Gioele Zisa | Università degli Studi "La Sapienza" di Roma (original) (raw)

Videos by Gioele Zisa

Seminario "Lo sguardo dell’antropologia medica sulla pandemia Covid-19: una panoramica globale", ... more Seminario "Lo sguardo dell’antropologia medica sulla pandemia Covid-19: una panoramica globale", 22/06/2020.

6 views

The conference aims to promote a debate between scholars from different disciplines (from physics... more The conference aims to promote a debate between scholars from different disciplines (from physics to cultural anthropology, from the history of religions and folk studies to sociology) in order to analyse, from different perspectives, the complex relations linking scientific cosmology and the "cosmic" conceptions developed by ancient and traditional cultures and by contemporary societies.

34 views

https://ajicr.org/2021/05/20/iii-international-meeting-of-researchers-in-religion-sciences/

10 views

Abitare e antropizzare. Processi di creazione e semantizzazione dello spazio nelle culture antich... more Abitare e antropizzare. Processi di creazione e semantizzazione dello spazio nelle culture antiche, Classicamente. Dialoghi senesi sul mondo antico, ricerche e nuove prospettive nello studio dei Greci e dei Romani, University of Siena, 18-19/11/2020

10 views

šà-zi-ga indicates a group of Standard-Babylonian incantations rituals, whose aim is to make man ... more šà-zi-ga indicates a group of Standard-Babylonian incantations rituals, whose aim is to make man get the lost sexual desire. The expression, in Sumerian šà-zi-ga, in Akkadian nīš libbi, literally means the “raising of the insides”. The word libbu embodies the organic dimension of the body and the emotional and psychological one of the person. Queer Studies have provided us with countless interpretative ideas aimed at overcoming the Cartesian dichotomy "mind vs. body”, which we inevitably apply to ancient societies. Through a critical reading of the works of Witting, De Lauretis, Butler and Preciado, together with the theoretical and methodological tools of the Medical Anthropology and the Ethnopsychiatry, the relations between the masculine and feminine agencies in these rituals and the cultural categorizations of body and sicknesses will be investigated. Special attention will be given to some aspects of Mesopotamian masculinity, particularly regarding sexuality.

49 views

Sexo, Religiones y Creencias I Congreso Internacional, Asociación de Jóvenes Investigadores en Ci... more Sexo, Religiones y Creencias
I Congreso Internacional, Asociación de Jóvenes Investigadores en Ciencias de las Religiones
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 13-15/04/2021

6 views

Book launch "Miti, culti, saperi. Per un'antropologia religiosa della Mesopotamia antica" (Edizio... more Book launch "Miti, culti, saperi. Per un'antropologia religiosa della Mesopotamia antica" (Edizioni Museo Pasqualino, 2021) with Claus Ambos (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg), Ignazio E. Buttitta (Università degli Studi di Palermo), Lorenzo Verderame (Sapienza Università di Roma) Gioele Zisa (Università degli Studi di Palermo)

23 views

Books by Gioele Zisa

De Gruyter , 2021

After more than fifty years since the last publication, the cuneiform texts relating to the treat... more After more than fifty years since the last publication, the cuneiform texts relating to the treatment of the loss of male sexual desire and vigor in Mesopotamia are collected in this volume. The aim of the book is to present Mesopotamian medical tradition regarding the so-called nīš libbi therapies.
šà-zi-ga in Sumerian, nīš libbi in Akkadian, lit. "raising of the 'heart'", is the expression used to indicate a group of texts intended to recover the male sexual desire. This medical tradition is preserved from the Middle Babylonian period to the Achaemenid one. This broad range testifies to the importance of the transmission of this material throughout Mesopotamian history.
The book provides the edition of this textual corpus and analyzes it in the light of new knowledge on ancient Near Eastern medicine. Moreover, this volume aims to show how theories and methodologies of Cultural Anthropology, Ethnopsychiatry and Gender Studies are useful for understanding the Mesopotamian medical system. This edition is an important tool for understanding Mesopotamian medical knowledge for Assyriologist, however since the texts have been translated and discussed using the anthropological and gender perspectives they are accessible also to scholars of other research fields, such as History of Medicine, Sexuality and Gender.

https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110757040/html

Edited volumes by Gioele Zisa

La sacra scena. Spettacolo e rito dal mondo antico alla contemporaneità folklorica a cura di Gioe... more La sacra scena. Spettacolo e rito dal mondo antico alla contemporaneità folklorica a cura di Gioele Zisa 16 fondazioneignaziobuttitt actadiurna 16 fondazioneignaziobuttitt actadiurna 16 La festa, quale occasione elettiva di riunione comunitaria, in un tempo straordinario che interrompe i ritmi ordinari, permette il reciproco riconoscimento di una comune appartenenza. Essa è, dunque, lo spazio-tempo in cui i membri di una comunità si ritrovano per assistere a una storia, narrata o messa in scena, riconfermando così una Weltanschauung condivisa. Attraverso le "storie mitiche" messe in scena nella festa si (ri)definiscono "memorie culturali" nell'accezione data dall'egittologo Jan Assmann (1992), in cui il "ricordo" (o riferimento al passato), la "perpetuazione culturale" (o tradizione) e l'"identità" (o immaginativa politica) sono profondamente connessi, o, in altre parole, dove l'aspetto normativo o direttivo (i valori e le regole del vivere sociale) e quello narrativo, del racconto (relativo al ricordo di un passato condiviso) si saldano i ndissolubilmente al fine di (ri)costruire il senso di appartenenza e l'identità collettiva. Il passato, storico e mitico al contempo, messo in scena nella festa, è interpretato a partire da esigenze e bisogni che sono sempre attuali (cfr. Halbwachs, 1968; Assmann A., 1999). Il rito festivo, quale momento ciclico in cui la comunità si riunisce alle proprie divinità, in cui si ri-fonda l'organizzazione naturale e sociale e si celebrano i "fondamenti dell'esistenza" (Brelich, 1955: I, 110; cfr. anche Lanternari, 1976; Buttitta A., 1997; Buttitta I.E., 2013), è anche spettacolo. Nessun rito religioso può esistere se non in quanto "evento pubblico" nel senso fornito da Don Handelman (1998), evento pubblico a cui partecipano non solo i membri della comunità ma anche e soprattutto gli dèi per tramite delle loro rappresentazioni sculture e figurative. I riti festivi sono dotati di un certo grado di "theatricality" (Burns, 1972), sono eventi pubblici teatrali in cui, in modalità diverse, interpreti e pubblico interagiscono.Allo stesso tempo, gli spettacoli tradizionali, dal teatro alla narrazione orale, presentano un carattere, sebbene non sempre esplicitamente religioso, rituale. Come osserva Ignazio E. Buttitta, lo "spettacolo popolare è, in verità, anche, se non soprattutto, festa, poiché esso è tutt'altro che occasione di solipsistico godimento estetico, piuttosto, potrebbe dirsi seguendo la prima sociologia francese, "effervescenza dello stare insieme", occasione speciale di riunione comunitaria nell'interruzione dei ritmi ordinari, momento elettivo di reciproco riconoscimento di una comune appartenenza, di un comune sentire, di comuni aspettative; e lo è in un quadro che vede parole, gesti, suoni, immagini organizzati sistemicamente secondo un ordine tradizionalmente dato (Buttitta I.E., 2020: 52). Spettacoli e riti festivi vanno indagati seguendo il paradigma metodologico dell'"art of the stage" (arte della scena) avanzato da Gernot Böhme (2013), allo scopo di comprendere come essi siano in grado di produrre atmosfere emotive (affective atmospheres): l'impatto visivo e sensoriale dell'allestimento dello spazio, la temporalità sequenziale, le dinamiche di interazione della parola, delle tecniche del corpo e degli oggetti di scena, la ripetizione, l'adesione ai ruoli, il rispetto del copione, ecc. I meccanismi di supporto della performance-siano esse spettacoli o riti festivi-quali le luci e le decorazioni dello spazio scenico, il costume dei performer, le intonazioni della voce, i gesti e i movimenti, e la musica, non solo adempiono alla

Shahram Khosravi, Vite precarie. Attesa e speranza in Iran, ed. and trad. by Gabriella Palermo an... more Shahram Khosravi, Vite precarie. Attesa e speranza in Iran, ed. and trad. by Gabriella Palermo and Gioele Zisa, PM edizioni, 2022.

