Welcome to the Excellence Cluster Topoi!

 

Topoi is a research network with a focus on the study of the ancient world. The cluster is part of the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governements. In Topoi, more than 200 researchers from diverse disciplines investigate how space and knowledge were formed and transformed in ancient civilizations. The following Topoi Topics present exemplary research projects in short form. Detailed descriptions of all projects can be found under the navigation point Research, publications are listed under Knowledge Transfer. If you want to learn more about the researchers who make Topoi what it is, you will find further information at the People section of this site.

 

TOPOI-TOPICS

 
 

Zukunftsportal: Antike

Antje Engelmann and the participants of the student project “Zukunftsportal: Antike” have turned some impressions of the workshop and the conference into a film that is now finished.
 

Living in a museum - Space for identity?

Within the research group Space & Collective Identities (E-CSG-V) Monica Hanna and Gemma E. Tully explore the relationships between communities and archaeology in Egypt. Both collaborate in a cross-disciplinary project - together with Topoi.
 

The Present uncovers the Past: RTI - Reflectance Transformation Imaging

A milestone to reveal the hidden details of archaeological evidence was the invention of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) by Tom Malzbender at Hewlett Packard Labs. In Topoi Kathryn Piquette uses RTI micro-scale analyses to examine the development of early writing.
 

Excellent co-operation: DRS Fellowship COFUND

Two international fellows have taken up their scientific work at Topoi co-funded by the Marie Curie COFUND program of the European Commission and the the Dahlem Research School (DRS). The goal of the fellowship program, established in 2011, is the promotion and career advancement of young international researchers.
 

The Partition of the Soul

Where is the soul located? Plato and Aristotle considered the soul to be the ability possessed by beings that enables them to do the things they usually do.
 

Archaeotopia: the archaeological site as focus, expression and motor of collective identities

The project "Archaeotopia" of CSG-V investigates the production, appropriation and consumption of archaeological heritage spaces and their role in the formation of collective identities.
 

Topoi-Publication. Babylon

Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident.

Babylon. Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident

Babylon. Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident.
Cancik-Kirschbaum, Eva / Ess, Margarete / Marzahn, Joachim (eds.)

Berlin: de Gruyter. 2011
Series: Topoi / Berlin Studies of the Ancient World 1

In this collection of interdisciplinary papers, for the first time well-known scholars of Ancient Near Eastern Studies discuss Babylon from the point of view of the “culture of knowledge”. The volume is the result of a conference that took place on the occasion of the exhibition Babylon – Truth and Myth in Berlin. For the contemporary cultures of the Ancient World, Babylon was the epitome of learned scholarship. Yet in the processes of transformation of Late and post-Antiquity, to the same extent to which this culture of knowledge was forgotten after the collapse of the old oriental empires, Babylon became symbolic for the occult, for magic and esoteric knowledge. As the first joint pilot project by Topoi and the publisher De Gruyter for the simultaneous publication in print and open access, this volume is also available as an eBook “open access”.

-> This volume is available as ebook (open access)

more Topoi publications