Project acronym AYURYOG
Project Medicine, Immortality, Moksha: Entangled Histories of Yoga, Ayurveda and Alchemy in South Asia
Researcher (PI) Dagmar Wujastyk
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The project will examine the histories of yoga, ayurveda and rasashastra (Indian alchemy and iatrochemistry) from the tenth century to the present, focussing on the disciplines' health, rejuvenation and longevity practices. The goals of the project are to reveal the entanglements of these historical traditions, and to trace the trajectories of their evolution as components of today's global healthcare and personal development industries.
Our hypothesis is that practices aimed at achieving health, rejuvenation and longevity constitute a key area of exchange between the three disciplines, preparing the grounds for a series of important pharmaceutical and technological innovations and also profoundly influencing the discourses of today's medicalized forms of globalized yoga as well as of contemporary institutionalized forms of ayurveda and rasashastra.
Drawing upon the primary historical sources of each respective tradition as well as on fieldwork data, the research team will explore the shared terminology, praxis and theory of these three disciplines. We will examine why, when and how health, rejuvenation and longevity practices were employed; how each discipline’s discourse and practical applications relates to those of the others; and how past encounters and cross-fertilizations impact on contemporary health-related practices in yogic, ayurvedic and alchemists’ milieus.
The five-year project will be based at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at Vienna University and carried out by an international team of 3 post-doctoral researchers. The research will be grounded in the fields of South Asian studies and social history. An international workshop and an international conference will be organized to present and discuss the research results, which will also be published in peer-reviewed journals, an edited volume, and in individual monographs. A project website will provide open access to all research results.
Summary
The project will examine the histories of yoga, ayurveda and rasashastra (Indian alchemy and iatrochemistry) from the tenth century to the present, focussing on the disciplines' health, rejuvenation and longevity practices. The goals of the project are to reveal the entanglements of these historical traditions, and to trace the trajectories of their evolution as components of today's global healthcare and personal development industries.
Our hypothesis is that practices aimed at achieving health, rejuvenation and longevity constitute a key area of exchange between the three disciplines, preparing the grounds for a series of important pharmaceutical and technological innovations and also profoundly influencing the discourses of today's medicalized forms of globalized yoga as well as of contemporary institutionalized forms of ayurveda and rasashastra.
Drawing upon the primary historical sources of each respective tradition as well as on fieldwork data, the research team will explore the shared terminology, praxis and theory of these three disciplines. We will examine why, when and how health, rejuvenation and longevity practices were employed; how each discipline’s discourse and practical applications relates to those of the others; and how past encounters and cross-fertilizations impact on contemporary health-related practices in yogic, ayurvedic and alchemists’ milieus.
The five-year project will be based at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at Vienna University and carried out by an international team of 3 post-doctoral researchers. The research will be grounded in the fields of South Asian studies and social history. An international workshop and an international conference will be organized to present and discuss the research results, which will also be published in peer-reviewed journals, an edited volume, and in individual monographs. A project website will provide open access to all research results.
Max ERC Funding
1 416 146 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-06-01, End date: 2020-05-31
Project acronym CT
Project ‘Challenging Time(s)’ – A New Approach to Written Sources for Ancient Egyptian Chronology
Researcher (PI) Roman GUNDACKER
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2017-STG
Summary The chronology of ancient Egypt is a golden thread for the memory of early civilisation. It is not only the scaffolding of four millennia of Egyptian history, but also one of the pillars of the chronology of the entire ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. The basic division of Egyptian history into 31 dynasties was introduced by Manetho, an Egyptian historian (c. 280 BC) writing in Greek for the Ptolemaic kings. Despite the fact that this scheme was adopted by Egyptologists 200 years ago and remains in use until today, there has never been an in-depth analysis of Manetho’s kinglist and of the names in it. Until now, identifying the Greek renderings of royal names with their hieroglyphic counterparts was more or less educated guesswork. It is thus essential to introduce the principles of textual criticism, to evaluate royal names on a firm linguistic basis and to provide for the first time ever an Egyptological commentary on Manetho’s kinglist. Just like Manetho did long ago, now it is necessary to gather all inscriptional evidence on Egyptian history: dated inscriptions, biographic and prosopographic data of royalty and commoners, genuine Egyptian kinglists and annals. These data must be critically evaluated in context, their assignment to specific reigns must be reconsidered, and genealogies and sequences of officials must be reviewed. The results are not only important for Egyptian historical chronology and for our understanding of the Egyptian perception of history, but also for the interpretation of chronological data gained from archaeological excavations (material culture) and sciences (14C dates, which are interpreted on the basis of historical chronology, e.g., via ‘Bayesian modelling’). The applicant has already shown the significance of this approach in pilot studies on the pyramid age. Further work in cooperation with international specialists will thus shed new light on ancient sources in order to determine the chronology of early civilisation.