Edizioni Museo Pasqualino, 2021

The advent of the Anthropocene, an era in which the human being has become a geological force, up... more The advent of the Anthropocene, an era in which the human being has become a geological force, upsets the division of knowledge between the human and natural sciences. To understand this, it is necessary to build new forms of alliance between disciplines. This is what the phenomenon of dendrolatries also invites us to do. Widespread in every place and in every age, the cult of trees testifies how the arboreal world has shaped ways of living and thinking, being in turn transformed. To delve into the complexity of this exchange, the volume collects the fruits of the dialogue between an interdisciplinary group of researchers who explore the arboreal imaginary in three directions: that of studies on memory and contemporary heritage; that of anthropology and the history of ancient religions; and that of the aesthetic, Marxian and decolonial critique of cultural studies. In these studies, we do not find a forgotten nature that it is about rediscovering. Instead, we find an assemblage of nature-cultures to rearticulate: while the ecological crisis erodes our certainties and the earth seems to slip away from under our feet, the trees, with their substratum of myths, memories, figurations, and landscapes, help us to find a common thought.

In the volume essays by:
Giuseppe Barbera, Emanuela Caravello, Alessandro Casula, Nicola Cusumano, Pietro Maltese, Gianfranco Marrone, Sofia Matta, Gabriella Palermo, Francesca Sabatini, Dino Ranieri Scandariato, Igor Spanò, Carlo Andrea Tassinari, Andrea Govinda Tusa, Gioele Zisa.

The theoretical and methodological approaches of Cultural and Social Anthropology have long since... more The theoretical and methodological approaches of Cultural and Social Anthropology have long since become indispensable for the study of classical antiquity, so much so that we can speak of a Historical Anthropology of the Ancient World.
On the contrary, the dialogue between historians and philologists on the one hand and anthropologists, on the other hand, has been less developed concerning the cultures of the ancient Near East. There are several reasons for this lack of dialogue, the most important of which is the fact that the multilingual cuneiform textual corpus is still largely unpublished and characterized by philological difficulties that make it inaccessible to non-specialists. This volume aims, therefore, to contribute to enriching the debate and discussion between anthropologists and scholars of the ancient Near East. It includes contributions that cover a broad chronological spectrum, from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BC, and concern the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia from both Sumerian and Akkadian sources. Among the analyzed topics are: the relationship between mythology and royal ideology and the capacity of words to act in the ritual context in the Sumerian world; the interconnection between the divine, human and natural worlds in Mesopotamian religious thought read in the light of the debate on Ecological Anthropology and the "ontological turn"; ritual as a means of communication between the human and extra-human worlds (ritual for the activation of the cult statue, offerings, and sacrifices); the nature of demons; the materiality of religious practices; the Near Eastern vision of the past and wisdom.

Distant Worlds Journal 4, 2020

The Distant Worlds Journal (DWJ) is an online peer-reviewed journal established especially for pr... more The Distant Worlds Journal (DWJ) is an online peer-reviewed journal established especially for presenting the research of early-career scholars on the ancient world. Each edition of the DWJ centres on a specific question or topic pertinent to the diverse disciplines engaged in the study of ancient cultures.In our fourth edition, we explore cultural anthropological theories and methods in the ancient studies, both in terms of the opportunities they offer for the study of ancient cultures and the problems they pose when applied.

Papers by Gioele Zisa

The article presents the results and preliminary considerations of multidisciplinary research con... more The article presents the results and preliminary considerations of multidisciplinary research conducted at the Monte Altesina site (Nicosia) from 2020. In the first two years of research, the international archaeological mission carried out preliminary studies on archaeological material from previous excavations and preliminary documentation. However, it was from 2022 onwards that the archaeological mission intensified its research activities. The preliminary results are significant and include the identification of frequentation in the higher part of the site during the prehistoric period. Additionally, the extent of the site during the
Greek period has been understood, covering an area of at least eleven hectares and adapting to the geological configuration of the mountain. Furthermore, a late Byzantine/early Islamic settlement phase has been identified, and occupation in the monastery area has been confirmed, at least in the late Middle Ages. Geophysical prospections have revealed anomalies within three metres of the current ground level. Ethnographic investigations have provided valuable data for studying oral traditions related to the mountain’s antiquities. The research activities have enabled significant progress in the historical and cultural understanding of the site
throughout the different millennia. This confirms the importance of the historical-archaeological heritage of Altesina in the context of central Sicily over time.

Concerned by the looming environmental and climate crisis, anxious about the state of the planet’... more Concerned by the looming environmental and climate crisis, anxious about the state of the planet’s water resources, the extinction of plant and animal species, the quality of the atmosphere, the chemical pollution of the soil and the seas, almost all the world’s governments promise in their political agenda to try to remedy the environmental and climate damage caused by human beings, now considered as a geological force. Such issues may interest Ancient Near Eastern scholars, who, stimulated by the theoretical-methodological approaches of the so-called Environmental Humanities (EH), study the ways of the inter-specific collaboration not only between humans and the more studied non-human animals but also with plants and trees, which have not been the subject of such detailed studies. The aim of this short contribution is twofold: 1) to approach the study of the biodiversity of the ancient Near East and discuss how human communities have thought about their relationships with the environment they are part of, influencing it and being conditioned by it (connectivity ontology); 2) to encourage/stimulate the creation of a new research group overcoming
the traditional dichotomy between the disciplines of “nature” and those of “culture”.

Through the analysis of historical sources from the Timurid and Safavid periods onwards and ethno... more Through the analysis of historical sources from the Timurid and Safavid periods onwards and ethnographic fieldwork on the storytelling art naqqāli, the article shows how many of its performative and narrative elements persist over the centuries and are still present in contemporary performances. The narrative techniques were already present in popular romances, they were discussed in Kāšefī’s work Fotovvat-nāme‑ye solṭānī, and persisted throughout the Qajar era. The educational and edifying function of such stories is stressed in Timurid and Safavid sources, as well as by Qajar-era foreign travellers and contemporary naqqāls.

6 views

34 views

https://ajicr.org/2021/05/20/iii-international-meeting-of-researchers-in-religion-sciences/

10 views

49 views

6 views

23 views

De Gruyter , 2021

https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110757040/html

Edizioni Museo Pasqualino, 2021

Distant Worlds Journal 4, 2020

Divine love is the central theme of many ancient Mesopotamian compositions. Both Sumerian and Akk... more Divine love is the central theme of many ancient Mesopotamian compositions. Both Sumerian and Akkadian texts poetically describe the love and sexual relationship between gods. The object of this study is to analyse, through a gender and anthropological perspective, the metaphorical language used to describe divine love relationships, focusing on the use of images from agriculture, pastoralism, and the plant world. Such metaphors contribute to the creation and at the same time to the reinforcement of a sexual imaginary, not only divine but also human. Divine sexuality and the metaphors used to describe it become, over the millennia, paradigms for understanding and thinking about human sexuality: male power and vigour, female desire, and sexual intercourse. Moreover, these texts certainly have a ritual implication, probably linked to the celebration of the so called 'Sacred Marriage,' whose aim is the political legitimisation of the rulers. It is divine sex that guarantees not only the political but also the socioeconomic regeneration of the community, renewing the alliance between the human and divine spheres.

In Sumerian mythological literature, as in coeval Akkadian one, between the end of the 3rd and th... more In Sumerian mythological literature, as in coeval Akkadian one, between the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium, the ruler, foremost among them Gilgameš, on several occasions uproots and/or cuts down trees. These trees should be understood as elements of a wider ‘Wilderness’, with which they share a powerful and ambiguous ontological otherness compared to the city and, more generally, to the land of Sumer. The action of the king on the tree, like that of a farmer or gardener, with the consequent realization of ‘artefacts’, allows, through a cultural organization of the power of the tree, the renewal of the relationship, always subject to crisis, between the human community and the divine world.

Research on the medical systems of ancient Mesopotamia has progressed considerably in recent year... more Research on the medical systems of ancient Mesopotamia has progressed considerably in recent years and has been enriched by theoretical contributions from the social sciences. This paper aims to show how theories and methodologies of Medical Anthropology can be useful to understand the internal logic of nīš libbi therapies, which aim to regain the male sexual desire. The article explores Mesopotamian classificatory systems related to the body and pathologies, as well as the relationship between male and female agencies in the therapeutic itinerary. Other issues are investigated: recipients of treatment; symptomatology and ideology of binding; interrelationship between incantations and prescriptions; etiological analysis; function of abracadabra and historiolae.

