Imperial Space. The Organization of Near Eastern Empires from the Second Millennium BC to the Second Millennium AD

Imperial Space. The Organization of Near Eastern Empires from the Second Millennium BC to the Second Millennium AD

Organizer
Prof. Dr. Eva Cancik Kirschbaum, FU Berlin/Prof. Dr. Daniel Potts, University of Sydney, Excellence Cluster 264 TOPOI
Venue
TOPOI-Haus an der Freien Universität (Berlin-Dahlem) Hittorfstr. 18, 14195 Berlin
Location
Berlin
Country
Germany
From - Until
03.05.2012 - 05.05.2012
By
Judith Esders

TOPOI International Workshop

The workshop will investigate imperial space in the Near East. These empires were enormous and multi-ethnic, with fluctuating borders and complex territories. They raise fascinating questions of spatial ideology and dynamics. We will examine how they conceptualized and practiced their space. Was imperial rule territorialized? Did these states develop central regions? Did a sense of homeland emerge? What if the homeland was external to the empire, as for the Seleucids and the Ottomans? By what mechanisms was imperial space bounded? How were lands beyond the border conceived? We will examine how the cultural products of these states open, encode, and problematize imperial space. The broad chronological perspective will allow us to examine these questions in a macro-historical perspective, providing the opportunity for investigations of change and continuity between these kingdoms. We will investigate whether earlier imperial spaces were absorbed and transformed, or spatial ideology inherited.

The empires we are planning to deal with are as follows: Mitanni, Hittite, Assyria, Late Babylonia, Elam, the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sasanian Empire, the Early Islam, the Ottoman and Mongolian Empire, the Timurid and Safavid Dynasties.

Programm

Thursday, 3 May 2012

18.00 Welcome and introduction

18.15 Daniel Potts: “These are the lands which obey me": Reflections on the imperial instrumentarium”

Friday, 4 May 2012

09.00 Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum: Assyrien – Vom Territorialstaat zum Imperium

09.50 Jörg Klinger: Die Organisation territorialer Herrschaft im hethitischen Reich

-- 10.40 – 11.10 coffee break --

11.10 Dominik Bonatz: Perceiving Mittani imperial space: A material perspective

12.00 Kristin Kleber: The Neo-Babylonian Empire and the transition to Persian Rule

-- 12.50 – 14.00 lunch break --

14.00 Paul Kosmin: Seleucid Space

14.50 Laurent Capdetrey: The Seleucid Kingdom: Empire or patchwork?

-- 15.40 – 16.10 Uhr: coffee break --

16.10 Josef Wiesehöfer: Zentralismus vs. Regionalismus oder dynamisches Gleichgewicht? Raumwahrnehmung und Raumbeherrschung im Arsakidenreich

17.00 Ernst Baltrusch: Das Imperium Romanum – ein Imperium sine fine?

Saturday, 5 May 2012

09.00 Wouter Henkelman: Elam: Empire or imperial momentum?

09.50 Touraj Daryaee: Walls, Rivers and the sacred space: Sasanian Iranshar (224-651 CE)

-- 10.40 – 11.10 coffee break --

11.10 Reuven Amitai: From military slavery to the rulers of Bilad al-Islam: The early Mamluk Sultans and their Empire

12.00 Michal Biran: World conquest and imperial space in the Mongol empire

-- 12.50 – 14.00 lunch break --

14.00 Beatrice Manz: Imperial symbolism and administrative realism in the early Timurid state

14.50 Christine Nölle-Karimi: Projections of power: Iran in Safavid Times (1501-1722)

-- 15.40 – 16.10 Uhr: coffee break --

16.10 Rudi Matthee: The Safavid empire: Links between the center and the periphery

17.00 Malte Fuhrmann: The city of joy. Spatial relations of power in late Ottoman maritime Ccties”

17.50 Final discussion

Contact (announcement)

Judith Esders

Excellence Cluster 264 TOPOI
+49 (0)30 838 50594
+49 (0)30 838 53770

judith.esders@topoi.org

http://www.topoi.org/event/imperial-space
Editors Information
Published on
10.04.2012
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Language(s) of event
English, German
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