Living Streams: New Perspectives on Ancient Rivers
Rivers were central in the rise and development of ancient societies. Famously, rivers like the Indus, the Tiber, and the Nile defined borders, identities, and whole cultures. However, there are countless ancient rivers that we usually overlook from a modernist perspective. For example, many Greek thinkers envisaged the world as encircled by an endless river, the Ocean. Also, the construction of aqueducts in Roman towns can be seen as an attempt to blur the boundaries between human-made and natural waterscapes. This conference aims to study the variety of ancient rivers and their fluvial environments from several different perspectives, reflecting the complexity of fluvial phenomena.
Modern researchers apply different approaches to the study of ancient rivers. For example, archaeologists and geologists use scientific methods to analyze the physical aspects of ancient remains, monuments, and landscapes. Literary scholars tend to approach riverine landscapes using a more conceptual approach. The recent paradigm of ecocriticism, alongside advances in digital humanities, has begun to open new avenues for understanding human to non-human relationships in ancient texts. Finally, environmental historians use various scientific methods to reconstruct the properties of water and the ancient climate.
This conference explores ancient rivers’ physical and mythological character and representations of river fluidity. By reconstructing tales of rivers, gods, animals and plants connected to them, we seek new approaches to these fluid environments, living beings in their own right.
The speakers will focus on how river ecologies changed over time and how they were perceived and transformed into narratives. The aim is to bring together archaeological perspectives on the material relations at the heart of these socio-ecological systems alongside literary investigations on the narrative patterns associated with them (as they
relate to structures and motifs, as well as aspects of gender).
Provisional programme:
09.00–09.05 (Eastern European Summer Time) Welcome and opening remarks
09.05–09.40 Krešimir Vuković (Ludwig-Maximilians-
and Giacomo Savani (University of St Andrews): The Living Streams: River
myths in the Anthropocene
09.40–11.15 Session 1: The Tiber
09.40–10.20 Andrea Brock (University of St Andrews): Early Rome: A view
from the river
10.20–11.00 Duncan C. Keenan-Jones (University of Queensland): Tiber
flooding and rainfall: Comparisons with other central Italian rainfall
proxies
11.00–11.15 Discussion
11.15–11.30 Break
11.30–12.50 Session 2: Rivers and Northern Frontiers
11.30–12.10 Tyler Franconi (Brown University): Environmental change and
Roman military policy on European riverine frontiers
12.10–12.50 Csaba Szabó (University of Szeged): The Danube and the Roman
Empire: Ecology, history and religion of a river
12.50–1400 Lunch
14.00–16.30 Session 3: Rivers on the Margins
14.00–14.40 Henry Clarke (University of Leeds): Landscape relationships
in the Durius River Valley: Reconstructing ancient lived experiences
using rivers as conceptual units of study
14.40–15.20 Katherine A. Crawford (The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia):
Modelling the correlation between rivers and settlement persistence on
Cyprus
15.20–16.00 Emma Aston (University of Reading): Rivers as boundaries in
ancient Thessaly
16.00–16.30 Discussion
19.00 Conference Dinner (restaurant tbc)
Day 2, 14th September 2022
09.00–12.10 Session 4: Engaging with Rivers
09.00–09.40 Jasmin Hettinger (RomanIslam Hamburg/University of Leipzig):
From horn to cornucopia: Ancient narratives on the taming of wild rivers
09.40–10.20 Judith Bunbury (University of Cambridge): Ancient management
of the Nile in Egypt
10.20–10.35 Break
10.35–11.15 Amanda Kelly (University College Dublin): The river rise –
The ancient Kairetos in Crete
11.15–11.55 Marguerite Ronin (CNRS): Rivers as dynamic crossroads of
opportunities and risks
11.55–12.10 Discussion
12.10–13.10 Lunch
13.10–14.45 Session 5: Rivers in Ancient and Modern India
13.10–13.50 Andreas Ammann (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich):
Fighting (on) rivers – Hydaspes, Hyphasis and Indus in Curtius Rufus’
‘Historiae Alexandri Magni’
13.50–14.30 Milinda Banerjee (University of St Andrews): Being or
object? Competing river ontologies in India
14.30–14.45 Discussion
14.45–15.00 Break
15.00–16.50 Session 6: Rivers and Aquatic Entities
15.00–15.40 Jay Ingate (Canterbury Christ Church University): ‘Spooky
action at a distance’ or gods in the plumbing? Exploring the contrast
between modern and Roman water infrastructure
15.40–16.20 Betsey A. Robinson (Vanderbilt University): Impossible gods
and troublesome nymphs
16.20–16.50 Discussion
16.50–17.00 Closing Remarks
Dr Krešimir Vuković (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
Dr Giacomo Savani (University of St Andrews)