Summary
The chronology of ancient Egypt is a golden thread for the memory of early civilisation. It is not only the scaffolding of four millennia of Egyptian history, but also one of the pillars of the chronology of the entire ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. The basic division of Egyptian history into 31 dynasties was introduced by Manetho, an Egyptian historian (c. 280 BC) writing in Greek for the Ptolemaic kings. Despite the fact that this scheme was adopted by Egyptologists 200 years ago and remains in use until today, there has never been an in-depth analysis of Manetho’s kinglist and of the names in it. Until now, identifying the Greek renderings of royal names with their hieroglyphic counterparts was more or less educated guesswork. It is thus essential to introduce the principles of textual criticism, to evaluate royal names on a firm linguistic basis and to provide for the first time ever an Egyptological commentary on Manetho’s kinglist. Just like Manetho did long ago, now it is necessary to gather all inscriptional evidence on Egyptian history: dated inscriptions, biographic and prosopographic data of royalty and commoners, genuine Egyptian kinglists and annals. These data must be critically evaluated in context, their assignment to specific reigns must be reconsidered, and genealogies and sequences of officials must be reviewed. The results are not only important for Egyptian historical chronology and for our understanding of the Egyptian perception of history, but also for the interpretation of chronological data gained from archaeological excavations (material culture) and sciences (14C dates, which are interpreted on the basis of historical chronology, e.g., via ‘Bayesian modelling’). The applicant has already shown the significance of this approach in pilot studies on the pyramid age. Further work in cooperation with international specialists will thus shed new light on ancient sources in order to determine the chronology of early civilisation.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 992 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-03-01, End date: 2023-02-28
Project acronym N-T-AUTONOMY
Project Non-Territorial Autonomy as Minority Protection in Europe: An Intellectual and Political History of a Travelling Idea, 1850-2000
Researcher (PI) Börries KUZMANY
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Over the past 150 years, non-territorial autonomy has been one of three models for dealing with linguistic or ethnic minorities within several European states. Compared with the other two, i.e. the recognition of minority rights as individual rights and territorial self-rule, non-territorial autonomy has received little attention. This project proposes to write the first history of non-territorial autonomy as an applied policy tool in minority protection and as an intellectual concept with a chequered history across Europe. Intellectuals, politicians, and legal scholars across the political spectrum from the far left to the far right supported this idea, although they were aware of the risks of strengthening national differences by promoting such a collective approach to minority protection. The project explores how this idea of granting cultural rights to a national group as a corporate body within a state, as a means of integrating diverse nationalities, travelled and transformed throughout the Habsburg Empire from 1850 to the present. We propose to 1) trace the development/circulation of theoretical conceptions and political applications of non-territorial autonomy within the Habsburg Empire, by mapping the networks of scholars as well as politicians who advocated for it; 2) explain the continuities in the development of the idea, and its manifestations in policies adopted by interwar Central and Eastern European nation states, where communists, socialists, liberals and fascists alike were able to translate elements of non-territorial autonomy into their ideologies and programs; 3) analyse the treatment of non-territorial autonomy, which was advocated by minority lobby groups, in international minority protection in the 20th century despite strong opposition to practices based on it by international organisations. We rely on a mixture of historiographical methods developed in nationalism studies to analyse the idea’s translation in entangled transnational spaces.
