The study of ancient religions – their materiality and practices – was subject to enormous changes, over the past years. However, the digital humanities have yet to find a meaningful way to integrate the resulting qualitative data into existing digital infrastructures and correlate it with quantitative data. The session therefore aims to bring together experts working with different methods of gathering, modelling/visualising, presenting, and analysing data to discuss the diverse ways in which heterogeneous methods and tools can be usefully combined. Approaches that use mixed data (qualitative and quantitative), are just as welcome as the presentation and discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of various individual tools and applications.

Argument

The study of ancient religions – their materiality and practices – was subject to enormous changes, especially since different approaches from other disciplines, such as sociology, cultural studies, or anthropology, were made fruitful for the archaeology of ancient religions and subsequently enabled a qualitative approach to the research questions. This led to an understanding of religious spaces on the one hand as an outcome of social interaction (Lefebvre; Hofmann/ Lätzer-Lasar), and on the other hand as a shared space with its own locally produced identity (Hayden/Walker 2013). However, the digital humanities have yet to find a meaningful way to integrate the resulting qualitative data into existing digital infrastructures and correlate it with quantitative data.

The session therefore aims to bring together experts working with different methods of gathering, modelling/visualising, presenting, and analysing data to discuss the diverse ways in which heterogeneous methods and tools can be usefully combined. Approaches that use mixed data (qualitative and quantitative), such as Story Maps or Deep Map(ping) (Bodenhamer et. al. 2015) are just as welcome as the presentation and discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of various individual tools and applications, such as network models, cartograms, modelling of movement patterns, temoporalities or sensoryscapes (soundscapes, smellscapes, viewsheds), etc.

Since we are concentrating on the methodological approaches and applications for investigating religious spaces, we invite case studies from any chronological period, as well as from any geographical region.

Submitting your proposal

Welcome to the abstracts submission module of the 28th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), which will be held in Budapest, Hungary from 31 August to 3 September 2022.

Abstracts must be submitted online via this submission form

before 2022, February 10th.

To submit, you log in below and will then find a form to complete. For details of what to expect and how to prepare see the scientific programme and FAQ.

Organization

• Asuman Lätzer-Lasar
• Anaïs Lamesa

Literature

David J. Bodenhamer et al. (eds.) 2015. Deep Maps and Spatial Narratives, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Hayden, Robert M.; Walker, Timothy D. 2013. ‘Intersecting Religioscapes: A Comparative Approach to Trajectories of Change, Scale, and Competitive Sharing of Religious Spaces’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81. 399–426.

Hofmann, Kerstin P.; Lätzer-Lasar, Asuman (in press). ‘Archaeology and Sacred Space: On ancient and contemporary practices of (de-)sacralization of the Palatine in Rome’, in: Bachmann-Medick, Doris; Kugele, Jens; Stornig, Katharina (eds.), Conceptualizing Sacred Space(s). Perspectives from the Study of Culture Special Issue, Saeculum, 2021/2. Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte.

Lefebvre, Henri 1974. The Production of Space. Blackwell Publishing.