Mait Kõiv | University of Tartu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mait Kõiv

S. Fink und R. Rollinger (Hrsg.), „Krisen“ und „Untergänge“ als historisches Phänomen, Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History. Springer, 2023

Ceremonies, Feasts and Festivities in Ancient Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean World: Performance and Participation. Melammu Workshops and Monographs 7. Edited by Rocío Da Riva, Ana Arroyo and Céline Debourse, 2022

Evidence Combined: Western and Eastern Sources in Dialogue. Melammu Symposia 11. Edited by R. Mattila, S. Fink, S. Ito, 2022

Crisis in Early Religion. Edited by M. Kõiv, M. Läänemets, K. Dross-Krüpe, S. Fink. Springer, 2022

Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica 28(1): 179–232, 2022

Tyrannies emerging in the Greek poleis during the Archaic period (8.–6. centuries BC), among whic... more Tyrannies emerging in the Greek poleis during the Archaic period (8.–6. centuries BC), among which the rule of the Kypselid dynasty in Corinth appears as an outstanding example, were in many respects comparable to the city-state monarchies in Ancient Near East, particularly in Iron Age Levant. The rulers performed important governmental functions and were able to legitimate their power for a notable period of time. However, differently from the East, these monarchies were never wholly
entrenched and were eventually replaced by republican governments. The article explores the reason for this difference, suggesting that it was caused by the relative egalitarianism of the Greek society precluding an accumulation of sufficient resources for entrenching the power.

Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica 27(2): 357–373, 2021

The article explores the cultural and political interaction between the Anatolian kingdoms and th... more The article explores the cultural and political interaction between the Anatolian kingdoms and the elites of the Greek poleis on the Anatolian coast, with special attention to Archaic Ephesos for which relatively good evidence for the relations with Lydia is available. It demonstrates how the neighbouring hegemonic monarchies provided imitable examples for the Greek elite leaders and offered real opportunities for claiming, legitimating and entrenching their power. This shows, on the one hand, how the elites on the fringes of an empire could profit from imperial power, how the mild influence of an empire shaped the internal order of the communities in its sphere of influence by promoting the position of the local leaders. On the other hand, this sheds light on the strategies used by empires for attaining control of strategically important points on their outskirts. Rezumat.Acest articol explorează interacțiunile culturale și politice dintre regatele din Anatolia și elitele orașelor grecești de pe coasta anatoliană, în special cu cele din vechiul Ephes, deoarece există mărturii solide ale relațiilor sale cu Lydia. Astfel, este demonstrată modalitatea prin care monarhiile hegemonice învecinată au furnizat exemple imitabile pentru liderii elitelor grecești și au oferit oportunități reale pentru a-și asuma, legitima și întări puterea. Aceasta arată cum, pe de o parte, elitele de la marginea unui imperiu puteau profita de puterea centrală, iar pe de altă parte cum influența moderată a unui imperiu putea modela ordinea internă a unor comunități și le putea dirija către sfera sa de influență prin promovarea în rang a liderilor locali. De asemenea, aceasta clarifică unele chestiuni cu provire la strategia utilizată de regimurile monarhice pentru a aduce sub control anumite puncte strategice importante.

Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History

Historia, 2021

Monarchies called tyrannies by the Greeks were very common during the period of polis formation. ... more Monarchies called tyrannies by the Greeks were very common during the period of polis formation. They are in many respects comparable to city-state monarchies in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. Many tyrants were able to legitimate their power, securing internal stability and bringing prosperity for their poleis. Despite this, Greek poleis eventually did not accept monarchy as a legitimate form of government. The article discusses the reason of the failure of monarchy in the Archaic Greece, connected to the relative egalitarianism of the society evolving since the Early Iron Age. Restricted social hierarchies and the relative weakness of elite precluded the monarchs rising from elite circles to accumulate sufficient resources for entrenching their power. Their success depended on personal charisma and communal consent, while attempts to build up an economic power base led to resistance of the economically independent citizens who did not tolerate oppression and were sufficiently strong to assert their rights.

