Thursday, October 21, 2021

Practicalities of Hellenistic Ruler Cults

Travocial - Social Travel & Storytelling

The PHRC digital library

Uncovering the ritual and social aspects of cultic honours for human beings

Until now, the study of cultic honours for Hellenistic political leaders and benefactors has mainly focused on the ideological and diplomatic features of the phenomenon. The project "Practicalities of Hellenistic Ruler Cults" (PHRC) shifts the focus on its practical aspects: the materiality of media, ritual action and space, actors, administration, and the funding of cults. In doing so, PHRC aims to set the debate on ritual honours for human beings in the broader context of Greek religious and social history in the post-classical period.

The PHRC digital library

The sources of PHRC comprise Greek epigraphic texts from the Eastern Mediterranean, between the ages of Alexander and Augustus. At this first stage of the project, the discussed documents were exclusively related to three main geographical areas: the Aegean islands, Western Asia Minor, and Cyprus. Also thanks to new collaborators, recent releases have started including items from mainlang Greece, Egypt, and the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
 
This website is the dissemination portal of PHRC. It provides access to a growing digital library of Greek inscriptions which have been geo-referenced, xml-encoded and semantically annotated in order to allow researchers and students to browse the material through a wide range of queries in compliance with their interests. Each inscription is showcased with an introduction providing archaeological and philological information, an English commentary, and multilingual translations. When useful, a selective critical apparatus focuses on the debated sections of the text concerning the topic of cultic honours for human beings.
 
The specific purposes of this project justify the choice of a selective commentary. The PHRC commentaries are not meant to entirely replace other paper or digital commented editions of the relevant inscriptions, but to provide a specific insight in the treatment of cultic honours. In compliance with a logic of linked open data for research, the PHRC website is provided with a series of authority lists by which users not only can browse the content of the PHRC digital library through a varied set of queries, but also have access via external links to the complementary information provided by other relevant Digital Classics portals.

The Current version: PHRC 1.0 (released June 2021)

 

 


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