University of Heidelberg

The project takes issue with the still prevalent view that the encounter between communities of the Greek mainland and of West Asia during Hellenistic times (323-30 BCE) should be modelled as a one-way flow of ideas and practices. In order to achieve a change of perspective on this issue, it is necessary to shift the focus from the one-dimensional model of panhellenism to a multi-directional one, which not only takes into account the impact of the Greco-Macedonian ruling class on local communities, but also the impact of the latter on the transformation of practices and discourses in the cities of the Greek mainland.
Based on the thesis that the social imaginary of a given society creates and, at the same time, is sustained by discourses and practices that are constantly in flux and flow, it will instead be argued that a mutual cultural entanglement took place, which had a bearing just as much on the shaping of identities as on social practices. An exploration of the manifestations of social imaginaries, of the media by which they were constructed, transmitted, displayed, and restrained, requires reliable, representative and diversified sources (inscriptions, literary texts, archaeological remains).
The project will collect and analyze the evidence by taking into consideration time, space, historical context and socio-cultural background, and aims at recognising flows. The approach will be both diachronic – e.g. the history of a particular (ritual, political) practice throughout the Hellenistic period – and synchronic – the study of changing practices in a relatively short period of time.