Studies on Ancient Sparta, edited by Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, (Monograph Series Akanthina no. 14), Gdańsk University Press: Gdańsk. , 2020

The article discusses the traditions concerning the origins of the Spartan state, and their conn... more The article discusses the traditions concerning the origins of the Spartan state,
and their connection with the cult and the rituals of Apollo Hyakinthios at Amyklai,
a sanctuary of paramount importance for the Spartan state. It focuses on the stories concerning the conquest of Amyklai and the subjection of the Helots, and the accounts about the plot of the Partheniai after the conquest of Messenia, and demonstrates the intimate connection of these traditions to the Hyakinthian cult. The traditions were obviously shaped by the rituals, while on the other hand the cult functioned as a place of memory, providing context for the preservation of the traditions. This granted some stability to the traditional accounts which therefore continued to reflect, albeit in an obviously legendary form, the developments during the period of Spartan state formation.

Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica, 25/2, 2019

The article focuses on the manipulations of the genealogy of a legendarily famous Argive king or ... more The article focuses on the manipulations of the genealogy of a legendarily famous Argive king or tyrant Pheidon ruling during the Greek Archaic Age (eighth to sixth century BC). The ancients did not possess any precise knowledge about his dating, which caused variable attempts to locate him in time. On the other hand, he became a target of different synchronisations which led to the manipulation not only of the Argive data, but also the genealogies of the Macedonian, the Median and the Assyrian kings. The discussion will reveal how genealogical evidence, or pseudo-evidence, was forged and manipulated for arriving at ostensibly historical accounts which, although possibly based on genuine traditions, produced visions of the past which in many points clearly did not correspond to the truth.

Chiron, 2019

The paper explores the mythological patterning of the traditions concerning the Bakchiad and the ... more The paper explores the mythological patterning of the traditions concerning the Bakchiad and the Kypselid rulers, demonstrating that the stories were tied into a complex account of two successive morally lame dynasties which both were eventually punished for their crimes. The principal points of this patterning were probably established during the Archaic period. This set of stories and the oracles woven into it, the only narrative evidence we have for early Archaic Corinth, transmits some historically reliable information, but does not indicate any distinction between the Bakchiads as legitimate rulers and the Kypselids as illegal tyrants.

Conceptualizing Past, Present and Future. Proceedings of the 10th Symposium of the Melammu Project Held in Helsinki / Tartu, May 18-24, 2015. Eds. Sebastian Fink and Robert Rollinger. Ugarit Verlag. Münster, 2018

The article discusses the development of leadership patterns in Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece... more The article discusses the development of leadership patterns in Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece, questioning the opinion that the Early Iron Age communities were ruled by hereditary kings (basilees) clearly distinct from the tyrants emerging during the subsequent Archaic period. It focuses on the archaeological and literary evidence concerning Lefkandi and Eretreia on the island of Euboia, and Tiryns and Argos in southern Greece, the outstanding communities of the Early Iron Age and Archaic period. The evidence suggests that although sole rulers occasionally emerged during the Early Iron Age, as suggested by the 10th century burial of the ‘hero’ of Lefkandi, there is nothing which could indicate either the permanence or traditional nature of personal leadership in these districts. Rather, the evidence infers an ephemeral character of the personal rule in Lefkandi, comparable to the occasional ‘tyrannies’ reported for the Euboian communities by the sources concerning the Archaic era. The evidence for Argolis suggests that a relatively egalitarian society and collective leadership evolved after the 12th century collapse of the Bronze Age civilisation, and that the monarchy at Argos emerged during the 8th century when the community developed into a polis controlling the surrounding plain. In all the cases we can observe a correlation between the concentration of wealth and emergence of personal rule, which suggests that more or less permanent monarchies could rarely emerge before the rise of the Archaic Greek poleis.