The topic of the paper is Bibi Šahrbānu’s Shia shrine near Ray (Iran) which shows a continuity of... more The topic of the paper is Bibi Šahrbānu’s Shia shrine near Ray (Iran) which shows a continuity of places of worship and ritual practices from the pre-Islamic period to the Islamic one. It was a place of worship dedicated originally to Anāhid, the Zoroastrian goddess of water and fertility, protector of the royalty of the ancient Persian empires. The symbolic connector element is the water, sacred to the goddess Anāhīd, and important in the Shia worship of Bibi Šahrbānū, but also in the Zoroastrian shrines near Yazd, such as that of Bānu-Pārs and Pir-e Sabz.

Fondazione Ignazio Buttitta, 2020

Edizioni Museo Paqualino, 2021

In Sumerian and Akkadian mythological literature, the ruler of the city of Uruk, Gilgameš, uproot... more In Sumerian and Akkadian mythological literature, the ruler of the city of Uruk, Gilgameš, uproots and/or cuts down trees on several occasions: the ḫalub-tree (mahaleb cherry) associated with the goddess Inanna and the eren (juniper)/erēnu (cedar)-trees of the Forest guarded by Ḫuwawa. These trees are to be understood as elements of a wider "Wilderness", with which they share a powerful and ambiguous ontological Otherness, as opposed to the city and country of Sumer. In order to become beneficial, this Otherness must be conducted in the city and subject to processes of organisation. In this contribution I will illustrate the symbolic implications of the uprooting, cutting down and subsequent transport to the city of these tree species and the importance that this has not only for the figure of Gilgameš, but also for the city community of which he is sovereign and therefore guarantor of the order established by the gods. The sovereign's action on the tree, similar to that of a farmer or gardener, with the consequent creation of 'artefacts', allows, through the cultural organization of the tree's power, the renewal of the relationship, always subject to crisis, between the human community and the divine world.

Edizioni Museo Pasqualino, 2021

Introduzione Gilgameš, Enkidu e gli Inferi (GEI) 2 , noto agli antichi dal suo incipit, u d r i-a... more Introduzione Gilgameš, Enkidu e gli Inferi (GEI) 2 , noto agli antichi dal suo incipit, u d r i-a u d s u d-r á r i-a , "in quei giorni, in quei giorni lontani", è una composizione letteraria a tema mitologico in lingua sumerica, composta da circa 330 linee, di cui conosciamo settantaquattro manoscritti provenienti da Nippur e Ur, ma anche da Isin, Sippar, Uruk e Tell Haddad. Il componimento è uno dei cinque poemetti sumerici relativi alle vicende dell'eroico 3 re di Uruk, Gilgameš 4. Dopo un'introduzione mitologica, in cui si evoca la formazione del cosmo, la creazione dell'umanità, la divisione dei domini da parte delle divinità e uno periglioso viaggio di Enki, si abbatte una tempesta che sradica nei pressi dell'Eufrate un solitario albero-ḫ a l u b. La dea Inanna decide di portarlo con sé nel suo tempio a Uruk, allo scopo di realizzarci, dopo che sarà cresciuto, una sedia e un letto. La dea pianta l'albero con il suo piede, ma dopo cinque-dieci anni l'albero cresce ma privo di foglie e viene infestato da tre creature: l'uccello-Anzu, il serpente immune agli incantesimi, (W)ardat-lilî. La dea in lacrime chiede soccorso al fratello Utu, ma questi si rifiuta di intervenire; Gilgameš, invece, decide di aiutare Inanna: con la sua ascia caccia le creature che infestano l'albero e dà alla dea il legno necessario per la realizzazione della sedia e del letto. Dalle radici dell'albero il re di Uruk realizza per sé l'e l l a g (acc. pukku), mentre dai rami l'e-k e 4 /k è-m a (acc. mekkû), con i quali opprime i giovani della città. Per il lamento e il pianto delle sorelle e delle madri dei giovani di Uruk, gli oggetti lignei, come punizione, sprofondano nel mondo infero. Il re disperato non riesce a recuperarli, così interviene Enkidu che si offre di recarsi agli Inferi. Enkidu, però, non seguendo i consigli del re, rimane intrappolato nell'aldilà. Gilgameš addolorato chiede inutilmente aiuto a Enlil, sicché si reca dal dio Enki, il quale, per intercessione di Utu, dà la possibilità a Enkidu di tornare sulla terra. Quest'ultimo giunto tra i vivi racconta al sovrano la sorte dell'uomo nell'aldilà.

Although many assyriological studies have been done on internal organs in the Mesopotamian worldv... more Although many assyriological studies have been done on internal organs in the Mesopotamian worldview, the pathologies associated with them, and their metaphorical and ideological value, little attention have been paid to the fact that, sometimes, internal organs are associated with verbs of movement. Perhaps, this limited regard can be attributed to the assyriological look at the Mesopotamian body being shaped by the modern biomedicine. According to biomedicine, in fact, the human internal anatomy is composed of a series of organs which stay fixed in their positions. On the contrary, I want to show how the internal organs in Mesopotamian anatomy are thought as capable to move. I will demonstrate, thanks to the contribution of the cultural anthropological perspective, that these movements of internal organs can determine two conditions: emotional and psychological states; and pathological signs. Consequently, some organ movements are considered necessary, in accordance to the functioning of the Mesopotamian anatomical-emotional system, while others produce alterations considered negative. In addition, the first case shows that there is no a clear distinction between “mind” and “body” in Mesopotamian, but that, on the contrary, the psycho-emotional dimension and bodily processes are strongly interrelated and that such expressions with internal organs and verbs of movement referring to emotional states should not be intended only metaphorically, but in the concreteness of bodily processes.

https://riviste.unige.it/aboutgender/article/view/1185/1206

Conference Società umane e mondo vegetale nel Vicino Oriente antico: pratiche, saperi, simboli 6 ... more Conference
Società umane e mondo vegetale nel Vicino Oriente antico: pratiche, saperi, simboli
6 June 2023, Rome
CNR-Aula Marconi and Sapienza Università di Roma, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia-Aula Partenone

Organized by
Silvana Di Paolo, Institute of Heritage Science (ISPC-CNR) – silvana.dipaolo@cnr.it
Gioele Zisa, Sapienza University of Rome – gioele.zisa@uniroma1.it

9:00 Introduction: Silvana Di Paolo – Gioele Zisa

9:15 Keynote speech
Federica Giardini (Università di Roma Tre),
Environmental Humanities. Una traversata tra discipline

10:00-13:00 First part CNR-Aula Marconi, chair Silvana Di Paolo

10:00-10.30 Marinella Ceravolo (Sapienza Università di Roma)
“Quando sei emerso dalla foresta”: la corporeità vegetale degli dèi

10:30-11:00 Gioele Zisa (Sapienza Università di Roma)
La solitudine degli alberi sacri nella mitologia sumerica paleo-babilonese

11:00-11.30 Coffee break

11.30-12.00 Angela Greco (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Di zuccheri, legna e ombra. Le piantagioni nel Vicino Oriente antico

12.00-12:30 Flavia Bartoli, Seyedh Zohreh Hosseini (ISPC-CNR; Università Roma Tre)
Il sito UNESCO di Pasargadae: la sua importanza in termini storici, culturali e naturalistici

12:30-13:00 Enrico Ascalone, Girolamo Fiorentino (Università del Salento)
Evidenze archeologiche e paleobotaniche a Shahr-i Sokhta

13:00 -14:30 Lunch break

14:30-17:30 Second Part Sapienza-Aula Partenone, chair Gioele Zisa

14:30-15:00 Ali Binandeh, Silvana Di Paolo, Nicola Macchioni (BASU, ISPC-CNR, IBE-CNR)
Tappeh Qaleh Naneh (Kurdistan iraniano): qualche dato preliminare sui taxa arborei nel record antracologico

15:00-15:30 Licia Romano, Alessandra Celant, Mary Anne Tafuri, Franco D’Agostino (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Canne, stuoie e focolari. Interazioni tra uomo e piante a Sumer sulla base delle evidenze di Abu Tbeirah, III millennio a.C. (Nasiriyah, Iraq)

15:30-16:00 Lorenzo Verderame (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Buono da mangiare, buono da pensare? La palma da dattero nelle culture dell’antica Mesopotamia

