Hellenisation

The paper examines two interrelated issues: the Thracian language during the Roman Age and the Late Antiquity, and the link between the language and the ethnic identity of the Thracians. The two theories in the literature on the Thracian language are discussed, notably: its preservation until the end of the Antiquity, and its extinction and replacement by Latin or Greek already during the Roman Age. The theory about the preservation of the Thracian language until the end of the Antiquity and the settling of the Slavs on the Balkan Peninsula is supported by research on the available data: evidence provided by Greek and Roman authors, the data from inscriptions and onomastic material – anthroponyms, toponyms, oronyms and hydronyms.
On the second issue the author presents her views on the role of language for the preservation of the Thracian ethnic identity within the same chronological boundaries.

This study aims at making a comparison between the local traditions of the sanctuaries of Adrano, of Efesto in Enna and the Palici and the situations of daily life narrated in the confessional inscriptions and in the prayers for justice. My purpose is to find points of contact and analogies that allow us to reconstruct the presence of common models in the
choice and use of certain forms of religious communication. Secondly, I intend to make some considerations on the way in which the
contact with the Greeks and their culture has made sure that new forms and media of religious communication were introduced within
the local cults. The new media of religious communication made possible that the local religious elements were not obliterated, but thanks to a process of redefinition, which finds interesting parallels also in other regions of the Greek and Roman world, these continued to exist in a new (Greek) habit.

Dissertation challenging the traditional discourses of Hellenisation. Looking at the material culture of Hellenistic Bactria from a postmodernist viewpoint and assessing the cultural exchange and hybridisation between the Greek colonists of Alexander and the local Bactrian populations.

Scholarly discourses in ancient history, she observes, shape our perceptions and all too frequently conform to Hellenocentric and primordialist narratives that promote the notion that Greek culture and art were inherently and exceptionally superior, and therefore that assimilation and acculturation by other Mediterranean societies were inevitabilities of this Hellenic triumph. The term for this process, 'Hellenization', and the assumptions that lie behind it, argues Martin, reflect the essentialism and chauvinism at the heart of scholarship in classical history. Furthermore, to even speak of distinct, self-identifying and defined 'Greek' and 'Phoenician' cultures in antiquity is, in itself, problematic, and a more holistic, nuanced and theoretically informed approach must be adopted. Towards this end, Martin reconsiders select examples of visual culture, from a variety of contexts, attributed to Greeks and Phoenicians over several centuries in the first millennium B.C. In her Introduction, Martin sets out the four principles that guide her study. The first is that 'barbarians matter'. That is, that groups and peoples like the Phoenicians matter in their own right, and that scholars of ancient history should duly take them as seriously as they do the Greeks and their Hellenic culture. Furthermore, we must exercise more caution in applying convenient etic terminologies indiscriminately to peoples and cultures that defy clear delineation. Her second principle holds that it is incumbent on us as scholars to apply theory in appropriate and responsible manner, acknowledging the reluctance of classical scholarship to unabashedly embrace theory as potentially useful, tiptoeing around it with terminology such as 'approaches' and 'perspectives'. Her third and fourth principles concern the question of identity and its expressions in art: that cultural contact is a significant factor in how identity is expressed artistically, and that it is the visual arts that offer us the most fruitful ground for addressing the question of Phoenician collective identity as an emic reality. The five subsequent chapters, informed by and aligned with these principles, build the case for an appreciation of how contact between cultures has an impact on the visual arts in ways that are best understood when approached via appropriate theories of cultural interaction. Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical landscape as it has developed to date, with regard to art history–both Greek and Phoenician–and ideas of culture, contact and interaction. The primary models employed in this discourse are Orientalizing and Hellenization. It is the latter with which Martin's book is most concerned, and, as mentioned above, it is found to be a problematic concept.

Međunarodni multidisciplinarni naučni simpozijum po pozivu ANTIČKA BUDVA, JU Muzeji i galerije Budve u okviru obilježavanja jubileja osamdeset godina od otkrića antičkih nekropola (1938-2018) i petnaest godina postojanja i rada Muzeja grada Budve, 28 - 30. novembar 2018. Budva, Crna Gora. (International Multidisciplinary Scientific Symposium ‘’Antique Budva‘’, 28 - 30. november 2018. Budva, Montenegro).