The article scrutinizes the development of the forms of leadership in the Early Iron Age and Arch... more The article scrutinizes the development of the forms of leadership in the Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece, questioning the traditional view that personal leadership as described in the Homeric epics (the ‚Homeric basileia‘) was the rule during the Early Iron Age, but was replaced in the Archaic period by collective aristocracies, and by tyrannies as a principally new kind of monarchy. The article questions the strict distinction between the ‚constitutional‘ forms of government like basileia and oligarchy, and tyrannis as an illegal break of the constitutional order. The Early Iron Age archaeology supplies no evidence for institutionalised and permanent personal leadership, and the Homeric epic, presenting a controversial vision of an ostensibly distant past, cannot be accepted as a reliable guide to the socio-political order of the Early Iron Age. The terms basileus and tyrannos were used largely synonymously until ca 400, demonstrating that the Archaic Greeks did not distinguish between legitimate basileia and illegal tyrannis in their contemporary world. The evidence, including the half-legendary accounts concerning particular poleis, suggests that the more or less firmly established monarchies emerged from the eighth century onwards. On the other hand, it infers constant tensions between competing elite groups striving for power, and the consequent fluctuation of the forms of government in the Archaic. The situation could have been similar during the Early Iron Age, which suggests that Early Iron Age Greeks were familiar with both collective and personal leadership. The emergence of tyrannies and collectively governed poleis can be seen as varying, alternative, ways of polity formation resulting from the quickening development and growing tensions from the eighth century onwards; the legitimacy of both depended on local circumstances. Tyranny appears not as a break of established aristocratic order, but as the monarchic form of elite leadership; the legitimacy of both depended on local circumstances. Tyranny appears as the monarchic form of elite leadership in the early polis, which proved, however, unacceptable in the long term as personal rule became increasingly regarded as an undesirable negation of consensual order.

Argos, one of the leading poleis of southern Greece during the Archaic period (8th–6th centuries ... more Argos, one of the leading poleis of southern Greece during the Archaic period (8th–6th centuries BCE), emerged from the Early
Iron Age as the most prominent settlement of the surrounding plain, in all likelihood establishing during the Archaic Age some sort of political control over neighbouring Mykenai and Tiryns. At the end of the 8th century it sacked another settlement - Asine - outside the central plain. The Argive plain was, however, not included directly into the Argive polis before the 460s. Instead, the Argives exercised their hegemony through the domination of crucial sanctuaries. This policy can be discerned on two distinct regional levels: the sanctuary of Hera on the central plain used for manifesting the hegemony in the closer vicinity and the cult of Apollo Pythaieus for rticulating the claims for a wider surrounding area outside the central plain. Connected to the cult politics, the Argives gradually manipulated the local legendary traditions, adjusting the originally Tirynthian and Mykenaian heroes into a pan-Argive stemma. It was organised around the specifically Argive figures Phoroneus and Danaos, articulated the ritual connection between Argos and the sanctuary of Hera, and provided a respectable pedigree for the ruling Temenid family of Argos.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. print pages 5242–5243.

Cultures in Comparison: Religion and Politics in Ancient Mediterranean Region (Eds: Thomas Kämmerer - Mait Kõiv)., 2015

The paper discusses the interaction of the central sanctuaries and cults of Artemis and Apollo an... more The paper discusses the interaction of the central sanctuaries and cults of Artemis and Apollo and the traditions concerning the origins of the state in ancient Sparta.

Klio 95.2, 15–68 , 2013

I Introduction: collective identities and the traditions of the past This paper will discuss the ... more I Introduction: collective identities and the traditions of the past This paper will discuss the early history of Elis and Olympia, focusing on the reliability of the ancient accounts concerning the early independence of the Pisatansthe people inhabiting the vicinity of Olympiaand their supposed conflicts with the Eleans. At least from the fourth century BC, 1 the ancients unanimously believed that in the early times the Pisatans had contested the Elean control of Olympia and the Games, and that the resulting conflicts were of considerable importance for the history of the whole Peloponnese. 2 Recently, however, a number of prominent scholars have discarded these accounts as serious evidence and denied the very existence of Pisa as a political community before the fourth century, suggesting that the Pisatan identity and traditions upholding it were invented at that period. 3 Such opinion is founded on a widespread and respectable school of thought. It is generally accepted that collective identities, including political and ethnic, are constantly evolving and sometimes intentionally constructed, and that a political or ethnic group constitutes itself through collective memory maintained by the traditions describing its past. These traditions are conditioned by the actual needs of the group, selectively transmitting what is essential from the point of view of the present, and continuously adjusting to the changing realities. This means that the historical traditions never describe the past as it really was, but as it is useful to be remembered for the people concerned. The traditions project the realities of the present, including collective identities, back into the past and use these retro-projections as arguments for explaining and justifying the present conditions. 4

