Ancient Sources Research Articles

El ave fénix: imagen simbólica y didáctica de la resurrección en la transición del arte antiguo al altomedieval

The phoenix became one of the most emblematic representations of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It was capable of reviving from its own ashes. This ability to die and be reborn made it an animal widely represented in art, the iconography of which was highly symbolic. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used its image in funerary and political contexts. Early Christians appropriated this symbol, using it from early times as an example of the resurrection. In this article we focus on the representation of the phoenix now of its death and rebirth, focusing on its appearance in funerary contexts (tombs and sarcophagi) as well as the depiction of the moment of its own cremation. We will analyze the reasons why this animal iconography was so successful in ancient and medieval Christian sources. In this way we will be able to understand how the phoenix, which was a powerful image with very ancient origins in the Mediterranean, became with the arrival of Christianity an exemplum of the true existence of the resurrection of Christ and a symbol of hope for humanity in the face of death.

Идея рая и ее воплощение в романе С. Снегова «Люди как боги»

The novel “Humans as Gods” by the Soviet science fiction writer S. Snegov is analyzed. In particular, the study is devoted to identifying the characteristic features of the world of the future of human civilization, which is depicted in the work at the stage of its maturity. The new order of human life is compared with the description of the lives of people from the mythical past, which is reflected in ancient and biblical sources. The similarities and distinctive features of ideas about a happy life are indicated. The importance of labor activity for a person of the future is noted as a necessary element for creating a unified society with equal rights and opportunities, despite the carelessness of representatives of the Golden Age era. The conclusion is made about the influence of ancient myths on the formation of the creative idea of the author of the novel, modeling a picture of a bright future based on the achievements of scientific and technological progress and a highly developed moral sense of a person.

The Words of the Righteous: The Death of Text and the Eternity of Stone

Abstract: This essay examines examples of the Oral Torah as a concrete, material phenomenon in late ancient rabbinic sources. The oral nature of oral Torah, both as an ideology and as a description of rabbinic textual practices, can elide some of the more evocative discussions of the nature of oral Torah. Previous discussions, such as Wollenberg (2019), have shown that the nature of the written Torah was often understood as unstable, changing, and mutable. This essay explores the other side of that equation, exploring discussions of oral Text as concrete, enduring, and unchanging. Two main examples are studied: the first from a passage in the Palestinian Talmud, and the second in a passage from the Babylonian Talmud. The Palestinian Talmud draws a dense network of connections between Torah scrolls, oral teachings, rabbinic sages, and the imagery of death and memorialization. The Babylonian Talmud similarly extends the value of rabbinic oral teaching into the World to Come, showing that while the associations between teaching, death, and eternal life manifest differently, they are still present in different rabbinic contexts. Taken together, these inscriptions of a concrete and material Oral Torah are fully realized in the body of the rabbinic sage. Other scholars have also shown that rabbinic sages become an embodiment of Torah: this essay examines the nature of rabbinic Torah, as discussed in rabbinic literature, to understand how that embodiment comes about.

