Empires shape human societies, with legacies that last longer than the regimes themselves. Social group identities and lifeways in the ancient and modern worlds alike are inseparable from their imperially-shaped context. The ancient Near East, as the home of the world’s earliest empires and scripts, offers a unique dataset for understanding these dynamics. To date, these empires have been treated in relative isolation. Instead, the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE) asks: How do changing imperial dynamics impact social group identities and lifeways over a long period of time? ANEE marshals a cross-disciplinary arsenal of methods and scholars, working through the periods of Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic, and early Roman/Parthian control, overcoming the very real challenge of dialogue between ancient historians, archaeologists and social scientists.

This Zenodo community page collects datasets, presentations, source-codes, and publications by the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires at the University of Helsinki. The centre is funded by the Academy of Finland.

Awards

Research Council of Finland