Regrowing Egyptian cults: The potential of using modern computational methods in the study of ancient religions
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Historical sources provide us only a fragmentary testimony of historical processes. The survival of specific sources and the information they contain is very often determined by chance. Because of these circumstances, the reconstruction of many historical processes remains problematic or, in some cases, almost impossible. In addition to these problems, some long-term historical processes are, due to their gradual nature, very difficult to recognize from the perspective of “event history”. The interdisciplinary project GEHIR (Generative Historiography of Religion, http://gehir.phil.muni.cz) at Masaryk university strives to, within the framework of the historically oriented study of religions, adopt innovative methods used in the study of the dynamics of complex systems, i.e. methods including mathematical and geographical modelling, agent-based simulations or network analysis. Within the study of historical processes these formalized methods are conceptualised as an innovative third way through which the limitations of the traditional inductive analysis of historical sources and deductive application of social-scientific and cognitive theories to social and historical phenomena can be overcome. In this paper we would like to introduce the results from a case study within the GEHIR which focused on uncovering the possible factors influencing the early spread of the cult of Isis and Sarapis in the ancient Mediterranean. |
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