S. Fink und R. Rollinger (Hrsg.), „Krisen“ und „Untergänge“ als historisches Phänomen, Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History. Springer, 2023

Ceremonies, Feasts and Festivities in Ancient Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean World: Performance and Participation. Melammu Workshops and Monographs 7. Edited by Rocío Da Riva, Ana Arroyo and Céline Debourse, 2022

Evidence Combined: Western and Eastern Sources in Dialogue. Melammu Symposia 11. Edited by R. Mattila, S. Fink, S. Ito, 2022

Crisis in Early Religion. Edited by M. Kõiv, M. Läänemets, K. Dross-Krüpe, S. Fink. Springer, 2022

Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica 28(1): 179–232, 2022

Tyrannies emerging in the Greek poleis during the Archaic period (8.–6. centuries BC), among whic... more Tyrannies emerging in the Greek poleis during the Archaic period (8.–6. centuries BC), among which the rule of the Kypselid dynasty in Corinth appears as an outstanding example, were in many respects comparable to the city-state monarchies in Ancient Near East, particularly in Iron Age Levant. The rulers performed important governmental functions and were able to legitimate their power for a notable period of time. However, differently from the East, these monarchies were never wholly
entrenched and were eventually replaced by republican governments. The article explores the reason for this difference, suggesting that it was caused by the relative egalitarianism of the Greek society precluding an accumulation of sufficient resources for entrenching the power.

Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica 27(2): 357–373, 2021

The article explores the cultural and political interaction between the Anatolian kingdoms and th... more The article explores the cultural and political interaction between the Anatolian kingdoms and the elites of the Greek poleis on the Anatolian coast, with special attention to Archaic Ephesos for which relatively good evidence for the relations with Lydia is available. It demonstrates how the neighbouring hegemonic monarchies provided imitable examples for the Greek elite leaders and offered real opportunities for claiming, legitimating and entrenching their power. This shows, on the one hand, how the elites on the fringes of an empire could profit from imperial power, how the mild influence of an empire shaped the internal order of the communities in its sphere of influence by promoting the position of the local leaders. On the other hand, this sheds light on the strategies used by empires for attaining control of strategically important points on their outskirts. Rezumat.Acest articol explorează interacțiunile culturale și politice dintre regatele din Anatolia și elitele orașelor grecești de pe coasta anatoliană, în special cu cele din vechiul Ephes, deoarece există mărturii solide ale relațiilor sale cu Lydia. Astfel, este demonstrată modalitatea prin care monarhiile hegemonice învecinată au furnizat exemple imitabile pentru liderii elitelor grecești și au oferit oportunități reale pentru a-și asuma, legitima și întări puterea. Aceasta arată cum, pe de o parte, elitele de la marginea unui imperiu puteau profita de puterea centrală, iar pe de altă parte cum influența moderată a unui imperiu putea modela ordinea internă a unor comunități și le putea dirija către sfera sa de influență prin promovarea în rang a liderilor locali. De asemenea, aceasta clarifică unele chestiuni cu provire la strategia utilizată de regimurile monarhice pentru a aduce sub control anumite puncte strategice importante.

Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History

Historia, 2021

Monarchies called tyrannies by the Greeks were very common during the period of polis formation. ... more Monarchies called tyrannies by the Greeks were very common during the period of polis formation. They are in many respects comparable to city-state monarchies in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. Many tyrants were able to legitimate their power, securing internal stability and bringing prosperity for their poleis. Despite this, Greek poleis eventually did not accept monarchy as a legitimate form of government. The article discusses the reason of the failure of monarchy in the Archaic Greece, connected to the relative egalitarianism of the society evolving since the Early Iron Age. Restricted social hierarchies and the relative weakness of elite precluded the monarchs rising from elite circles to accumulate sufficient resources for entrenching their power. Their success depended on personal charisma and communal consent, while attempts to build up an economic power base led to resistance of the economically independent citizens who did not tolerate oppression and were sufficiently strong to assert their rights.

Studies on Ancient Sparta, edited by Ryszard Kulesza and Nicholas Sekunda, (Monograph Series Akanthina no. 14), Gdańsk University Press: Gdańsk. , 2020

The article discusses the traditions concerning the origins of the Spartan state, and their conn... more The article discusses the traditions concerning the origins of the Spartan state,
and their connection with the cult and the rituals of Apollo Hyakinthios at Amyklai,
a sanctuary of paramount importance for the Spartan state. It focuses on the stories concerning the conquest of Amyklai and the subjection of the Helots, and the accounts about the plot of the Partheniai after the conquest of Messenia, and demonstrates the intimate connection of these traditions to the Hyakinthian cult. The traditions were obviously shaped by the rituals, while on the other hand the cult functioned as a place of memory, providing context for the preservation of the traditions. This granted some stability to the traditional accounts which therefore continued to reflect, albeit in an obviously legendary form, the developments during the period of Spartan state formation.

Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica, 25/2, 2019

The article focuses on the manipulations of the genealogy of a legendarily famous Argive king or ... more The article focuses on the manipulations of the genealogy of a legendarily famous Argive king or tyrant Pheidon ruling during the Greek Archaic Age (eighth to sixth century BC). The ancients did not possess any precise knowledge about his dating, which caused variable attempts to locate him in time. On the other hand, he became a target of different synchronisations which led to the manipulation not only of the Argive data, but also the genealogies of the Macedonian, the Median and the Assyrian kings. The discussion will reveal how genealogical evidence, or pseudo-evidence, was forged and manipulated for arriving at ostensibly historical accounts which, although possibly based on genuine traditions, produced visions of the past which in many points clearly did not correspond to the truth.

Chiron, 2019

The paper explores the mythological patterning of the traditions concerning the Bakchiad and the ... more The paper explores the mythological patterning of the traditions concerning the Bakchiad and the Kypselid rulers, demonstrating that the stories were tied into a complex account of two successive morally lame dynasties which both were eventually punished for their crimes. The principal points of this patterning were probably established during the Archaic period. This set of stories and the oracles woven into it, the only narrative evidence we have for early Archaic Corinth, transmits some historically reliable information, but does not indicate any distinction between the Bakchiads as legitimate rulers and the Kypselids as illegal tyrants.

Conceptualizing Past, Present and Future. Proceedings of the 10th Symposium of the Melammu Project Held in Helsinki / Tartu, May 18-24, 2015. Eds. Sebastian Fink and Robert Rollinger. Ugarit Verlag. Münster, 2018

The article discusses the development of leadership patterns in Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece... more The article discusses the development of leadership patterns in Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece, questioning the opinion that the Early Iron Age communities were ruled by hereditary kings (basilees) clearly distinct from the tyrants emerging during the subsequent Archaic period. It focuses on the archaeological and literary evidence concerning Lefkandi and Eretreia on the island of Euboia, and Tiryns and Argos in southern Greece, the outstanding communities of the Early Iron Age and Archaic period. The evidence suggests that although sole rulers occasionally emerged during the Early Iron Age, as suggested by the 10th century burial of the ‘hero’ of Lefkandi, there is nothing which could indicate either the permanence or traditional nature of personal leadership in these districts. Rather, the evidence infers an ephemeral character of the personal rule in Lefkandi, comparable to the occasional ‘tyrannies’ reported for the Euboian communities by the sources concerning the Archaic era. The evidence for Argolis suggests that a relatively egalitarian society and collective leadership evolved after the 12th century collapse of the Bronze Age civilisation, and that the monarchy at Argos emerged during the 8th century when the community developed into a polis controlling the surrounding plain. In all the cases we can observe a correlation between the concentration of wealth and emergence of personal rule, which suggests that more or less permanent monarchies could rarely emerge before the rise of the Archaic Greek poleis.