Summary
Over the past 150 years, non-territorial autonomy has been one of three models for dealing with linguistic or ethnic minorities within several European states. Compared with the other two, i.e. the recognition of minority rights as individual rights and territorial self-rule, non-territorial autonomy has received little attention. This project proposes to write the first history of non-territorial autonomy as an applied policy tool in minority protection and as an intellectual concept with a chequered history across Europe. Intellectuals, politicians, and legal scholars across the political spectrum from the far left to the far right supported this idea, although they were aware of the risks of strengthening national differences by promoting such a collective approach to minority protection. The project explores how this idea of granting cultural rights to a national group as a corporate body within a state, as a means of integrating diverse nationalities, travelled and transformed throughout the Habsburg Empire from 1850 to the present. We propose to 1) trace the development/circulation of theoretical conceptions and political applications of non-territorial autonomy within the Habsburg Empire, by mapping the networks of scholars as well as politicians who advocated for it; 2) explain the continuities in the development of the idea, and its manifestations in policies adopted by interwar Central and Eastern European nation states, where communists, socialists, liberals and fascists alike were able to translate elements of non-territorial autonomy into their ideologies and programs; 3) analyse the treatment of non-territorial autonomy, which was advocated by minority lobby groups, in international minority protection in the 20th century despite strong opposition to practices based on it by international organisations. We rely on a mixture of historiographical methods developed in nationalism studies to analyse the idea’s translation in entangled transnational spaces.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 556 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-04-01, End date: 2023-03-31
Project acronym OVERMODE
Project Origins of the Vernacular Mode. Regional Identities and European Networks in Late Medieval Europe
Researcher (PI) Pavlína Rychterová
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary Based on comparative studies and contextualisations of European vernacular religious literatures, this project aims at new insights about the dynamics of regional ( vernacular ) identity formation in the 14th and 15th centuries. The investigation will focus on intellectual elites linked in close, supra-regional networks, who gradually introduced the vernacular mode in the dominant theological discourse; at the same time, they increased the symbolical charge of the vernacular languages. The core period studied in the project will be the second half of the 14th century, a period in which new forms of institutionalisation and discursive orientation of ecclesiastic and lay powers began to take shape, and directions were taken that should prove decisive for further development. At the time, Prague was the political and intellectual centre of the Holy Roman Empire, but its international impact is grossly understudied. The project will therefore mainly deal with the rich and little-known production of Czech religious literature. It sets out to reconstruct the personal networks engaged in the creation, translation and propagation of vernacular religious literature, and in the formation of textual communities and cultural identities at the treshold from Latin to the vernaculars.
Summary
Based on comparative studies and contextualisations of European vernacular religious literatures, this project aims at new insights about the dynamics of regional ( vernacular ) identity formation in the 14th and 15th centuries. The investigation will focus on intellectual elites linked in close, supra-regional networks, who gradually introduced the vernacular mode in the dominant theological discourse; at the same time, they increased the symbolical charge of the vernacular languages. The core period studied in the project will be the second half of the 14th century, a period in which new forms of institutionalisation and discursive orientation of ecclesiastic and lay powers began to take shape, and directions were taken that should prove decisive for further development. At the time, Prague was the political and intellectual centre of the Holy Roman Empire, but its international impact is grossly understudied. The project will therefore mainly deal with the rich and little-known production of Czech religious literature. It sets out to reconstruct the personal networks engaged in the creation, translation and propagation of vernacular religious literature, and in the formation of textual communities and cultural identities at the treshold from Latin to the vernaculars.
Max ERC Funding
999 926 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-04-01, End date: 2017-03-31
Project acronym PREHISTORIC ANATOLIA
Project From Sedentism to Proto-Urban Societies in Western Anatolia
Researcher (PI) Barbara Horejs
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary Prehistoric archaeology in western Anatolia has been poorly pursued since the beginning of excavations in this area in the 19th century. Especially the central coast between Pergamon and Ephesos represents a terra incognita in most prehistoric periods of humankind.
The project focuses mainly on two distinctive chronological and cultural horizons the period of the first permanent settlements (sedentism) in Neolithic and the development to proto-urban centres in Early Bronze Age period. Combining both huge research topics in one project would enable a broad spectrum of cultural modelling, based upon multidisciplinary diachronic and comparative studies concerning changing societies in a changing environment from the 7th to 3rd millennium BC.