16:00-16:30 Coffee break

16:30-17:00 Stefania Ermidoro (ISPC-CNR)
Gli olî vegetali nell’alimentazione del Vicino Oriente antico

17:00-17:30 Davide Nadali (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Dispute, affiliazioni e sostituzioni: ruolo e funzione della relazione tra esseri viventi umani e vegetali nel Vicino Oriente antico

17:30-18:00 Conclusions: Silvana Di Paolo – Gioele Zisa

https://www.ispc.cnr.it/it_it/2023/06/01/societa-umane-e-mondo-vegetale-nel-vicino-oriente-antico/

Workshop organized by Silvana Di Paolo (Institute of Heritage Sciences – CNR) and Gioele Zisa (Sa... more Workshop organized by Silvana Di Paolo (Institute of Heritage Sciences – CNR) and Gioele Zisa (Sapienza University of Rome)

68th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale - Leiden University, Tuesday 18 July 2023, 11:30-18:00

Program
1. Chair: 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐃𝐢 𝐏𝐚𝐨𝐥𝐨 (ISPC-CNR)
𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐚 𝐓𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐥𝐲𝐠𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 (University of Pennsylvania/Cincinnati Art Museum)
𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑀𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑎
𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐚 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢 (CNRS)
𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑢𝑛𝑒𝑖𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑠
𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢 (University of Fribourg)
𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑦𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑙 𝑠𝑦𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑝 𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝐿𝑒𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑡: 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠
2. Chair: 𝐆𝐢𝐨𝐞𝐥𝐞 𝐙𝐢𝐬𝐚 (Sapienza University of Rome)
𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩 (University of Liverpool)
𝐴𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑤𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑂𝑙𝑑 𝐵𝑎𝑏𝑦𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐾𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑑𝑜𝑚: 𝐴 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑠𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑠
𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐚 𝐈𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢 (University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’)
𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑟𝑢𝑏𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑀𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
𝐃𝐥𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐀. 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐟 (University of Sulaimani)
𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑟𝑢𝑏𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑍𝑎𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠: 𝑐𝑢𝑛𝑒𝑖𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠
3. Chair: 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢 (University of Fribourg)
𝐉𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐨𝐧 (University of Manchester)
𝑀𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒: 𝐴𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜-𝑎𝑟𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑁𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑐 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝑀𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑎
𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐣𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐳𝐡𝐚𝐝 (University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’)
𝑀𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑓𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑎𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝐸𝑙𝑎𝑚 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒
𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐃’𝐀𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐨 (University of Aachen)
𝑀𝑒𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐺𝑜𝑑 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒: 𝑅𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝐵𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑁𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 (𝐺𝑒𝑛 21; 1 𝐾𝑔𝑠 19; 𝐽𝑜𝑛𝑎ℎ 4)

Webinar Series 𝑩𝒊𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑵𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑬𝒂𝒔𝒕. 𝑻𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒂𝒏 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒊𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑨𝒑𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆... more Webinar Series 𝑩𝒊𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑵𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑬𝒂𝒔𝒕. 𝑻𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒂𝒏 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒊𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑨𝒑𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝑳𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑶𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒎𝒔 (January-March 2023)

Organized by
𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐃𝐢 𝐏𝐚𝐨𝐥𝐨, Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale – CNR
𝐆𝐢𝐨𝐞𝐥𝐞 𝐙𝐢𝐬𝐚, Sapienza Università di Roma

Abstract
Concerned by the looming environmental and climate crisis, anxious about the state of the planet’s water resources, the extinction of plant and animal species, the quality of the atmosphere, the chemical pollution of the soil and the seas, almost all the world's governments promise in their political agenda to try to remedy the environmental and climate damage caused by human beings, now considered as a geological force. Such issues may interest Ancient Near Eastern scholars, who, stimulated by the theoretical-methodological approaches of the so-called Environmental Humanities, study the ways of the inter-specific collaboration not only between humans and the more studied non-human animals but also with plants and trees, which have not been the subject of such detailed studies. The aim of this cycle of seminars promoted and organized by the Institute of Heritage Science (CNR), Sapienza University of Rome, and University of Palermo is twofold: 1) to study the biodiversity of the ancient Near East and to discuss how human communities have thought about their relationships with the environment they are part of, influencing it and being conditioned by it (connectivity ontology); 2) to encourage/stimulate the creation of/to start a new research group will try to use a transdisciplinary approach, attempting to overcome the traditional dichotomy between the disciplines of 'nature' and those of 'culture'. It involves the collaboration of scholars from various fields: from archaeology to art history, from philology to history, from cultural anthropology to the history of religions, including archaeozoology, paleobotany, and paleoecology.

Program
Wednesday 18 January 2023, 3pm - 5pm (UTC+1 CET)
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝑷𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒎 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑵𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑬𝒔𝒕
𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐚 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐢 and 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐳𝐨 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞, Sapienza University of Rome

Thursday 26 January 2023, 3pm - 5pm (UTC+1 CET)
𝑳𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝑨𝒌𝒌𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒅
𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐚 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique – Paris

Thursday 16 February 2023, 3pm - 5pm (UTC+1 CET)
𝑪𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆, 𝑨𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑨𝒅𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒛𝒆 𝑨𝒈𝒆 𝑵𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑬𝒔𝒕
𝐀𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐀. 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐞, University of California, Los Angeles

Friday 24 February 2023, 3pm - 5pm (UTC+1 CET)
𝑩𝒊𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑨𝒏𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒍 𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑵𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑬𝒂𝒔𝒕. 𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑨𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒆𝒐𝒛𝒐𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑺𝒕𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒔
𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢, University of Salento

Thursday 2 March 2023, 3pm - 5pm (UTC+1 CET)
𝑳𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝑳𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒔 𝒂𝒔 𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒅𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑴𝒆𝒔𝒐𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒂
𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐁𝐨̈𝐜𝐤, Spanish National Research Council – Madrid

Thursday 9 March 2023, 3pm - 5pm (UTC+1 CET)
𝑾𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑼𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑵𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑬𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑺𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝑨𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝑬𝒙𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒄 𝑾𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑴𝒆𝒔𝒐𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒂
𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚 𝐓𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐠, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle – Paris

The webinars will take place online on the ZOOM platform.
Link: https://uniroma1.zoom.us/j/97456290130?pwd=MDRIZWpiRTRobmNTQUFFczVsR2xpQT09
ID riunione: 974 5629 0130
Passcode: 304320

CALL FOR PAPERS RAI 68 (2023), Leiden Trees and Shrubs in the Ancient Near East. Investigating t... more CALL FOR PAPERS
RAI 68 (2023), Leiden

Trees and Shrubs in the Ancient Near East.
Investigating the Plurality of Practices and Meanings in the Human-Arboreal Relationship

“Fārsi shirin ast. Il persiano è dolce. Poesia, musica, narrazioni della tradizione persiana” (c... more “Fārsi shirin ast. Il persiano è dolce. Poesia, musica, narrazioni della tradizione persiana” (co-organised with Giovanni Calcagno)

Chairman 𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐨 𝐄. 𝐁𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐚 (Università di Palermo - CNR)
𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐚 𝐌𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐢 (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia)
“…poiché in ogni verso Nezāmi ti svela un segreto, non sarà più inaccessibile per te lo splendore della poesia”: la poesia persiana parla di sé.
𝐆𝐢𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢 𝐃𝐞 𝐙𝐨𝐫𝐳𝐢 (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia)
Note per un profilo della musica persiana antica: incontri, influenze e scambi.
𝐏𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐢 (accordatore e restauratore di pianoforti)
La scienza delle emozioni dei modi antichi persiani, l’uso nella musicoterapìa e nella poesia, introduzione all’ascolto di intervalli musicali della tradizione persiana, araba e turca.
𝐆𝐢𝐨𝐞𝐥𝐞 𝐙𝐢𝐬𝐚 (Sapienza Università di Roma)
“Il naqqāli offre significati”. Le arti di narrazione orale in Iran.

Performance of Naqqāli: “Story of Rostam and Sohrāb” with Mojtaba Hassan Beigi, naqqāl (storyteller) e Eshagh Chegini, ney musician.

Performance of Pardeh-khāni: “Battle of Hazrat-e Abbās and Māred-ebn-e Sodaif” with Mojtaba Hassan Beigi, naqqāl (storyteller) e Eshagh Chegini, ney musician.

