Bøger af Anna Collar

This volume starts from a reconsideration of the idea that ancient perceptions of the non-human world rested on the profound belief in universal order and therefore paid little attention to variety, irregularity, and change. Focusing on the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, this book seeks to present long-term dynamics in environmental interactions. It traces another sense of environmental awareness, one that paid equal attention to chance and chaos, and even reflected on the, at times, fatal consequences of human intervention in nature. Contributors from across the globe examine the transformation and co-construction of ancient landscapes through natural and human processes. Their essays consider a range of evidence, from myths and philosophical treatises to epigraphic evidence and archaeological remains, but they all reveal the ways in which humankind constructs stories about its environment - and how these stories facilitate the construction of ancient environments as living entities, respondent (maybe even vulnerable) to human actions and decision-making.

Focusing on the transitional period of the late Republic to the early Principate, Trees in Ancient Rome offers a sustained examination of the deployment of trees in the ancient city, exploring not only the practicalities of their cultivation, but also their symbolic value. The Ruminal fig tree sheltered the she-wolf as she nursed Romulus and Remus and year's later Rome was founded between two groves. As the city grew, neighbourhoods bore the names of groves and hills were known by the trees which grew atop them. From the 1st century BCE, triumphs included trees among their spoils and Rome's green cityscape grew, as did the challenges of finding room for trees within the congested city.This volume begins with an examination of the role of trees as repositories of human memory, lasting for several generations. It goes on to untangle the import of trees, and their role in the triumphal procession, before closing with a discussion of how trees could be grown in Rome's urban spaces. Drawing on a combination of literary, visual and archaeological sources, it reveals the rich variety of trees in evidence, and explores how they impacted, and were used to impact, life in the ancient city.

Exciting interdisciplinary scholarship on the theme of pilgrimage.

Networks and the Spread of Ideas in the Past: Strong Ties, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange gathers contributions from an international group of scholars to reconsider the role that strong social ties play in the transmission of new ideas, and their crucial place in network analyses of the past.