the diamerismoi, lists that attempt to connect the descendants of Noah with peoples and regions of the established Greco-Roman culture of knowledge, have a special place. Within this genre, the diamerismos of the so-called Exordium has only a marginal position. Where it is cited, it is because of a section in which the Goths are possibly linked to Noah’s grandson Ashkenas. In some renowned publications, in particular the Encyclopaedia Judaica/Hebraica and Herwig Wolfram’s works on the Goths, this was interpreted as the beginning of a tradition line: “Ashkenas” did indeed become the Hebrew/Yiddish name for the Germanic north, for Germany, in the High Middle Ages. As part of the DFG-funded project Geographi Latini Online (GLO), a corpus of Latin geographical texts, including the Latin diamerismoi, is being newly edited and analysed, in many cases for the first time since the 19th century. In doing so, it emerges that the note on “Gothic Ashkenasim” is already dubious from a text-critical point of view, and even apart from those questions the often-repeated theory of a possible tradition line can be rejected outright.

This paper proposes a novel compositional methodology for reading the works attributed to William Shakespeare as a coherent ideological project of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Drawing on the intellectual and political networks of the School of Night including Sir Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, and John Dee, we argue that de Vere systematically encoded the biographical experiences and fates of his contemporaries into a layered dramatic method, producing what we term a refractive identity: a cultural vehicle designed to transmit a reformist worldview to popular culture beyond the reach of crown, church, and parliament. Through close reading of selected plays, including The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and King Lear, we identify a consistent two-layer compositional structure in which de Vere's personal biography is overlaid with the fate of a second historical figure, producing dramatic characters of unusual psychological depth. We further argue that this method is not incidental but ideological, rooted in Rosicrucian principles of anonymous truth-transmission, and that the resulting worldview is coherent, historically situated, and attributable to a single authorial consciousness that could not have been that of William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.

This paper revisits a reports by Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder from the 1st century AD, describing 'Indians' who allegedly were cast by a storm from Indian waters and ended up on the shores of Germania. The author analyze these narratives through classical sources and geographical assumptions of the time, questioning theirs feasibility and suggesting a potential transatlantic origin for these castaways. By exploring ancient maritime theories, the Gulf Stream, and navigation practices, the article raises the possibility that these so-called 'Indians' may have been oceanic castaways from the Americas or Caribbean. This scenario not only invites reconsideration of pre-Columbian transoceanic contact but also highlights the limitations of Roman geographic knowledge and ethnographic labeling.

For many people mathematical texts are characterised by numbers but, in fact, the language is much more important in modern and ancient mathematics because it aims to provide sharp arguments. The casual understanding of mathematics makes us focussing on the deeper sense instead of the rhetoric in which it is presented. In this contribution, I will change this perspective and focus on the language in the ancient star catalogue(s).

This paper investigates how ancient philosophers explained meteorological phenomena, tracing the transition from mythological to naturalistic accounts. Focusing on Aristotle, Lucretius and Seneca, it examines how clouds, hail, rain, rivers, thunder and lightning were understood through analogies with the human body. Biological imagery – encompassing digestion, circulation, and exhalation – served both explanatory and rhetorical purposes, linking microcosm and macrocosm. Aristotle’s concept of antiperistasis and his condensation-based theory of river formation illustrate shared causal principles between physiological and atmospheric processes. Lucretius and Seneca employ affective and sensory metaphors to confront fear, portraying storms as natural rather than divine phenomena. Overall, the study argues that bodily analogies not only clarified natural processes but also functioned therapeutically, guiding readers toward intellectual understanding and emotional tranquillity.

Из всех стран, по чьей территории протекает Амударья, больше всего она способствовала формированию природного ландшафта именно Туркменистана, так как еще в геологическую эпоху, палео-Амударья создала почти всю пустыню Каракумы, покрывающую около 80% территории нашей страны. Это происходило в течение нескольких миллионов лет, когда древнейшая Амударья впадала в Каспийское море на территории Туркменистана, протекая через его центральную часть по своему древнейшему руслу Унгуз и своими песчаными отложениями образовывая восточную, центральную и северную части Каракумов (южная часть огромной туркменской пустыни была образована реками Теджен и Мургаб).

Since 2011, the digital archive of Latin poetry Musisque Deoque has included a dedicated section for the Carmina Latina Epigraphica, which has undergone substantial quantitative and qualitative enhancement in recent years. This article outlines the methodologies employed for querying and textual analysis specific to epigraphic poetry. It also presents selected outcomes stemming from the recent integration of over three hundred new metrical inscriptions, the implementation of critical apparatuses, metrical scansion performed via Pedecerto, and the incorporation of hyperlinks to major epigraphic databases (EDCS, EDH, EDR, EDB, CLEo).

A persistent sense of uncertainty of the Iranian environment emerges from Roman sources on campaigns into the Parthian Empire, rooted in an imagery of the Parthian homeland as mysterious and inhospitable. This article examines Polybius’ account of Antiochus III’s Anabasis in Parthia proper (209 BCE), the earliest surviving description of a campaign into the Iranian world written for a Roman audience.
Polybius shaped an enduring image of Parthia proper as a liminal and hostile space, defined by unconventional warfare, cultural hybridity, and a harsh environment – a view that challenged Graeco-Roman conception of ‘ecological imperialism’. The analysis of the narrative, its cultural biases, and its echoes in later historiography highlights the topoi about Parthian geography and warfare that Polybius established and transmitted.

As Justin recounts in his Epitome of Philippic Histories, the Tectosages, responsible for plundering the sanctuary of Delphi (279 BCE), were struck by a violent plague upon their return to Toulouse.
This study aims to analyze this passage, faithfully transcribed by Justin from the work of Pompey Trogue, with a focus on identifying intertextual references and literary models. First, from a narrative perspective, this passage serves as a bridge between the Gallic defeat at Delphi (279
BCE) and the story of Consul Caepio, who is said to have seized the treasure in 106 BCE. Second, striking parallels can be observed between the Toulousan epidemic and the plague afflicting the Achaean army, as described in the first book of Homer’s Iliad. This suggests that Trogue (or his source) may have enriched the legend of the Gold of Toulouse by drawing inspiration from the Iliadic account.