Generative Historiography of Ancient Religions : How to Model the Spread of Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean
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Year of publication | 2018 |
Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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Description | The paper presents results of the research conducted within the framework of the GEHIR project (Generative Historiography of Religion), investigated in the years 2015-2017 at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, by an interdisciplinary team including scholars of religion, computer scientists, geographers, and mathematicians. This project applied innovative methods previously used in the study of the dynamics of complex systems (e.g. mathematical and computational modelling, network science) to reach a better understanding of the history of four religious traditions active in the ancient Mediterranean: Egyptian cults, Mithraism, Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity. Presented case studies focus on 1) the identification of factors influencing the spread of Egyptian cults in the Aegean sea and their relative importance (political and economic factors); 2) the role of environmental factors and the parameters of the transportation network in the spread of Early Christianity; 3) the importance of Jewish subnetwork for the successful spread of Early Christianity in the first two centuries CE. |
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