Skip to main content

IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 2103: Changing Winds and Great Storms: The Dynamics of Speech Communities and Forms of Their Linguistic Self-Expression in the Eastern Mediterranean, 324-1204, III - Code Switching in Early Byzantine Syria, Sources and Instruments

Friday 9 July 2021, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:National Science Centre, Poland, Warszawa / Uniwersytet Warszawski / Jacksonville State University, Florida
Organisers:Mirela Ivanova, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Paweł Nowakowski, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Arkady Avdokhin, Institute for Antiquity & Near East Studies, Russian State University of Humanities
Paper 2103-aWriting Conventions and Epigraphic Findings from Two Syrian Synagogues: Rediscussing the Evidence from Dura Europos and Apamea
(Language: English)
Eleonora Cussini, Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Epigraphy, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Language and Literature - Comparative
Paper 2103-bOf Presbyters and Stonemasons, or, Switching Codes in a Syrian Village
(Language: English)
Paweł Nowakowski, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Byzantine Studies, Epigraphy, Language and Literature - Comparative
Paper 2103-cEpigraphy and Identity in the Early Byzantine Middle East: A Year's Work
(Language: English)
Tomasz Barański, Institute of Mediterranean & Oriental Cultures Polish Academy of Sciences Warszawa
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Computing in Medieval Studies, Epigraphy, Language and Literature - Comparative
Abstract

The session offers new perspectives on the study of multilingualism in early Byzantine Syria. The papers explore epigraphic findings from two synagogues in Dura Europos and Apamea, analyze their writing conventions, and draw broader conclusions about the network of Jewish communities in Syria; investigate how the choice of language works in a village society in eastern Syria, across people of different status and occupation; present a new database of the epigraphic evidence for the study of multilingualism in the late antique Syria, Palestine, and Arabia, the major product of a project run by scholars from the University of Warsaw.