IpD35/2026 “Herodotus and the Ancient Near East: worlds in contact at the “origins” of history”, financed under the project ERC PALaC (GA 757299) of the Horizon 2020 program

Scientific-Disciplinary Group

10/STAA-01 - Ancient And Modern Cultures And Languages Of Africa And Western And Central Asia

Description

The presence of connections with and references to the East in Herodotus’s work is well known: Egypt, Anatolia and Mesopotamia play a clear and explicit role in the narrative of the first books of the Histories. However, the difficulty in identifying the sources on which the historian drew makes it very hard to understand how this narrative was constructed. Rather than tackling the problem with the traditional tools of classical philology, the project aims to search Herodotus’ text for traces of narrative elements, linguistic formulas and literary traditions of Ancient Near Eastern origin, by comparing it with the essentially historical-political sources of the pre-classical Near East, such as the Assyrian annals and Syro-Mesopotamian inscriptions. The aim of the one-year research programme will be the publication of at least two academic articles dedicated to the discussion of this complex issue.

Compensation

28,456 Euro

Job posting website

https://www.univr.it/it/concorsi/contratti-e-assegni-di-ricerca/incarichi-post-doc/0/16286

Number of positions

1

Maximum duration

12.0

Funding body

Università degli Studi di Verona

How to apply

Other

Selection process