Mechanisms of cross-cultural interaction: Networks in the Roman Near East

Networks in the Roman Near East was a four year research project funded under the Norwegian Research Council SAMKUL initiative. It aimed at studying the informal, everyday ties of trade, religion and power, that connected people and local communities within and across fluctuating imperial borders in the Near East in the Roman period (1st century BCE - 7th century CE). Applying modern methodology for mapping, visualising and quantifying social networks, the project investigated the development of such networks over time, the hypothesis being that informal networks were resilient to stress on imperial level, such as war, civil war, economic crisis and natural disaster. The problems addressed by the project also have a wider significance with regard to how societies with weak state organizations adapt and develop, and how methodology can be developed in order to make comparative history of the premodern period testable. In the first project period, activities focused on hiring a PhD candidate, launching a project blog and starting research on networks of power. The project was presented in several international venues, including Sunbelt, the annual conference of the International network for social network analysis, and dissemination activities directed at targeted audiences as well as the general public were undertaken. Two guest lectures were organised in Bergen. The first meeting of the project was held in late September, gathering 12 international specialists for a three-day workshop at Voss. In the fourth quarter of 2013, Håkon Steinar Fiane Teigen joined the project as a PhD candidate. His dissertation is a case study on the local, regional and interregional networks of a religious minority group, the Manichaeans, in Kellis in Egypt in late antiquity. His project addresses the overall aims of the NeRoNE project, by highlighting the dynamics between different levels of society, different regions, and minority and majority groups. In the second project period (October 2013 to September 2014), research was concentrated on applying network analysis methodology to the ancient source material. Case studies have been successfully developed, addressing networks of power, networks of trade, and networks of faith. These will be expanded and developed for publication later in the project. Project members have taken part in a number of international conferences, presenting their work. In the third project period (October 2014 to September 2015), case studies were further developed, and the emphasis moved from gathering and analysing data to interpretation. Project members took part in the project Local Dynamics of Globalisation in the Premodern Levant at the Centre for Advanced Study, Norwegian Academy of Sciences. We also continued to disseminate our research at international venues and to user groups and the interested public in Norway. The ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq Near lead to increased interest from media, and the project leader has commented on the situation in a range of outlets. At the start of the fourth project period (October 2015 to September 2016) we gathered 20 scholars from Europe and North America to a conference at the Norwegian Institute in Athens. The aim was to demonstrate how a plurality of relational approaches might shed new light on societal development in the Roman Near East compared to scholarship based on traditional approaches. After the conference work has primarily been geared towards finishing and publishing our results, but we have continued to present work in national and international venues. From February 2016 Birgit van der Lans joined our group as a guest researcher on a Dutch Niels Stensen scholarship. The project was scheduled to end in December 2016, but was extended with a dissemination project called Journeys to Tadmor: History and heritage in Palmyra and the Middle East. This resulted in an exhibition displayed at Bergen City Museum over the summer 2017, which attracted almost 18000 visitors. The NeRoNE project has been committed to engage with interested partners within research, education, and the interested public. This has been achieved by targeted lectures for educators as a part of the University of Bergen further-education program, and by lecturing and tutoring high-school students as a part of the Holberg Prize School Competition, which allows students to train and compete as researchers within humanities and social sciences, as well as by public lectures and popular science publications. Dissemination to the wider scholarly world and to the interested public was attended to by one academic research blog in English (www.neroneproject.blogspot.no) and one popular science blog in Norwegian (www.globalhistorie.blogspot.no). Many scholarly publications are already out, most of them published Open Access in order to facilitate accessibility.

Social networks are vital to understanding human interaction, especially across cultural and political borders. The NeRoNE project will study the development and operation of selected networks of commercial, political (including military and administrativ e) and religious interaction in the Near East in the Roman Period (circa 50 BCE to 650 CE) by way of theoretical approaches from the fields known as Social Network Analysis and New Institutional Economics. The empirical setting is particularly well suited to this kind of theoretical analysis, because of a relative political and cultural continuity over a long period of time, combined with well published data and a strong historiographical tradition. The analysis is aimed at producing basis for comparative and long-term perspectives on networks of cross-cultural interaction, thus going to the heart of the SAMKUL programmes' call for research, which addresses the cultural foundation for contemporary societal development. This is not because we learn from hi story, but because our understanding of history defines our perception of the present, and understanding a complex past allows us to better interpret a complex contemporary world. NeRoNE is planned as a 42-months (2013-2016), medium-sized research project with a full time project leader, one PhD student (36 months), national and international cooperation by way of annual workshops, conference panels and a closing conference, and communication with the scientific community, selected user-groups and the pub lic by way of targeted dissemination measures, a blog and social media.