Organisers: Dr. Caroline Petit (Warwick/HU) and Prof. Dr. Philip van der Eijk (HU)

Research on ancient pharmacological texts has increased dramatically in recent years. Several important projects and doctoral theses are underway, promising to deliver ground-breaking results in the next decade. In this scholarly context, various projects at the Humboldt-Universität and the university of Warwick seem to address converging questions on the changing nature of pharmacological texts across time and space. Authorship becomes more fluid, with the same text receiving various attributions; texts undergo changes of size, ordering, format, as they get adapted for new audiences. As texts become repackaged, manuscripts and papyri offer privileged evidence of those changes. Early translations of Greek works into Latin, Syriac and then Arabic result in epitomes and other reworked, shortened texts. Yet the transmission of ancient Greek pharmacology is often made difficult to apprehend due to missing links and medieval, fragmentary evidence. This workshop therefore proposes to offer complementary perspectives on those shifts, through communications on Greek, Latin and Arabic evidence. Themes that will be addressed include language, style, authorship, dating, transmission, manuscripts.

This workshop is supported by the Collaborative Research Center ‘Episteme in Motion’ (SFB 980), the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, the Humboldt-Universität Berlin, the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Warwick. It is hosted by the project ‘Galen of Pergamum: The Transmission, Interpretation and Completion of Ancient Medicine’ of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.

In a new blog post for May on Material Musings, Kieren Johns discusses the marble statue compositions depicting tropaea (trophies) which can be seen today on the Capitoline in Rome, in an article titled "Spoliated spolia: the tropaea Marii on the Capitoline Hill". You can read the article here.

Campbell Orchard discusses "Antony's Legionary Denarii" in this new blog article. Read it here.

In February's Material Musings blog post, Matthew Evans discusses the sixth century BCE inscribed rock of Bybon from Olympia, in an article titled "A rather bould(er) claim: inscribed rocks and weightlifting in the ancient world". Read it here.

Click here to view the fascinating array of papers to be presented at the online conference (28-29th April 2022) on The Sense(s) of Athletics in the Ancient Mediterranean World.