The Pharisees ed. by Joseph Sievers and Amy-Jill Levine

Reviewed by: The Pharisees ed. by Joseph Sievers and Amy-Jill Levine Joshua Garroway joseph sievers and amy-jill levine (eds.), The Pharisees (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021). Pp. xxiii + 482. $54.99. This volume, which stems from a 2019 conference at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, is remarkable in both length and scope, consisting of twenty-five essays that cover more than two thousand years of history. The book has two aims: first, to refine our understanding of the Pharisees, a group notoriously difficult to define or describe, by synthesizing voices from an array of disciplines and perspectives; and, second—and this is noteworthy for what is ostensibly an academic work—the editors aspire to correct the harmful prejudice against Jews, centuries old and still alive today, that has resulted from the disparaging representation of Pharisees in ancient, medieval, and modern Christian sources. The two objectives are connected, as the hope that a more complete, accurate, and historically informed description of the Pharisees will provide well-intentioned scholars, [End Page 184] teachers, pastors, and other leaders with the knowledge they need to counteract the negative distortions that have gained steam over the years. The book is divided into three parts, “Historical Reception,” “Reception History,” and “Looking into the Future.” Appended is the address delivered by Pope Francis at the conference in Rome. Part 1 is preceded by an introductory essay, “Interpreting the Name ‘Pharisee’” (pp. 3–2), by Craig E. Morrison, who tackles the long-standing etymological question of how the Pharisees got their name. Morrison’s answer? We simply do not know, but continued efforts to use supposed etymologies to describe the Pharisees, particularly when they stress “separation,” can lead erroneously to the stereotypical presentation of the Pharisees as privileged or aloof. Twelve essays follow: Vasile Babota, “In Search of the Origins of the Pharisees” (pp. 23–40); Eric M. Meyers, “Purity Concerns and Common Judaism in Light of Archaeology” (pp. 41–54); Vered Noam, “Pharisaic Halakhah as Emerging from 4QMMT” (pp. 55–79); Steve Mason, “Josephus’s Pharisees” (pp. 80–111); Paula Fredriksen, “Paul, the Perfectly Righteous Pharisee” (pp. 112–35); Henry Pattarumadathil, “Pharisees and Sadducees Together in Matthew” (pp. 136–47); Adela Yarbro Collins, “Polemic against the Pharisees in Matthew 23” (pp. 148–69); Hermut Löhr, “Luke-Acts as a Source for the History of the Pharisees” (pp. 170–84); Harold W. Attridge, “Pharisees in the Fourth Gospel and One Special Pharisee” (pp. 185–98); Yair Furstenberg, “The Shared Image of Pharisaic Law in the Gospels and Rabbinic Tradition” (pp. 199–219); Jens Schröter, “How Close Were Jesus and the Pharisees” (pp. 220–39); and Günter Stemberger, “The Pharisees and the Rabbis” (pp. 240–55). Several of the essays in part 1 follow Morrison in yielding inconclusive results. Babota, for example, warns against confidence in answering “such questions as when exactly, how, and why Pharisees appeared in the Second Temple period” (p. 40). Meyers concedes that, despite the efforts of archaeologists, Pharisees cannot be distinguished from other Jews in material remains. Stemberger destabilizes the identification of the rabbis as latter-day Pharisees, concluding that we should neither assume a continuity between the two groups nor “reconstruct Pharisaic thought and halakah based on rabbinic texts” (p. 254). Inasmuch as the goal of the book is to unmoor historic prejudices by correcting the record, so to speak, the most conducive chapters in part 1 are those by Noam, Mason, and Furstenberg. Noam undermines the popular Christian representation of the Pharisees as stodgy, conservative legalists by showing that, in comparison with 4QMMT, the position of the Pharisees on legal issues sometimes represents an innovative and more lenient alternative. So, too, Mason sees in Josephus’s descriptions of the Pharisees not “traditional Christian perceptions of a humorless legalism obsessed with petty details or out to impose an exacting severity,” but rather a class of lawyers who “mitigated the potential severity of the laws and provided guidance for living with them” (p. 109). Furstenberg’s comparative analysis of dispute narratives in the Gospels and in rabbinic sources produces a similar result: “The Pharisees promoted a human form of law . . . acknowledging their human state and weaknesses, and allowing them...

Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self by Adam Ellwanger

Reviewed by: Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self by Adam Ellwanger Ryan McDermott (bio) Adam Ellwanger, Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 2020. 202 pp. ISBN: 978-0-271-08593-7. This book moves metanoia and related concepts of transformation and conversion to the center of our theoretical understanding of ethos. Whereas for Aristotle ethos had depended on the audience—did they consider the speaker trustworthy?—now the speaking subject determines how ethos ought to be recognized, and the audience must defer to the subject's self-understanding. As a rhetorical device, Ellwanger shows, metanoia is one of the most important means by which subjects can establish ethos in either of these models. This book's consistent concern is to analyze how, precisely, metanoia is employed in the service of ethos in various contexts and rhetorical and ethical models. At its best, Ellwanger's study adopts a comparative method—what he calls "paratactical rhetorical analysis"—that allows different understandings of metanoia to clarify each other by contrast. Ellwanger also approaches his topic diachronically, telling a story of development or transformation in the practices of metanoia. This narrative gives the book its structure, moving from classical and ancient Jewish sources to early Christianity, then the Protestant Reformation, post-Enlightenment modernity, and what Ellwanger characterizes as the postmodernity of today. Each chapter's narrative section culminates with a theoretical elaboration, which is then worked out in a section of comparative examples. This reviewer found the heuristic, second section of each chapter the more effective. For example, Chapter One compares five different Christian conversion stories (all post-1850), including the Sioux Indian Ohiyesa's memoirs of his transition From the Deep Woods to Civilization, two accounts of conversions in China, and two testimonies from members of the rock band Korn. Ellwanger is able to compare these diverse experiences with impressive conceptual clarity. The major conceptual contrast that runs throughout the book is that between metanoia and epistrophe. When speaking of the contrast, Ellwanger characterizes epistrophe as a 360-degree conversion, a return home. He reserves metanoia for 180-degree conversions, which renounce the past self and result in a rebirth, a replacement of the original subject by a "completely" new subject. In Ellwanger's account, all Christian metanoia "is a substitutive transplanting of identity," and it "locates the substitution at the core of one's being" (95). Modern, secular conversions can also involve renunciation of a previous self, but they lean more heavily on epistrophic unveiling of and return to the original, authentic self. Epistrophic conversion never renounces the real self, but rather the former illusion of self. Theoretically, this contrast harbors considerable explanatory power. It helps make sense of why ethos can reside alternately in audience or speaker. When a speaker seeks to establish ethos by claiming that her previous self is dead and she is now a new (and better) self, she might appeal to the audience to authenticate whether she is indeed new and better. But when a speaker [End Page 93] claims to have discovered and returned to her original, authentic self, she expects the audience to acknowledge her authority to authenticate herself. The contrast between ethoi established by metanoic or epistrophic conversion narratives plays out in fascinating ways in the contrast between Bruce Jenner's coming out as gender-transitioned Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezol's racial transition from identifying as a White woman to identifying as a Black woman. In public responses to each narrative (which unfolded roughly contemporaneously), Ellwanger identifies both metanoic and epistrophic discourses. Each kind was employed by both critics and defenders of the respective claims to identity. The conflict between metanoic and epistrophic understandings of identity transition help account for the intense scrutiny and controversy each story attracted. The weakest part of the book is its narrative of secularization, which frames Christian and modern models of conversion as mutually exclusive. Ellwanger asserts that "in Judeo-Christian thinking metanoia and epistrophe were two fundamentally opposed models of conversion" (100). By contrast, "the definitive feature of modern transformation is a reconciliation of" the two models (p. 143). Likewise, "Christianity is especially...

TheFamaof the Theatre of Pompey between Antiquity and Antiquarianism

AbstractThis article shows how, from the time of its construction up until late antiquity and beyond, written sources reflected and perpetuated thefamaof Pompey's theatre. Such was its reputation as the Roman theatrepar excellencethat, even after its absorption into the fabric of medieval Rome, in the earlier fifteenth century Italian proto-antiquarians were prompted by what they had read to attempt to locate it. A key figure in the process of sifting and applying the ancient sources was Biondo Flavio (1392–1463). Roughly contemporary with the early stages of Alberti'sDe re aedificatoria, but probably preceding the blueprint of the Roman theatre in that work, Biondo's pioneering ‘theatre-made-of-words’ in hisRoma instauratapresented a newly accurate understanding of its structure and use (clearly distinguishing it from the amphitheatre) which proved influential in inspiring further topographical and antiquarian interest and research in the early sixteenth century.