Performance of Naqqāli: “Story of Gordāfarid” with Mojtaba Hassan Beigi, naqqāl (storyteller) e Eshagh Chegini, ney musician.

https://www.festivaldimorgana.it/web/tc-events/seminario-farsi-shirin-ast-il-persiano-e-dolce-poesia-musica-narrazioni-della-tradizione-persiana/

Biodiversity in the Ancient Near East. Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Interactions b... more Biodiversity in the Ancient Near East. Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Interactions between Living Organisms

Organized by
Silvana Di Paolo – silvana.dipaolo@cnr.it
Gioele Zisa – gioele.zisa@unipa.it

Abstract
Concerned by the looming environmental and climate crisis, anxious about the state of the planet’s water resources, the extinction of plant and animal species, the quality of the atmosphere, the chemical pollution of the soil and the seas, almost all the world’s governments promise in their political agenda to try to remedy the environmental and climate damage caused by human beings, now considered as a geological force. Such issues may interest Ancient Near Eastern scholars, who, stimulated by the theoretical-methodological approaches of the so-called Environmental Humanities, study the ways of the inter-specific collaboration not only between humans and the more studied non-human animals but also with plants and trees, which have not been the subject of such detailed studies. The aim of this cycle of seminars promoted by the Institute of Heritage Science (CNR) and the University of Palermo is twofold: 1) to study the biodiversity of the ancient Near East and to discuss how human communities have thought about their relationships with the environment they are part of, influencing it and being conditioned by it (connectivity ontology); 2) to encourage/stimulate the creation of/to start a new research group will try to use a transdisciplinary approach, attempting overcome the traditional dichotomy between the disciplines of 'nature' and those of 'culture'. It involves the collaboration of scholars from various fields: from archaeology to art history, from philology to history, from cultural anthropology to the history of religions, including archaeozoology, paleobotany, and paleoecology.

Program
Thursday 17 March 2022, 3pm - 4pm (UTC+1 CET)
Anticipated environments and/as sociocultural resources in Greco-Roman antiquity
Christopher Schliephake, University of Augsburg

Wednesday 20 April 2022, 3pm - 4pm (UTC+1 CET)
Biocultural diversity of hard-shell fruit species across Eurasia: Juglans regia (L) and Castanea sativa (Mill)
Paola Pollegioni, Institute of Agro-environmental and Forest Biology – CNR

Thursday 28 April 2022, 3pm - 4pm (UTC+1 CET)
The ecology of the date-palm: A case study from Mesopotamian sources
Lorenzo Verderame, ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome

Friday 13 May 2022, Spm - 6pm (UTC+1 CET) gioele.zisa@unipa.it
Biodiversity at Gordion: From the Past to the Future
Naomi Miller, Penn Museum

Thursday 26 May 2022, 3pm - 4pm (UTC+1 CET)
How tar? New perspective on pastoral transhumance in the ancient Near East between history and archaeozoology
Lucia Mori, ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome
Monday 13 June 2022, 3pm - 4pm (UTC+1 CET)

Biodiversity and culture: Intersections and disconnections at the human-environment interface
Silvana Di Paolo, Institute of Heritage Sciences – CNR

Thursday 23 June 2022, 3pm - 4pm (UTC+1 CET)
Not only palms and ‘trees of life’: The role of arboreal imagery in Mesopotamian mythology
Gioele Zisa, University of Palermo

The webinars will take place online on the ZOOM platform.
Link: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/87566111055...
ID meeting: 875 6611 1055
Passcode: nQg76s

The impact of humanity on the planet has now acquired a force equal to geological changes. We hav... more The impact of humanity on the planet has now acquired a force equal to geological changes. We have been left behind, since the industrial revolution, the Holocene, entering a new geological era, that of the Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, or, according to Donna Haraway, Chthulucene. Nevertheless, from the looming environmental and climate crisis, distressed about the state of the planet's water resources, the extinction of plant and animal species, the quality of the atmosphere, the chemical pollution of soils and seas, it is possible to imagine other possible ways of living in and with the world, respectful not only of human and non-human diversity but also of our biotic and abiotic collaborators. Through a radical epistemological revision, it is possible not only to construct new modes of collaborative inter- and intra-actions with the environments and creatures that inhabit them but also to imagine new articulations of the world, alternative ways of become-with aimed at a sympoietic
collaboration with other living beings, plants and non-human animals.
In addition, the study of cultural approaches acted by "other" communities allows us to reflect on the fact that the relationships established with plants, animals, and elements of nature may not necessarily be collaborative and that indeed some animals or some
plants should be kept away, because they belong to the world of Otherness, to spaces in which man should not venture. Today, the reduction of anthropic pressure is necessary precisely to leave space for non-humans, avoiding any interaction with delicate biomes and whose interactions with humans can generate the risk of the spread of new epidemics. The objective of the seminar series is to discuss how
throughout history, human communities have thought about their relationship with the environment of which they are an integral part. This will be done through the natural elements: atmosphere, fresh and saltwater, fire; but also through plants and non-human animals. The examples of the past, from the ancient Near East to Vedic India,
passing through Sasanian Iran, represent windows through which to look critically at the present, just as contemporary spaces, from the city in relation to the pandemic to the emergence of new perspectives to rethink the world as the 𝘸𝘦𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘴, speak to us of the need to imagine and practice other ecologies: new interpretive
tools to understand and reformulate our being in the world.

Program
Teams Unipa Platform (passcode i8yjk1p)
7th October 4 p.m.
Welcome
Michele Cometa, Director of the Department of Culture and Society, University of Palermo
Giulia de Spuches, Coordinator of the Doctorate in Sciences of Culture, University of Palermo
Ignazio E. Buttitta, President of the Ignazio Buttitta Foundation

Filippo Celata (Sapienza University of Rome)
Pandemia e spazi urbani: popolazioni temporanee e polarizzazione sociospaziale nella 'città a breve termine'

Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum, Palermo
14th October 3 p.m.
Lucia Mori (Sapienza University of Rome)
La memoria dell'acqua: paesaggi 'idro-culturali' nel Vicino Oriente antico

29th October 3 p.m.
Carlo G Cereti (Sapienza University of Rome)
Fuochi, acque e montagne: geografia sacra nell'Iran sasanide

Teams Unipa Platform (passcode i8yjk1p)
12th November 4 p.m.
Kimberley Peters (University of Oldenburg) and Philip Steinberg (Durham University)
Ocean Ontologies

25th November 4 p.m.
Rosa Ronzitti (University of Genoa)
Demoni femminili in forma di cane e contaminazione del sacrificio: il caso di alcuni miti vedici

Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum, Palermo
2nd December 3 p.m.
Markham J. Geller (University College of London)
Akkadian Plant Names as Drugs in Aramaic Medicine: a Live Exchange or Memories of a Frozen Legacy?

Florentina Badalanova Geller (Royal Anthropological Institute, London and University College of London)
Imagining the Forbidden Tree: Slavonic Parabiblical Sources and Discourses

Organizing Committee
Gabriella Palermo gabriella.palermo@unipa.it
Igor Spanò igor.spano@unipa.it
Gioele Zisa gioele.zisa@unipa.it

Le figure della natura e della naturalità sono sempre più implicate nei discorsi e nelle pratiche... more Le figure della natura e della naturalità sono sempre più implicate nei discorsi e nelle pratiche sociali. Il rilievo che tale orizzonte assume nel panorama contemporaneo, complici l’urgenza della questione ambientale e la spinta propulsiva dei movimenti ecologici, sollecita nuovi percorsi di ricerca della cui produttività le scienze della cultura devono tener conto. Con questa giornata di studi intendiamo prendere in esame la rappresentazione culturalmente condizionata delle figure arboree. In particolare, ci proponiamo l’obiettivo di approfondire le specificità (funzionali, simboliche, rituali etc.) che l’immaginario arboreo assume di volta in volta in un dato contesto (storico, sociale, culturale etc.). Il nostro obbiettivo sarà dispiegare questa molteplicità “in situazione” (Polanyi 1966; Varela, Thompson, Rosch 1992; Latour 2002; Buttitta 2008; Gallagher 2017), all’interno di pratiche, rituali, immagini e discorsi.

Ci sono poche figure in grado di federare ambiti culturali, epoche e luoghi tra loro così diversi e lontani come quelle legate all’immaginario arboreo. Nella storia delle religioni, la figura dell’albero occorre in modo così frequente e dominante che alcune lingue prevedono un termine specifico per il suo culto, com’è il caso per l’italiano “dendrolatria”. La diffusione della “dendrolatria” sembra fare dell’albero una figura archetipica, o quantomeno un dato antropologico di estrema costanza.