The article scrutinizes the development of the forms of leadership in the Early Iron Age and Arch... more The article scrutinizes the development of the forms of leadership in the Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece, questioning the traditional view that personal leadership as described in the Homeric epics (the ‚Homeric basileia‘) was the rule during the Early Iron Age, but was replaced in the Archaic period by collective aristocracies, and by tyrannies as a principally new kind of monarchy. The article questions the strict distinction between the ‚constitutional‘ forms of government like basileia and oligarchy, and tyrannis as an illegal break of the constitutional order. The Early Iron Age archaeology supplies no evidence for institutionalised and permanent personal leadership, and the Homeric epic, presenting a controversial vision of an ostensibly distant past, cannot be accepted as a reliable guide to the socio-political order of the Early Iron Age. The terms basileus and tyrannos were used largely synonymously until ca 400, demonstrating that the Archaic Greeks did not distinguish between legitimate basileia and illegal tyrannis in their contemporary world. The evidence, including the half-legendary accounts concerning particular poleis, suggests that the more or less firmly established monarchies emerged from the eighth century onwards. On the other hand, it infers constant tensions between competing elite groups striving for power, and the consequent fluctuation of the forms of government in the Archaic. The situation could have been similar during the Early Iron Age, which suggests that Early Iron Age Greeks were familiar with both collective and personal leadership. The emergence of tyrannies and collectively governed poleis can be seen as varying, alternative, ways of polity formation resulting from the quickening development and growing tensions from the eighth century onwards; the legitimacy of both depended on local circumstances. Tyranny appears not as a break of established aristocratic order, but as the monarchic form of elite leadership; the legitimacy of both depended on local circumstances. Tyranny appears as the monarchic form of elite leadership in the early polis, which proved, however, unacceptable in the long term as personal rule became increasingly regarded as an undesirable negation of consensual order.

Argos, one of the leading poleis of southern Greece during the Archaic period (8th–6th centuries ... more Argos, one of the leading poleis of southern Greece during the Archaic period (8th–6th centuries BCE), emerged from the Early
Iron Age as the most prominent settlement of the surrounding plain, in all likelihood establishing during the Archaic Age some sort of political control over neighbouring Mykenai and Tiryns. At the end of the 8th century it sacked another settlement - Asine - outside the central plain. The Argive plain was, however, not included directly into the Argive polis before the 460s. Instead, the Argives exercised their hegemony through the domination of crucial sanctuaries. This policy can be discerned on two distinct regional levels: the sanctuary of Hera on the central plain used for manifesting the hegemony in the closer vicinity and the cult of Apollo Pythaieus for rticulating the claims for a wider surrounding area outside the central plain. Connected to the cult politics, the Argives gradually manipulated the local legendary traditions, adjusting the originally Tirynthian and Mykenaian heroes into a pan-Argive stemma. It was organised around the specifically Argive figures Phoroneus and Danaos, articulated the ritual connection between Argos and the sanctuary of Hera, and provided a respectable pedigree for the ruling Temenid family of Argos.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. print pages 5242–5243.

Cultures in Comparison: Religion and Politics in Ancient Mediterranean Region (Eds: Thomas Kämmerer - Mait Kõiv)., 2015

The paper discusses the interaction of the central sanctuaries and cults of Artemis and Apollo an... more The paper discusses the interaction of the central sanctuaries and cults of Artemis and Apollo and the traditions concerning the origins of the state in ancient Sparta.