Дневники Л. А. Дмитриева и Е. А. Маймина: археографическая экспедиция в Заонежье в 1948 году. Приложение. 1. Дневник Л. А. Дмитриева. 2. Полевой дневник экспедиции. 3. Перечень книг, приобретенных экспедицией 1948 года

New sources relevant to the study of the history of Russian archeography are published, i. e. the diaries of L. A. Dmitriev and E. A. Maimin that cover the period of their trip to Zaonezhye with the purpose of purchasing old books in the summer of 1948. The diaries contain valuable information on the material and spiritual culture of the post-war Zaonezhye, on local residents, Old Believers, book owners, performers of folk texts. The handwritten and printed books acquired during the expedition are kept today in the V. I. Malyshev Ancient Sources Repository at the IRLI RAS. The published texts are carefully annotated.

God and Gods in the Deuteronomistic History ed. by Corrine Carvalho and John L. Mclaughlin

Reviewed by: God and Gods in the Deuteronomistic History ed. by Corrine Carvalho and John L. Mclaughlin Mark Lackowski corrine carvalho and john l. mclaughlin (eds.), God and Gods in the Deuteronomistic History (CBQI 2; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2021). Pp xxiii + 277. Paper $39.99. This collection of essays came out of the Divinity in Ancient Israel Continuing Seminar at the annual meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association. Over a period of four years, the scholars who participated and published the essays in this volume examined the Deuteronomistic History (DH). Across the introduction and twelve different essays, attention is given to each book in the DH, providing a rich variety of texts to explore. Indeed, the literary diversity in the DH is reflected in its different portrayals of divinity, something even seen in the title of the book, which uses the words “God” and “Gods.” After an introduction [End Page 175] that provides a clear and concise overview of past and present scholarship on the DH and the central arguments of the different authors in the volume, the essays are organized canonically, followed by useful indexes of ancient sources, modern authors, and relevant subjects. The opening essay by Thomas B. Dozeman (“‘El, the Living’: Divinity and Holy War in the Book of Joshua,” pp. 1–29) uses diachronic exegesis to offer a synchronic reading of the final form(s) of Joshua, which he argues combined Deuteronomistic and Priestly themes to create a unique revelation of Israel’s God during the postexilic period. Dozeman shows how the controversial holy war stories in Joshua marked by “the ban” (ḥērem) are the combination of cultic features from Priestly texts and warlike features from Deuteronomistic texts into a unique revelation of “El, the Living” (Josh 3:10), who “demands ritualized genocide as the highest form of religious obedience in taking possession of the promised land” (p. 29). The essay by Corrine Carvalho (“Yhwh, Rahab, and Gibeonites: The Hybrid Other in the Book of Joshua,” pp. 30–48) challenges scholars who excuse the violent actions of Yhwh toward the Canaanites by appealing to the seemingly positive portrayals of Rahab and the Gibeonites. Rather than interpret Yhwh’s mercy toward Rahab and the Gibeonites as a divine characteristic that overcomes the merciless action of the ḥērem, Carvalho argues that it most likely reflects the postexilic author’s belief that faithful obedience by the colonized (e.g., Judahites) can result in positive treatment by the colonizer (e.g., Persians). Thus, she demonstrates how “the narrator cannot manage to tamper with the ideology of obedience to the colonizer” (p. 48). Mahri Leonard-Fleckman’s essay (“Binding Samson to Yhwh: From Disorder to Order in the Samson Cycle,” pp. 49–68) focuses on the compositional history of the Samson stories and argues how it is reflected in the complex social landscape of the Shephelah, where the stories are set. According to Leonard-Fleckman, the Samson stories are marked by blurred lines of identity, reminiscent of a preexilic reality where even the deities are not clearly delineated. However, with the addition of Samson’s death in the temple of Dagon, Deuteronomistic scribes made it clear that the “final act of terror against the Philistines and their god, with the questionable help of Yhwh, leaves the reader with the unmistakable impression that Samson belongs to Israel” (p. 65). Mark Smith (“Retrospective Deities in Judges: Memory and Amnesia about ‘Other Gods,’” pp. 69–103) uses the compositional history of Judges to highlight traces of a polytheistic past. According to the Deuteronomists, the Israelites who follow other Gods and disobey Yhwh are given into the hands of their enemies. Nevertheless, this happens repeatedly and with increasing severity from one tribe and judge to the next, reflecting a form of cultural amnesia by scribes describing cultic contexts and foreign Gods centuries after those represented in the text. The religious reforms of the Deuteronomists in Judah from the seventh century b.c.e. onward are superimposed then on an ancient Israelite past marked by cultic pluriformity and what Smith calls “retrospective deities.” Mark Enemali (“Divine Presence in the Ark of the Covenant in 1 Samuel 4:1b–7:1,” pp. 104...