New archaeological excavations as well as environmental surveys in different micro-regions (Pergamon and Ephesos) are the essential methods to produce modern documented data that will be analysed with a broad multidisciplinary and international team of scientists and students. Besides archaeology, those disciplines are geophysics, paleogeography, metallurgy, inorganic chemistry, petrography/mineralogy, geology, zoology, botany, anthracology, organic chemistry, physics and anthropology.
To achieve an integrated picture and to concentrate the broad spectrum of studies a focus on the following three research topics is proposed: 1. Archaeological Periods and Definitions of Cultures 2. Societies in Changing Environments 3. Communication, Exchange and Interregional Relationships. The applicant has already performed investigations in these highly promising regions and could thereby successfully demonstrate a great gain in knowledge of basic cultural developments of humankind in prehistory.
Summary
Prehistoric archaeology in western Anatolia has been poorly pursued since the beginning of excavations in this area in the 19th century. Especially the central coast between Pergamon and Ephesos represents a terra incognita in most prehistoric periods of humankind.
The project focuses mainly on two distinctive chronological and cultural horizons the period of the first permanent settlements (sedentism) in Neolithic and the development to proto-urban centres in Early Bronze Age period. Combining both huge research topics in one project would enable a broad spectrum of cultural modelling, based upon multidisciplinary diachronic and comparative studies concerning changing societies in a changing environment from the 7th to 3rd millennium BC.
New archaeological excavations as well as environmental surveys in different micro-regions (Pergamon and Ephesos) are the essential methods to produce modern documented data that will be analysed with a broad multidisciplinary and international team of scientists and students. Besides archaeology, those disciplines are geophysics, paleogeography, metallurgy, inorganic chemistry, petrography/mineralogy, geology, zoology, botany, anthracology, organic chemistry, physics and anthropology.
To achieve an integrated picture and to concentrate the broad spectrum of studies a focus on the following three research topics is proposed: 1. Archaeological Periods and Definitions of Cultures 2. Societies in Changing Environments 3. Communication, Exchange and Interregional Relationships. The applicant has already performed investigations in these highly promising regions and could thereby successfully demonstrate a great gain in knowledge of basic cultural developments of humankind in prehistory.
Max ERC Funding
1 256 428 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-07-01, End date: 2016-06-30
Project acronym REPAC
Project Repetition, Parallelism and Creativity: An Inquiry into the Construction of Meaning in Ancient Mesopotamian Literature and Erudition
Researcher (PI) Nicla DE ZORZI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2018-STG
Summary REPAC is a contribution to the intellectual history of Ancient Mesopotamia, one of mankind’s earliest civilizations. The project investigates the relationship between textual form and function in Mesopotamian literature and scholarly compositions. It focuses on exact and variant repetition as a text structuring device and demonstrates that the use of repetition is grounded in a fundamental aspect of the worldview of Mesopotamian learned scribes. REPAC studies literary, magical and mantic texts written on clay tablets inscribed in the Cuneiform script in the Akkadian language dating from the first millennium BCE. Parallelism, refrain, ring composition and similar types of regular, part-repetitive patterning occur on all levels of these erudite textual genres. Textual elements which are separate but yoked together through contiguity and similarity were a major vector for poetic creativity, rhetorical effectiveness and inventiveness in argumentation. Repetition in its various forms was used not only as a means of aesthetic ornamentation. In mantic texts, it opened a way to understand the world through analogical reasoning. Literary texts constructed arguments by elucidating different aspects of their theme through sequences of parallel, but slightly divergent, statements. In magical rituals, repetition was used for magical action through the construction of persuasive analogies. The ubiquity of textual repetition was rooted in the scribes’ belief in the meaningful and causally effective interconnection of words, concepts and things sharing an element of similarity. No sustained effort at understanding this worldview and the importance of analogy as a principle of Mesopotamian literary and scholarly method has ever been made. The project fills this major knowledge gap. It will lead to a significantly improved understanding of the creative effort of Ancient Mesopotamia.
