The World of Berossos
International Conference Durham 7th-9th July 2010
Supported by the British Academy, the Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East (CAMNE), and Durham University
Berossos was a priest, astronomer and historian from Babylon. A contemporary of Alexander and the first Seleucid kings, he wrote a history of the world in Greek and for a Greek audience, but from a Babylonian perspective. The work was quoted in Antiquity by such diverse thinkers as Posidonius, Josephus, Pliny and Eusebius. In the Middle Ages, Berossos continued to be read in fragments and paraphrases. When the fragments were reassembled in the Renaissance, Berossos found himself at the heart of an acrimonious debate about authenticity, scholarship and the shape of divine and human history. This conference, the first ever to focus on Berossos, asks two interconnected questions: First, how did Berossos position himself on the cusp of Greek and Babylonian culture? Secondly, how did his readers through the ages locate him within a wider landscape of Greek and non-Greek traditions of learning? The conference is based on the assumption that these questions cannot be tackled in isolation; and that a broadly interdisciplinary approach is needed to make progress.
In keeping with the aims of the conference, speakers will investigate all major aspects of Berossos' work, including his cultural context in early Hellenistic Babylon; his connections with the Aegean (esp. the island of Cos where he is said to have settled after leaving Babylon); his views on astronomy and history; his self-portrayal as an author and 'Chaldaean' sage; his creation of a canon of Babylonian literature, and its relationship to existing canons; the relative importance of Greek, Mesopotamian, Iranian and Egyptian (Manetho) literature and religion in Brossos' account of history; his use of material remains to anchor his narrative in a shared cultural landscape; his reception in Antiquity, from the Oxyrhynchus glossary to Eusebius; his reception in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, including the highly influential and much-discussed forgeries of Annius of Viterbo.
Programme:
7th July
9am-11am REGISTRATION
10.30am COFFEE
11am Welcome by Tom McLeish, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Reserach at Durham University
11.10am Welcome and Introduction by Johannes Haubold
1. Berossos and the Babyloniaca (Chair: Kathryn Stevens, Cambridge)
11.45am Geert de Breucker (Groningen): The Life of Berossos
1pm LUNCH
2.15pm Johannes Haubold (Durham): Book 1: Introduction and cosmogony
3pm Martin Lang (Innsbruck): Book 2: Early history and the flood
3.45pm TEA
4.15pm Giovanni Lanfranchi (Padova): Book 3: Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians
6pm DINNER
8th July
3. Context and background I (Chair: Willis Monroe, Brown)
9am Tom Boiy (Leuven): Babylon under the Seleucids
9.45am Paul Kosmin (Harvard): Berossos and Seleucid royal ideology
10.30am COFFEE
11am John Steele (Brown): Greek and Babylonian astronomy
11.45am Bruno Jacobs (Basel): Berossos and Persian religion
1pm LUNCH
4. Context and background II (Chair: Donald Murray, Durham)
2.15pm Stephanie Dalley (Oxford): Mesopotamian narrative literature
3pm Christopher Tuplin (Liverpool): The Greek historiographical tradition
3.45pm TEA
4.15pm Ian Moyer (Michigan): Berossos and Manetho
5pm Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck): Berossos and the monuments
7pm CONFERENCE DINNER
9th July
5. Reception (Chair: Barbara Graziosi, Durham)
9am Francesca Schironi (Harvard): The early reception of Berossos
9.45am Irene Madreiter (Innsbruck): From Berossos to Eusebius
10.30am Coffee
11am Walter Stephens (Johns Hopkins): Annius of Viterbo and Berosus Chaldaeus
11.45am Kai Ruffing (Marburg): Berossos in modern scholarship
1pm LUNCH
6. Conclusion (Chair: Johannes Haubold)
2.15pm Amelie Kuhrt (London): Concluding remarks
2.45pm Plenary discussion
3.45pm TEA
For further information, please contact Mrs. V. Arbia at v.m.arbia@durham.ac.uk. The conference booking form can be uploaded on the link below:
- ConferenceRegistrationFormWorldofBerossos3.pdf (last modified: 10 March 2010)
