An international conference on making lists in the ancient world

The Research Center of Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Cultures is organizing an international conference "ICAEM 2022: Making Lists in the Ancient World: Memory, Status, Identity" in Tartu from 3 to 5 June.

The conference will take place in the Senate Hall of the University of Tartu main building and online via Zoom. All presentations are in English. Participation in the conference is free, but registration is required to participate in Zoom. More details, the program and the registration form can be found on the conference website.

The main topic of the conference is catalogues, inventories and lists in the ancient world, both in documentary sources and in literary texts. Gathering, systematizing and presenting information usually involves its sequential ordering, and making either lists or catalogues has been a conventional tool for information processing since the emergence of early civilisations. In various ancient cultures, we see numerous lists, for example, of gods, kings, heroes, soldiers, slaves, artisans, authors, animals, plants, books, inventory, taxes, chronology, towns, and countries. The form of a catalogue with its appearance of completeness and exhaustivity is connected to various socio-political, economic and cultural issues. In addition to acting as inventories, catalogues and lists can express ideological, moral or aesthetic values, and function as methods of control. The conference will focus on these issues in the context of Ancient Greece and Rome, the Ancient Near East and Biblical studies either at a general level or through specific case studies.

The keynote speakers at the conference are Mark Geller, a professor at University College London, Richard Hunter, a professor at the University of Cambridge, and Guy Darshan, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University.

The Research Center of Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Cultures (CAEMC) is an international research center within the Institute of History and Archeology of the University of Tartu. The center researches and teaches the history, culture and religions of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean civilizations. The center aims is to study the symbiosis of ancient cultures in the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean, focusing mainly on comparative research, cultural contacts, interactions and technology transfer.