Calendars in Antiquity and the Middle Ages - 03-04-05/07/2017, London (England)

This conference marks the culmination of a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council at the UCL Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, on ‘Calendars in later Antiquity and the Middle Ages: standardization and fixation’. This project examines the history and evolution of calendars in late antique and medieval societies, with a special focus on Roman, Christian, Jewish, and Islamic calendars. The evolution of these calendars was closely related to politics, science, and religion, and contributed more widely to the standardization of culture in the ancient and medieval worlds. The conference presents the outcome of this research, together with contributions from international collaborators in the field.

FECHA/DATE/DATA: 03-04-05/07/2017

LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: G29 J Z Young Lecture Theatre, Anatomy Building, University College London (London, England)

ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: The ERC Advanced Grant Project 'Calendars in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Standardization and Fixation'

INFO: web

INSCRIPCIÓN/REGISTRATION/REGISTRAZIONE: Gratis /free /gratuito Aquí/here/qui

PROGRAMA/PROGRAM/PROGRAMMA:

Monday 3 July: opening lecture

19:00: Sacha Stern, UCL: 'How calendars become standardized and fixed'

Tuesday 4 July: Antiquity and early Middle Ages

9:30: registration and coffee

10:00: John Steele, Brown University: 'A new look at early Babylonian intercalation procedures'

10:45: Helen Jacobus, UCL: 'The 19-year cycle in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q209) and 1-2 Maccabees'

11:30: coffee

11:45: Robert Hannah, University of Waikato: 'Cult and calendar in Archaic Cyprus'

12:30: Jonathan Ben-Dov, University of Haifa: 'A complete year: the 365-day year in early rabbinic sources'

13:15: lunch

14:15: Jörg Rüpke, Erfurt University: 'The urban and the universal: locating the Roman calendar in the fabric of the Empire'

15:00: Ilaria Bultrighini, UCL: 'The late Roman Hemerologia: a re-examination in the light of recent discoveries and research'

15:45: tea

16:00: Yusuf Gürsey, Polytechnic Institute Istanbul: 'The Arabian calendar before Islam'

16:45: Immo Warntjes, Trinity College Dublin: 'The origins of the calendar tradition in the early medieval Latin West'

17:30: end

Wednesday 5 July: later Middle Ages

9:30: registration and coffee

10:00: François de Blois, UCL: 'A new look at al-Biruni’s Chronology of the Ancient Nations'

10:45: Johannes Thomann, University of Zurich: 'The institution of the Jalali calendar in 1079 C.E. and its cohabitation with the old Persian calendar'

11:30: coffee

11:45: Charles Burnett, The Warburg Institute: 'New manuscripts and texts of the Calendar of Cordoba'

12:30: Nadia Vidro, UCL: 'Reiterative calendars in medieval and early modern Jewish manuscripts'

13:15: lunch

14:15: Israel Sandman, UCL: 'Medieval scientific interpretations of ancient Rabbinic calendrical traditions'

15:00: Ilana Wartenberg, UCL: 'Mathematics in the service of the Jewish calendar as manifest in Isaac Israeli’s Yesod Olam'

15:45: tea

16:00: Philipp Nothaft, University of Oxford: 'Scandalous error: calendar reform and calendrical astronomy in medieval Europe'

16:45: Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University: 'Jewish calendar books and the end of time'