Klio 95.2, 15–68 , 2013

I Introduction: collective identities and the traditions of the past This paper will discuss the ... more I Introduction: collective identities and the traditions of the past This paper will discuss the early history of Elis and Olympia, focusing on the reliability of the ancient accounts concerning the early independence of the Pisatansthe people inhabiting the vicinity of Olympiaand their supposed conflicts with the Eleans. At least from the fourth century BC, 1 the ancients unanimously believed that in the early times the Pisatans had contested the Elean control of Olympia and the Games, and that the resulting conflicts were of considerable importance for the history of the whole Peloponnese. 2 Recently, however, a number of prominent scholars have discarded these accounts as serious evidence and denied the very existence of Pisa as a political community before the fourth century, suggesting that the Pisatan identity and traditions upholding it were invented at that period. 3 Such opinion is founded on a widespread and respectable school of thought. It is generally accepted that collective identities, including political and ethnic, are constantly evolving and sometimes intentionally constructed, and that a political or ethnic group constitutes itself through collective memory maintained by the traditions describing its past. These traditions are conditioned by the actual needs of the group, selectively transmitting what is essential from the point of view of the present, and continuously adjusting to the changing realities. This means that the historical traditions never describe the past as it really was, but as it is useful to be remembered for the people concerned. The traditions project the realities of the present, including collective identities, back into the past and use these retro-projections as arguments for explaining and justifying the present conditions. 4

Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica, 2020

Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica 25/1 (August 2019) http://saa.uaic.ro/issues/xxv-1/ CUPRINS – ... more Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica 25/1 (August 2019)

http://saa.uaic.ro/issues/xxv-1/

CUPRINS – CONTENTS – SOMMAIRE

PAPERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Genealogies in the Ancient World
Tartu (Estonia) 2016

—Sebastian FINK & Vladimir SAZONOV
——Introduction

—Sebastian FINK & Vladimir SAZONOV
——Complex Genealogies in Mesopotamia: From Mesilim to Tukultī-Ninurta I

—Siim MÕTTUS
——On the Lineage of King Telepinu

—Mait KÕIV
——Manipulating Genealogies: Pheidon of Argos and the Stemmas of the Argive, Macedonian, Spartan and Median Kings

—Jakub KUCIAK
——Der Mythos im Dienst der Politik: das Beispiel der euripideischen Tragödie Ion

—Stephan SCHARINGER
——A Genealogy of Pythagoras

—Tarmo KULMAR
——The Origin Myths as a Possible Basis for Genealogy of the Inca Imperial Dynasty in Ancient Peru

ARTICLES

—Radu-Ștefan BALAUR
——Community Structure, Economy and Sharing Strategies in the Chalcolithic Settlement of Hăbășești, Romania

—Casandra BRAȘOVEANU
——Settlement Spatial Distribution from Late Chalcolithic to Early Hallstatt. Case Study: Cracău-Bistrița Depression

—Anna LAZAROU
——Prehistoric Gorgoneia: a Critical Reassessment

—Alexandr LOGINOV & Vladimir SHELESTIN
——La perception du sceptre en Grèce de l’époque d’Homère et de Mycènes à la lumière des parallèles de l’Orient Antique

—Larisa PECHATNOVA
——Die Hypomeiones in Sparta

—Elena NIKITYUK
——Kalokagathia: to a Question on Formation of an Image of the Ideal Person in Antiquity and During Modern Time

—Maxim M. KHOLOD
——On the Representation and Self-representation of the Argead Rulers (before Alexander the Great): the Title Basileus

—Dragana NIKOLIĆ
——Stoneworkers’ Hercules. A Comment on an Upper Moesian Inscription

—José María ZAMORA CALVO
——Remarks on the so-called Plotinus’ Sarcophagus (‘Vatican Museums’, inv. 9504)

—Cornel BALLA
——Some Considerations on the Praefectus ripae legionis primae Ioviae cohortis et secundae Herculiae musculorum Scythicorum et classis in plateypegiis

—Felix-Adrian TENCARIU & Andrei ASĂNDULESEI
——‘Rock Salt Around the Clock’. Ethnoarchaeological Research Concerning Traditional Extraction of Salt for Animal Consumption