The Highest God and His Oracular Disclosure

The question of the Most High God is very difficult to address from many points of view. First, because of the disproportionality of ancient sources. Most sources are epigraphic in nature, including simple dedications or those resulting from a covenant, and contain rather little information that can be addressed in detail. The literary sources are four in number and raise serious problems of interpretation. The numismatic ones are completely missing from the context in the case of Hypsistos. Moreover, the way the subject has been treated in modern historiography, especially in relation to pagan sympathisers or God-fearers orbiting around the synagogue environment, makes this sensitive issue even more cautious. Finally, the perception itself of the identity of this Most High god, as well as the typology of the cult, its potential unitary character is another thorny issue. Two of the epigraphs discovered in the Lycian town of Oinoanda, that of Chromatis and the oracular response of Apollo of Claros, are, we believe, a very good starting point for clarifying some of the imagological aspects of this abstract and anonymous god.

Passion as Judgment

Ancient sources present mainly two Stoic definitions of passion: as an irrational and unnatural movement of the soul, and as an excessive impulse. These definitions hold for the Stoics in general, and undoubtedly for Zeno. However, in other sources, passion is seen as a judgment or as what supervenes on judgment. In this case, some sources refer to Zeno, others to Chrysippus, and still others do not refer to any particular Stoic philosopher, so it is unclear whether the idea of judgment was already present in Zeno or is an innovation of his successor. Starting from this problem, I attempt to reconstruct the meaning of Stoic passion, with a particular interest in the definition of passion as judgment. In this way I will try to show that the apparently different positions of Zeno and Chrysippus are in fact the same when viewed within the framework of the Stoic theory of action.

Artemisia of Halicarnassus: Herodotus' Excellent Counsel

Numerous ancient sources attest that Artemisia of Halicarnassus, a fifth-century bce tyrant whose polis came under Persian rule in 524 bce, figures prominently in Xerxes' naval campaign against Greece. At least since Pompeius Trogus' first-century bce Philippic History, interpretations of Artemisia have juxtaposed her "virile courage" (uirilem audaciam) with Xerxes' "womanish fear" (muliebrem timorem) primarily as a means of belittling the effeminate non-Greeks. My paper argues that although Herodotus is aware of such interpretations of Artemisia, he depicts her primarily as an excellent counsel, a woman who is not only brave in battle, but who is a wonder primarily because of her intellectual excellences in deliberative rhetoric and "geo-political" strategy in the Greco-Persian world.

