Category: 2021

Good news! Since December of 2021 we are working together with the team from the Ancient History section of the Historisches Seminar at the University of Zürich. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Andreas Victor Walser, and with Dr Ursula Kunnert, this team is tracking the inscriptions of Pergamon in the context of their project ‘Inschriften von Pergamon’. Their project aims to re-examine the inscriptions of Pergamon published by Max Fränkel in 1890 and 1895 (Alterümer von Pergamon VIII. 1-2), but also those from the Asklepieion that were published by Christian Habicht in 1969 (Alterümer von Pergamon VIII. 3). The project also compiles ‘new’ inscriptions that have only provisionally been published, or not yet at all. This exciting project will result in a new publication within the series Alterümer von Pergamon that promises to deliver many new insights that will surely lead us to rethink some of our interpretations of the Asklepieion as well as Pergamon in general.

Part of the project included a careful inventory of the current location of the inscriptions, and both Prof. Walser and Dr Kunnert have kindly and generously shared the results of many long hours in the sun and careful location and identification of the inscriptions, across the landscape of ancient Pergamon and modern Bergama.

We are grateful to be able to include this level of detail in our deep map of the Asklepieion. This new modern layer of location has sparked some discussion on the mobility of monuments, both in ancient times, as some of extant inscriptions seem to have been moved to the North stoa of the imperial shrine, which seems to have functioned as a Hall of Fame, as well as in modern times, as some inscriptions are placed more or less near their original locations, others are kept farther away – some on site, some in the museum. We found ourselves asking who (across the ages) decides which inscriptions are seen, which are stored away?

These are important questions in considering the narrative function of a deep map!

Read more about the Zürich project here:
https://www.hist.uzh.ch/de/fachbereiche/altegeschichte/lehrstuehle/walser/forschung/pergamon.html

The presentations of our approach have led to updated versions of our story map, in which we discuss our approach towards deep-mapping, and how we apply that to the sanctuary of Asklepios in Pergamon.

On 29 November 2021, we were invited by Dr Matthias Grawehr to present the project at the Klassische Archäologie / Alte Geschichte / Karpeia of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. This gave Alexandra the opportunity to go into more detail on the data that we are incorporating as shapefiles in GIS. She created a separate story map Deep-mapping Different Data Sources that addresses her approach and types of data.

The Archaeology and Ancient History department of the University of Uppsala has also been very supportive, and during a short fellowship in the spring we were able to present the project at the Wednesday Seminar via the story map Deep-mapping the Asklepieion of Pergamon.

So the story map has been evolving since we first used it over a year ago, in 2021, until its present state. We see it as an ideal medium for online audiences, and will continue to update it. Story maps are just that, they tell stories through maps, but also through a mixture of media, with the text oftentimes in the supportive role, rather than the other way around.

But fortunately talks and lectures are increasingly in person these days, and for that we feel it more effective to focus on the images and functionality, rather than longish narratives that not everyone can read – at the end we send the audience to the story map through a link that they can access in their own time.