Gli alberi (Eliade 1949; anche Chevalier e Gheerbrant 1982), come oggetti di culto e di figurazione iconografica, sono simboli marcatamente polivalenti: funzionano come metafore del cosmo; sono simboli della vita, della ciclicità del tempo e della rigenerazione; sono centri o sostegni del mondo; membri di una comunità con cui costruire alleanze o rapporti di parentela. Ma l’albero è una potenza semiotica che dispiega il suo valore simbolico ben al di là della storia delle religioni. Oggetto di addomesticamento mitico e di trattamenti rituali differenziati, le diverse tipologie di alberi sono anche eccellenti operatori che, mediando tra funzioni diverse, si caricano di molteplici significati, oscillando tra l’oggettivazione di una puissance divina e la reificazione all’interno di un circuito economico (Gartziou-Tatti e Zografou 2019).

Queste brevi considerazioni bastano a mostrare come l’immaginario arboreo solleciti una riflessione sul modo in cui le comunità umane, al di qua e al di là dei confini dell’“occidente”, si rappresentano il loro universo, creano un’ontologia operante nelle loro scelte, distinguono natura e cultura, sacro e profano, soggetti e oggetti, mondi umani, animali, vegetali (Descola 2004, 2009; Ingold 2013; Khon 2013). La nostra giornata di studi intende sviluppare questa prospettiva in cerca di uno sguardo “simmetrico” (Latour 1991), che metta sullo stesso piano il vicino e il lontano, il moderno e l’antico. Per questo, gli interventi non si concentreranno solo sui classici “altrove” degli studi storico-antropologici, ma anche sui discorsi, le iconografie e le pratiche sociali delle società occidentali, cercando di evidenziare la comunicazione tra questi ambiti

Gli oggetti di ricerca saranno quindi disparati, ma riuniti dalla figura dell’albero e dell’immaginario arboreo, scelto come nodo e punto d’ingresso di una rete di significati quanto mai interculturale (e “internaturale”; cf. Haraway 2016; Bertrand e Marrone 2019). Ci focalizzeremo ad esempio sul ruolo della vegetazione nei sistemi cultuali della Grecia antica o nelle religioni indiane; ma anche sul modo in cui il discorso giuridico o la rappresentazione cartografica valorizzano la figura dell’albero nella mappatura dei territori; esploreremo come la ritualità del moderno movimento antimafia pone al centro di una retorica di rigenerazione morale la figura dell’Albero (Falcone, ma non solo), generatore e custode di memoria civile; vedremo come la vegetazione e il verde pubblico vengono patrimonializzati, proiettando i paesaggi, sia urbani che rurali, in uno spessore storico che conferisce loro nuovo valore simbolico.

Particolare attenzione verrà data, inoltre, al campo metaforico (Lakoff e Johnson 1980) dell’albero e ai suoi plurimi impieghi: particolarmente produttivo è, ad esempio, il valore cognitivo della nozione di “albero genealogico”, che nasce nell'ambito dell'immaginario della parentela e che poi trova applicazione euristica nei diagrammi classificatori delle scienze naturali e nella filologia testuale (Ginzburg 2004). Vedremo come, infine, l’albero è anche un’importante figura del pensiero filosofico (Coccia 2019) e contribuisce a definire orientamenti epistemologici i quali, come pensieri della validità del sapere rispetto al mondo, sono anche pensiero sul mondo (Latour 1999), e dunque forme di cosmologia occidentale

Giuseppe Barbera,
2017 Abbracciare gli alberi, Milano, Il Saggiatore.
Denis Bertrand - Gianfranco Marrone (a cura di), 2019 La sfera umanimale: Valori, racconti, rivendicazioni, Milano, Meltemi.

Ignazio E. Buttitta,
2008 “Desuz un pin…”. La lunga strada dell’albero, in Id., Verità e menzogna dei simboli, Roma, Meltemi, pp. 29-60.

Jean Chevalier e Alain Gheerbrant,
1982 Dictionnaire des symboles. Mythes, rêves, coutumes, gestes, formes, figures, couleurs, nombres, Paris, Jupiter (tr. it. Dizionario dei simboli. Miti sogni, costumi, gesti, forme, figure, colori, numeri, Milano, BUR).

Emanuele Coccia
2018 La vita delle piante. Metafisica della mescolanza, Bologna, Il Mulino.

Philippe Descola
2004 Par-delà nature et culture, Paris, Gallimard (tr. it. Oltre natura e cultura, Firenze, Seid, 2014).
2009 L’écologie des autres. L’anthropologie et la question de la nature, Paris, Quae (tr. it. L’ecologia degli altri. L’ecologia e la questione della natura, Roma, Linaria, 2013).

Mircea Eliade
1949 Traité d’histoire des religions, Paris Payot, (tr. it. Trattato di storia delle religioni, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2008).

Ariadni Gartziou-Tatti - Athanassia Zografou (edd.)
2019 Des dieux et des plantes. Monde végétal et religion en Grèce ancienne, “Kernos” supplément 34, Liège, Presses Universitaires de Liège.

Carlo Ginzburg
2004 Family Resemblances and Family Trees: Two Cognitive Metaphors, “Critical Inquiry”
vol. 30, n. 3 (2004), pp. 537-556.

Donna J. Haraway
2016 Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Durham, Duke University Press.

Eduardo Kohn
2013 How Forests Think. Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human, Berkeley-Los Angeles, University of California Press.

Tim Ingold
2013 Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture, New York, Routledge (tr. it. Making. Antropologia, archeologia, arte e architettura, Milano, Raffaello Cortina 2019).

Bruno Latour
1991 Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’anthropologie symétrique, Paris, La Découverte, (tr. it. Non siamo mai stati moderni, Milano, Eleuthera 2015).
1999 Politiques de la nature. Comme faire entrer les sciences en démocratie, Paris, La Découverte (tr. it. Politiche della natura. Come far entrare le scienze in democrazia, Milano, Raffaello Cortina).
2002 “Una sociologia senza oggetto? Note sull’interoggettività”, in E. Landowski e G. Marrone, La società degli oggetti. Problemi di interoggettività, Milano, Meltemi. Disponibile su: http://www.ec-aiss.it/biblioteca/3_landowski_marrone_la_societa_degli_oggetti.php

George Lakoff; Mark Johnson,
1980 Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press.

Stefano Mancuso,
2019 La nazione delle piante, Roma-Bari, Laterza.

Michael Polanyi
1966, The tacit dimension (tr. it. La conoscenza inespressa, Armando Editore, Roma 1979).

Francisco J. Varela; Evan T. Thompson; Eleanor Rosch,
1992 The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro,
2010 Métaphysiques cannibales, Parigi, PUF (tr. it. Metafisiche cannibali. Elementi di antropologia post-strutturale, Verona, Ombre Corte, 2017).

International workshop on masculinities in ancient Mespotamia "Sapienza" Università di Roma 05/... more International workshop on masculinities in ancient Mespotamia
"Sapienza" Università di Roma
05/02/2015

10:00-13:00

Omar N’Shea - University of Malta, Languor in the Garden: Assurbanipal’s Party Reconsidered in Light of Masculinity Studies

Agnès Garcia-Ventura - “Sapienza”, Feminism, Gender Studies & Masculinities: some thoughts about their relationship

Gioele Zisa - LMU München, "The man and the woman will find satisfaction together".The loss of nīš libbi as a male problem? Notes for an anthropological reflection

Lorenzo Verderame - “Sapienza”, Becoming a Man: The case of Martu and Enkidu

15:00-17:00

General discussion (taking the cue from Alberti’s article “Archeology, Men, and Masculinities.” In Handbook of Gender in Archaeology, edited by S. M. Nelson, 401–33. Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2006).