Brad E. Kelle and Brent A. Strawn, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible

Brad E. Kelle and Brent A. Strawn, eds. <i>The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible</i>

COMPREHENSIVE TREATMENT OF DEEP FACIAL BURNS. A CLINICAL CASE

The article summarizes a case from practice, which describes the comprehensive treatment of a patient with a deep contact burn of the face. Throughout the development of humankind, people have been faced with the need to treat severe wounds, with facial injuries being of particular importance. Ancient sources describe that facial injuries were very common in Ancient India and the countries of the Middle East. Patient S. was admitted to the Alma-ata City Emergency Hospital in 2019. She received a thermal injury at home, according to the patient, she lost consciousness while cooking and fell on a burning gas stove burner. Upon admission, the general condition of the patient was severe, due to the injury and the presence of somatic pathology. The postoperative period was uneventful. Thus, in order to obtain satisfactory results in the surgical treatment of deep burns of the face, one operation is not enough, complex treatment is required, which includes physiotherapy and corrective operations, this is the only way to achieve the optimal, i.e. desired result. The need to develop new recommendations and their practical implementation for the treatment of this pathology will improve the quality and optimize the treatment of victims.

Jeffery M. Leonard. Creation Rediscovered: Finding New Meaning in an Ancient Story

Jeffery M. Leonard. <i>Creation Rediscovered: Finding New Meaning in an Ancient Story</i>

The valley of the Una river, the land of the “Illyrian” Iapodes / Dolina rijeke Une, područje ilirskih Japoda

This paper focuses on one of the Illyrian people that played a large role in the study of ancient Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is important to make an overview of ancient sources and their information about the Iapodes as people in order to get a broader picture. In addition, there were many controversies both in historiography and in the information provided by classical authors regarding the territory where the Iapodes lived. It is very difficult to determine the exact border today, so for that reason, the paper presents the opinion of several authors who addressed this issue. One of the most important events, when it comes to the Illyrians, was Bellum Batonianum, commonly known as Bato’s Uprising (AD 6–9), and the paper presents a discussion about whose side the Iapodes were on. It is difficult to draw any major conclusions based on all the texts. Attention was also paid to the administrative arrangements of the Iapodes and their territory after the establishment of Roman rule, which is very important given the differences between the Iapodes and other Illyrian peoples. This paper is an interdisciplinary study combining the ethnological, history of art, architectural and written perspectives.

Mount Ida from the Iliad to Turkish Folk Beliefs: Some Notes on Its Origin and Mythological Continuity

This study aims to find the origin of Kazdağı, which has an important place in both Greek and Anatolian mythology. Mount Ida had a geopolitical and economic importance for the people of Anatolia in ancient times. The significance of the mountain is also reflected to the myths, epics and the legends. Ancient writers give brief descriptions of the mountain and exemplifies the reasons why it is a holy place. A well-known epic, the Iliad emphasizes the richness of Ida in terms of its natural resources. This richness also enlightens the mythological importance of the mountain. Iliad clearly indicates the importance of Ida in Greek mythology. In Anatolia, Ida is known as “Kazdağı” and there have still been some folk beliefs and legends related to it. The most common of these is Sarıkız, which is extremely famous around Balıkesir and Edremit. Sarıkız, known as a local legend in Turkish culture, is unique as it shows its importance among the local inhabitants of “Kazdağı”. Given the fact that the origin of Ida, whose mythological importance was still kept among Turks, was rooted in Anatolia, it is inevitable to examine the journey from the Iliad to Sarıkız. In this context, the ancient and modern sources are investigated and the data gathered are given in the main part of the study. In conclusion, the article aims to contribute to the researches whose purposes are mainly to compare the Greek and Anatolian cultures in terms of important places. We intend to find out whether there is an interaction between the two cultures and if there has been this intercultural connection, how and in what aspects it is going on in terms of the importance of Mount Ida.

Edipo all'alba di Pasolini Note a margine di un'edizione critica

Edipo all’alba is the first “Greek” tragedy by Pasolini: it was composed during the third year of his university education, but never made public until its posthumous collection in his complete works (most likely owing to the homoerotic content). Recent editions have proved to be damaging to the original because of several mistakes in copying and, as a result, to the precise comprehension of this composite play. On the basis of the last textual edition, just realised for the birth centenary, this paper tries to update the literature on Edipo all’alba shedding new light primarily on its ancient sources (Sophocles, Statius), which has been the least studied subject of the play.

