How to write a history of becoming in Antiquity?

This is the fundamental question that Miguel John Versluys, Professor of Classical & Mediterranean Archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands, has since over a decade taken as a basis to thought-provokingly scrutinise the notion of 'cultural containers' which has for long dominated academic outlooks on intercultural encounters not only in Classics.

In this episode, Timo and Felix join Miguel John Versluys on an intellectual journey that ultimately concerns everything, but more specifically takes them from the heart of the Roman Empire, the city of Rome and the region of Latium themselves, via its fringes, like Commagene and Nemrut Dağı in modern-day Turkey, to the whole wide world beyond. Following in the footsteps of Miguel John Versluys' own intellectual biography, we explore the importance of 'Egypt' for Roman material culture and the 'in-betweenness' of the late Hellenistic Kingdom of Commagene to then discuss the academic prospects of material culture studies and the concept of interconnectivity, which form the two cornerstones of Miguel John Versluys' own research.

What emerges is the picture of a circum-Mediterranean world in Antiquity that became increasingly tied to other societies in Afro-Eurasia from 500 BCE onwards, not unlike our own contemporaneous globalised world, and which witnessed an explosion of the sheer number of 'things' people used. Speaking of 'global dynamics' in Antiquity thus concerns a very integral part of human history and human society. But how does one integrate these ideas into archaeological practice, and what is meant by 'deep history'?

Tune in on this episode to find answers to these questions and many more!