Contact: Lorenzo Verderame (lorenzo.verderame@uniroma1.it)

Animalità, sessualità, normatività nel pensiero mesopotamico. Un'analisi antropologica a partire ... more Animalità, sessualità, normatività nel pensiero mesopotamico. Un'analisi antropologica a partire dalla terapia per la perdita del desiderio sessuale maschile Maria Federica METASTASIO (Università Roma Tre) Il crudo, il cotto e il sacrificio umano nei due Frisso di Euripide Matteo ROSSETTI (Università degli Studi di Milano) Uomini e animali nell'astrologia di Manilio Modera: Marco VESPA (Università di Siena)

by Marinella Ceravolo, Flavia Pacelli, Ludovica Bertolini, Gioele Zisa, Valerio Pisaniello, Andrea Rebecca Marrocchi Savoi, Francesca Minen, Silvia Salin, Beatrice Baragli, Geraldina Rozzi, Edoardo Zanetti, Sergio Alivernini, Ludovico Portuese, and Lorenzo Verderame

Die Erforschung der Medizinsysteme des alten Mesopotamiens hat in den letzten Jahren erhebliche F... more Die Erforschung der Medizinsysteme des alten Mesopotamiens hat in den letzten Jahren erhebliche Fortschritte gemacht und wurde durch theoretische Beiträge aus den Sozialwissenschaften bereichert. Dieser Vortrag zeigt, wie Theorien und Methoden der Medizinethnologie nützlich sein können, um die interne Logik der Keilschrifttherapien zur Wiederherstellung des männlichen sexuellen Verlangens (šà-zi-ga auf Sumerisch, nīš libbi auf Akkadisch-die beiden Sprachen in Mesopotamien) zu verstehen. Die ältesten akkadischen Texte stammen aus der mittelbabylonischen Zeit (1580-1200 v. Chr.) aus dem antiken Ḫattuša, in der heutigen Türkei. Einige dieser Texte wurden bis in die neu-assyrische Zeit überliefert (911-612 v. Chr.). Die meisten nīš libbi Beschwörungen und Rituale wurden tatsächlich in den assyrischen Städten von Nineveh und Assur gefunden (heute im Irak). Der Vortrag untersucht mesopotamische Klassifikationssysteme in Bezug auf den Körper und Pathologien sowie das Verhältnis zwischen männlichen und weiblichen Akteuren in den Therapien. Weitere Themen werden untersucht: Empfänger der Behandlung; Symptome und Ideologie der Bindung; Beziehung zwischen Beschwörungen und Rezepten; ätiologische Analyse; Funktion von Abrakadabra und Historiolae.

Opposti atteggiamenti verso 'insondabile volere divino nella letteratura

Seminar Series Seminar Series La Dea e le messi. Divinità femminili e cicli produttivi nel mondo ... more Seminar Series
Seminar Series
La Dea e le messi. Divinità femminili e cicli produttivi nel mondo antico

5th November
Ignazio E. Buttitta
Il divino femminile nel mondo euro-mediterraneo: mito e realtà

Igor Spanò
Fecondità e sterilità nei rituali vedici: i riti in onore della dea Nirrti

9th November
Antonino Frenda
Sacralità femminile e religiosità tradizionale in Sicilia

22th November
Rosa Marchese
Cultus dearum. Il ruolo delle divinità femminili in Roma antica nel racconto dei testi letterari

26th November
Gioele Zisa
"Chi arerà la mia vagina?" Corpi divini e immaginario agro-pastorale nella Mesopotamia antica

3rd December
Pietro Giammellaro
La dea va all'inferno. Discese divine negli inferi tra Mesopotamia, Siria e Greca antica

9th December
Daniela Bonanno
Il divino al femminile e la produzione agricola nel mondo greco antico

Etnografi ed etnografie di Sicilia. Profili e contesti, Università di Palermo, 3 April 2019

Seminar Anthropology & Music (organiser Prof. Dr. Sergio Bonanzinga) Gli incontri organizzati ... more Seminar Anthropology & Music (organiser Prof. Dr. Sergio Bonanzinga)

Gli incontri organizzati nell’ambito del Seminario permanente Antropologia & Musica sono finalizzati a offrire a studenti e studiosi orientamenti critici riguardo ai diversi metodi di rilevamento e di analisi delle pratiche coreutico-musicali specialmente legate ai contesti in cui la trasmissione dei saperi è tuttora in prevalenza affidata all’oralità. Lo sguardo antropologico sui fenomeni musicali, che si è affermato a partire dagli anni Cinquanta del secolo scorso grazie soprattutto ad alcuni esponeneti dell’etnomusicologia angloamericana (David McAllester, Alan Merriam, Alan Lomax, John Blacking ecc.), costituisce oggi un approccio consolidato anche per lo studio delle pratiche musicali di interesse storico, che conosciamo attraverso oggetti, immagini e testi scritti, e si estende proficuamente a ogni forma dell’attuale mercato musicale globale. Fra i temi che verranno trattati nei seminari particolare rilievo rivestono le dinamiche relazionali che i comportamenti musicali innescano fra strati sociali, classi d’età e posizioni sessuali, con attenzione alla morfologia della performance sonoro-gestuale nei suoi articolati processi di attuazione-ripetizione-trasmissione e rispetto ai valori funzionali determinati dalla interconnessione tra finalità espressive, identitarie, ludiche, ergologiche e rituali.

Il prossimo lunedì (2 febbraio) si svolgerà presso l'auletta di archeologia (Facoltà di lettere, ... more Il prossimo lunedì (2 febbraio) si svolgerà presso l'auletta di archeologia (Facoltà di lettere, Sapienza) un seminario tenuto dal Dr. G. Zisa (LMU München) dal titolo Per un'analisi degli incantesimi e dei rituali šà-zi.ga: questioni, metodi, teorie tra filologia e antropologia, dedicato all'analisi dei rituali mesopotamici contro l' "impotenza". Oltre a una introduzione generale, si discuterà di metodi e prospettive partendo dall'analisi di una serie di testi specifici che sono disponibili in trascrizione e traduzione, assieme ad altro materiale in PDF.

Seminar “Fārsi shirin ast. Il persiano è dolce. Poesia, musica, narrazioni della tradizione persi... more Seminar “Fārsi shirin ast. Il persiano è dolce. Poesia, musica, narrazioni della tradizione persiana” with Giovanni De Zorzi, Piero Grassini, Daniela Meneghini, Gioele Zisa.

Performance of Naqqāli: “Story of Rostam and Sohrāb” with Mojtaba Hassan Beigi, naqqāl (storyteller) e Eshagh Chegini, ney musician.

Performance of Pardeh-khāni: “Battle of Hazrat-e Abbās and Māred-ebn-e Sodaif” with Mojtaba Hassan Beigi, naqqāl (storyteller) e Eshagh Chegini, ney musician.

Performance of Naqqāli: “Story of Gordāfarid” with Mojtaba Hassan Beigi, naqqāl (storyteller) e Eshagh Chegini, ney musician.

3-5 November
Festival di Morgana
Museo internazionale delle marionette Antonio Pasqualino

La sacra scena. Spettacolo e rito dal mondo antico alla contemporaneità folklorica Museo internaz... more La sacra scena. Spettacolo e rito dal mondo antico alla contemporaneità folklorica
Museo internazionale delle marionette Antonio Pasqualino
16 novembre 2022

La montagna: miti, simboli, immagini, storie, culture Convegno internazionale di studi dedicato a... more La montagna: miti, simboli, immagini, storie, culture
Convegno internazionale di studi dedicato a Sebastiano Tusa
Geraci Siculo (PA)
29 settembre - 1° ottobre 2022

La conoscenza delle tecniche metallografiche attraverso lo studio del rostro Egadi 3

"Sex Is War" is the title of a song by Kissin' Dynamite, a German heavy metal band, in which hete... more "Sex Is War" is the title of a song by Kissin' Dynamite, a German heavy metal band, in which heterosexual intercourse is described as a war. In the Mesopotamian documentation, we find similar metaphors: sexual intercourse, male and female excitement, and male vigor are sometimes described using war and hunting images. In this paper we show this metaphorical reference between the domains of sex and love on the one hand and war and hunting on the other, starting from the love literature of the second millennium, the nīš libbi incantations and rituals for the recovery of the male sexual desire, and from other mythological and literary texts.
These metaphors, as shown cross-culturally by anthropological and gender studies, especially normalize male sexuality. Sexual power and ability in battle are praised by the continuous use of symbolic metaphors between the two semantic domains. For example, in the ritual of the bow in the nīš libbi corpus, this weapon represents male sexual vigor, as also confirmed by the Assyrian palace iconography. In general, those symbols denoting male military exploits refer to the male sexual ability as well. Therefore, the bow is a symbol of manhood: it recalls the penis and penetration. For this reason, in the nīš libbi bow ritual the manufacturing of the weapon ritually restores the sexual desire, whereas the absence of the latter, due to a malevolent removal of the bow, produces a crisis of manhood and man’s dignity (bāštu). Hunting is also a metaphorical domain used to describe sexual and amorous relationships between men and women. For example, in the nīš libbi incantation No. E.1 (Zisa 2021), not only the patient’s female partner turns to the man so that the penis might expand as much as the mašgašu-weapon (l. 11), but also exclaims: “I sit in a net of laughter! / May I not miss the quarry!” (ll. 12-13). As
known, the laughter recalls love flirtation, but there is much more: the term bunzerru indicates the web and a weblike trap. Hence a woman is metaphorically associated with the spider, which waits for prey to fall into the trap of its web. Civil (2006: 55-58) analyzed the etymological relationship between the terms bunzerru and biṣṣūru "vulva": the word bunzerru comes from the Sumerian word be5-en-zé-er, which apart from a cobweb, can also designate the female genital organs both in lexical lists and in Sumerian literary texts. The Sumerian term is a loan from Semitic
‘clitoris,’ attested in Akkadian biṣṣūru and Arabic baẓr or bunẓur. It thus indicates both the female pelvic area and the spiderweb. These two lines show well the 'poetic' complexity of this incantatory corpus in which hunting metaphors are used to qualify the sexual relationship: the woman is called a spider waiting in its web (bunzerru); the web is a trap (semantic extension of bunzerru) for prey; the vulva is represented as a web/trap (bunzerru/biṣṣūru) for laughter and the man is a victim beckoned by lust.