Summary
REPAC is a contribution to the intellectual history of Ancient Mesopotamia, one of mankind’s earliest civilizations. The project investigates the relationship between textual form and function in Mesopotamian literature and scholarly compositions. It focuses on exact and variant repetition as a text structuring device and demonstrates that the use of repetition is grounded in a fundamental aspect of the worldview of Mesopotamian learned scribes. REPAC studies literary, magical and mantic texts written on clay tablets inscribed in the Cuneiform script in the Akkadian language dating from the first millennium BCE. Parallelism, refrain, ring composition and similar types of regular, part-repetitive patterning occur on all levels of these erudite textual genres. Textual elements which are separate but yoked together through contiguity and similarity were a major vector for poetic creativity, rhetorical effectiveness and inventiveness in argumentation. Repetition in its various forms was used not only as a means of aesthetic ornamentation. In mantic texts, it opened a way to understand the world through analogical reasoning. Literary texts constructed arguments by elucidating different aspects of their theme through sequences of parallel, but slightly divergent, statements. In magical rituals, repetition was used for magical action through the construction of persuasive analogies. The ubiquity of textual repetition was rooted in the scribes’ belief in the meaningful and causally effective interconnection of words, concepts and things sharing an element of similarity. No sustained effort at understanding this worldview and the importance of analogy as a principle of Mesopotamian literary and scholarly method has ever been made. The project fills this major knowledge gap. It will lead to a significantly improved understanding of the creative effort of Ancient Mesopotamia.
Max ERC Funding
1 494 198 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-05-01, End date: 2024-04-30
Project acronym VAMOS
Project The value of mothers to society: responses to motherhood and child rearing practices in prehistoric Europe
Researcher (PI) Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Analysing the link between reproduction and women’s social status, this project explores social responses to pregnancy, birth and childrearing from the late Neolithic to the late Iron Age (c.3000-15 BC) through case studies in central Europe. Motherhood and childrearing, often seen as natural, mundane and inevitable parts of women’s lives, are also cultural and historically contingent practices that build the foundations of societies. Exploring the value of mothers to society will aid in understanding important long-term developments such as social stratification, increasing population density and the entrenching of gender roles during the three millennia under investigation.
Bringing together the latest developments in archaeological science, including palaeo-pathology, ancient DNA and isotope analyses, with innovative interpretative approaches, this project will explore if all women were expected to become mothers, highlight alternative lifeways, evaluate risks and consequences of becoming a mother and analyse the social value of reproductive success.
It is the first study that aims to systematically predict the probability of whether or not a woman has given birth using palaeo-pathological markers combined with individual age information and population-specific demographic data. It will contextualize the findings with an in-depth status analysis of women’s graves. Graves of pregnant women, double burials of women and children as well as infant burials will provide further data. The study extends to childrearing (care, feeding, but also abuse, neglect and infanticide) and explores how children were treated after death for insights into their significance.
Current political discourses about mothers in society and workforce frequently refer to ‘natural’ and ‘ancient’ childrearing practices. This project will contribute significantly to our understanding of motherhood and counter naive narratives of childrearing in prehistory with science-based information.
Summary
Analysing the link between reproduction and women’s social status, this project explores social responses to pregnancy, birth and childrearing from the late Neolithic to the late Iron Age (c.3000-15 BC) through case studies in central Europe. Motherhood and childrearing, often seen as natural, mundane and inevitable parts of women’s lives, are also cultural and historically contingent practices that build the foundations of societies. Exploring the value of mothers to society will aid in understanding important long-term developments such as social stratification, increasing population density and the entrenching of gender roles during the three millennia under investigation.
Bringing together the latest developments in archaeological science, including palaeo-pathology, ancient DNA and isotope analyses, with innovative interpretative approaches, this project will explore if all women were expected to become mothers, highlight alternative lifeways, evaluate risks and consequences of becoming a mother and analyse the social value of reproductive success.
It is the first study that aims to systematically predict the probability of whether or not a woman has given birth using palaeo-pathological markers combined with individual age information and population-specific demographic data. It will contextualize the findings with an in-depth status analysis of women’s graves. Graves of pregnant women, double burials of women and children as well as infant burials will provide further data. The study extends to childrearing (care, feeding, but also abuse, neglect and infanticide) and explores how children were treated after death for insights into their significance.
Current political discourses about mothers in society and workforce frequently refer to ‘natural’ and ‘ancient’ childrearing practices. This project will contribute significantly to our understanding of motherhood and counter naive narratives of childrearing in prehistory with science-based information.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 680 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30