S.S.D. (Storia Scuola Didattica) e memoria collettiva. Alcune riflessioni sull’insegnamento storico

Following a Public History approach, the aim is to analyse the questions that historians have to face when dealing with a public, i.e. secondary school classes, which, on the one hand, do not have the necessary prerequisites to understand complex contents such as those developed in the academia and, on the other hand, are not interested in mere historical learning. The article then examines the creation, and partly the development, of a historical narrative that, through the instrument of the didactic workshop, focuses on some of the most widespread stereotypes and prejudices towards Otherness that contribute to classify it in a discriminatory way. The comparison between contemporary media and late antique sources is intended to encourage a discussion on today’s integration problems, especially those narratives that refer to the Other as Barbarian.

Поездка Эдварда-Даньела Кларка и Петера-Симона Палласа в юго-западный Крым в сентябре 1800 г.

This work analyses a very specific source on the Crimean history at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: British traveller Edward Daniel Clarke’s account of his journey to the south-western extremity of the Peninsula to study archaeological sites dating to different historical periods. This episode was described in a chapter of Clarke’s “Travels,” which became extraordinary popular and to a great extent shaped the notion of the Crimea in the public mind of the West. Clarke contributed much to the development of some stereotypes of the Crimea and Russia that continued to these days, particularly accusing the Russian in voluntary and senseless destruction of archaeological monuments. In the said journey, Clarke found a companion and a guide in person of famous natural scientist Peter Simon Pallas. They spent a few days to examine the sites located atop of Mangup mountain, in the Gerakleiskii peninsula, Aia promontory and its environs, as well as the valley around the settlement of Chorgun (now Chernorech’e). Later on, when working on his book of travels, Clarke considerably overworked the materials kept in his travel journal, particularly, supplying an analysis of ancient and mediaeval sources and citing the latter in footnotes. Clarke’s travelogue documented the condition of several archaeological sites, which later suffered of natural and human factors. The document under study uncovers the ways in which the researchers in the period in question analysed what was seen and, therefore, allows the one to reconstruct the first stage of the scientific research of the region. Apart from archaeological aspects, Clarke described some contemporary realities, such as the mining of fuller’s earth, epidemies in the Crimea, Tatar nobility’s dress, Russian recruits, and some specific local plants. The Russian translation of the chapter of Clarke’s travelogue has been published for the first time.

Luisa Prandi

Luisa Prandi (born in 1952) has showed a great interest in Classics and the Ancient World even from her earliest age. Her love for the Ancient Greek world arose during her studies at the University of Milan. As a student of distinguished scholars such as Marta Sordi (1925-2009), Luigi F. Pizzolato (1939-), Giuseppe Billanovich (1913-2000) and Orsolina Montevecchi (1911-2009), she learned from each of them a devotion for the study of the ancient sources that have made, with a great merit, that she becomes one of the best and most recognized scholars on the ancient world. She is, also, a main name in the research of the topic of the Historians of Alexander or Alexandrographers. These authors are fundamental for the knowledge of the Macedonian king: as she uses to argue, we cannot write a single word about Alexander overlooking them”. Writing about Alexander is a such a Herculean task, since there is no other figure of whom there are more historians with extreme contradictions among their accounts. It is almost impossible to say something new about Alexander, but to say about his historians, about whom so few fragments are available, is even more difficult.&#x0D; Prof. Luisa Prandi’s brilliant versatility is quite a strange attribute among academics: she has showed many times her abilities to work directly with all kinds of sources (especially papyri), but always with a sober, serious, and noncontroversial approach. Readers will find in her a person of carefully taste concerning what to say and how to stress her opinions and views. That seriousness is reflected and witnessed when she writes, since she belongs to that wonderful school of researchers who are aware that theories will pass but the facts (sources) are the ones that remain. From that humility and that certainty, Luisa Prandi presents herself to our readers of Karanos.