Bibliography
Civil, M. (2006) "be5/pe-en-zé-er = biṣṣūru”, in A.K. Guinan et al. (eds.), If a Man Builds a Joyful House. Assyriological Studies in Honor of Erle Verdun Leichty, Cuneiform Monographs 31, Leiden, Boston: Brill, pp. 55–61.
Zisa, G. (2021) The Loss of Male Sexual Desire in Ancient Mesopotamia. Nīš Libbi Therapies, Medical Traditions 5, De Gruyter, Berlin, Boston.

III International Meeting of Researchers in Religion Sciences organized by the Asociación de Jóve... more III International Meeting of Researchers in Religion Sciences organized by the Asociación de Jóvenes Investigadores en Ciencias de las Religiones, 13th-15th October 2021
Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Declinare al Maschile. Costruire e decostruire la virilità nel mondo antico. 5-6/10/2021, Classic... more Declinare al Maschile. Costruire e decostruire la virilità nel mondo antico.
5-6/10/2021, Classicamente. Dialoghi Senesi sul mondo antico,
Università di Siena

Public talk to introduce the series Nanaya. Studi e materiali di antropologia religiosa (Edizioni... more Public talk to introduce the series Nanaya. Studi e materiali di antropologia religiosa (Edizioni Museo Pasqualino, Palermo), Festival di Antropologia e Storia delle Religioni “Nella Terra di Diana”, Ariccia-Genzano di Roma-Nemi, 09/09/2021.

Abitare e antropizzare. Processi di creazione e semantizzazione dello spazio nelle culture antiche, ""Classicamente. Dialoghi senesi sul mondo antico, ricerche e nuove prospettive nello studio dei Greci e dei Romani", University of Siena, 18-19/11/2020

Processi di creazione e semantizzazione dello spazio nelle culture antiche 18 NOVEMBRE ore 15:00 ... more Processi di creazione e semantizzazione dello spazio nelle culture antiche 18 NOVEMBRE ore 15:00 Introduce: Gianluca DE SANCTIS (Università della Tuscia) Modera: Giulia RE (Università di Pisa) Alberto CROTTO (Università di Torino): Urbs vs castrum: luoghi e nonluoghi nel IX libro dell'Eneide. Alexandre VLAMOS (Université Paris-Nanterre): Costruire lo spazio civico di una città. Modalità di appropriazione del territorio nell'isola di Coo tra il IV e il I sec. a. C. Giacomo RANZANI (Università di Milano): L'imposizione del Reno come confine da parte di Cesare: scontri e conflitti culturali fra Germani, Galli e Romani. 19 NOVEMBRE ore 15.00 Modera: Eleonora SELVI (Università di Pisa) Gioele ZISA (Università di Palermo / LMU München): La "casa del dio" come axis mundi. Cosmologia e spazio urbano nella concezione religiosa della Mesopotamia del III millennio. Luca RICCI (University of Oxford): Hellenistic monumental sanctuaries in Latium: a semantic approach to intra-cultural exchange. Paolo DI BENEDETTO (Università della Basilicata): Eponimie e fondazioni nei racconti degli Eoli d'Asia: il caso di Cuma, Mirina e Grinia.

"Man and the Cosmos in History. Paradigms, Myths, Symbols”. Palermo 18-20/09/2019

Workshop “Assyriology and Anthropology”, 65th Recontre Assyriologique Internationale “Gods, Kings and Capitals in the Ancient Near East”, Paris, 8-12 July 2019

Forme del sè. Percezioni del corpo e dell’identità di genere nel mondo antico, Università di Siena, 13-14/05/2019

Advanced Seminar in the Humanities: “Literature and Culture in the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece, Rome and the Near East” April 6-14, 2019 Island of San Servolo, Venice

Although many assyriological studies have been done on internal organs in the Mesopotamian worldv... more Although many assyriological studies have been done on internal organs in the Mesopotamian worldview, the pathologies associated with them, and their metaphorical and ideological value, little attention have been paid to the fact that, sometimes, internal organs are associated with verbs of movement. Perhaps, this limited regard can be attributed to the assyriological look at the Mesopotamian body being shaped by the modern biomedicine. According to biomedicine, in fact, the human internal anatomy is composed of a series of organs which stay fixed in their positions. On the contrary, I want to show how the internal organs in Mesopotamia culture are thought as capable to move and leave their position. I will demonstrate, thanks to the contribution of the cultural anthropological perspective, that these movements of internal organs can determine two conditions: emotional and psychological states; and pathological signs. Consequently, some organ movements are considered necessary, in accordance to the functioning of the Mesopotamian anatomical-emotional system, while others produce alterations considered negative. In addition, the first case shows that there is no in Mesopotamian a clear distinction between “mind” and “body”, but that, on the contrary, the psycho-emotional dimension and bodily processes are strongly interrelated and that such expressions with internal organs and verbs of movement referring to emotional states should not be intended only as metaphorical, but in the concrete movement of the organs.

In this episode of the podcast Riscoprire la Mesopotamia (Rediscovering Mesopotamia), I explore M... more In this episode of the podcast Riscoprire la Mesopotamia (Rediscovering Mesopotamia), I explore Mesopotamian cosmogonies and cosmologies.

Listen to the episode on Spotify or YouTube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ksEOCCclkA

Dining with Gilgamesh 4000 years of recipes from the ancient Near East As part of the 7th editio... more Dining with Gilgamesh
4000 years of recipes from the ancient Near East

As part of the 7th edition of " 38° Parallelo - tra libri e cantine " in Marsala, Sicily

On May 24, 2023, the event is a prelude to the theatrical performance "Gilgamesh - The Epic of the One Who Saw Everything," produced by ERT - Emilia Romagna Teatro and scheduled the following day at Teatro Impero, with Giovanni Calcagno, author and director, Luigi Lo Cascio and Vincenzo Pirrotta.

Accompanying the participants in this sensory experience through space and time, using food as a bridge to ancient Mesopotamia, will be Giovanni Calcagno, who will converse with Gioele Zisa, Assyriologist at Sapienza University of Rome.

"In order to get in touch with ancient cultures, we should not only limit ourselves to reading their literature or admiring their artistic productions, but we should also enjoy their cuisine," explains Gioele Zisa. "Cuisine, in fact, expresses culture and is the repository of a community's identity. With this in mind, we thought of presenting a menu inspired by recipes from ancient Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq, which has come down to us in clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script. These tablets written in Babylonian are dated to the early second millennium B.C. and are preserved today at the Yale Babylonian Collection in the United States. These 4,000-year-old texts are the oldest known cookbooks in the world. So we will have the opportunity to feel closer to the culture and people of the ancient Near East," Zisa adds, "by tasting the flavors of their cuisine. A new and different way to narrate their story. Food is not only a way to learn about the tastes of others, but it also pushes us to experiment. Who knows if the ancient Babylonians will inspire new culinary contaminations!"

Magazine Atlante, Treccani, 2019 http://www.treccani.it/magazine/atlante/cultura/Tasua\_e\_Ashura\_Il\_teatro\_tradizionale\_tazieh.html

Magazine Atlante, Treccani 2019

Magazine Atlante, Treccani, 2019