STUDIES ON THE GLOBAL AND LOCAL IN THE NORTHERN AEGEAN: INTERCONNECTIONS, HYBRIDIZATION, MATERIALITIES AND TRANSFORMATION IN A RELIGIOUS CONTEXT (8th - 5th centuries BC)

• Grant number: 24/15679-3
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Young Investigators Grants
• Start date: December 01, 2025
• End date: November 30, 2030
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Archeology - Historical Archaeology
• Principal Investigator: Juliana Figueira da Hora
• Grantee: Juliana Figueira da Hora
• Host Institution: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Amalia Avramidou ; Claudio Walter Gomez Duarte ; Erica Morais Angliker ; Fábio Augusto Morales Soares ; Gilberto da Silva Francisco ; Hans Beck ; Julietta Alexandra Steinhauer-Hogg ; Leonardo Fuduli ; Maria Beatriz Borba Florenzano ; Maria Cristina Nicolau Kormikiari ; Maria Isabel D'Agostino Fleming ; Petya Velichkova Ilieva ; Tamar Hodos ; Vagner Carvalheiro Porto ; Viviana Lo Monaco

Abstract

The region of Thrace, in the Aegean, is an example of the dynamics of contacts between Greeks and local populations, especially between the archaic and classical periods. The region was chosen for this project because of the need to understand the social, cultural and religious dynamics of the sanctuaries located in the peraíai of Tasos and Samothrace in the northern Aegean through material documentation, epigraphy and textual sources. The main objectives of the project are to map, compare and analyze the materiality present in the sanctuaries of hybrid deities corresponding to the centuries (VIII - V BC). We will work on the concepts of localism and glocalism, which allow us to observe the local dynamism, immersed in preserved customs, but at the same time open to external elements, provided by the processes of connectivity and networks in the Mediterranean. By bringing a documentation based on a multicultural Mediterranean, which tells the story of the Aegean shores, and which for years was studied based on a historiographical construction that promoted the exclusion of the Thracians as protagonists of their actions in the contexts of contact with the Greeks, we seek to understand the social dynamics of these local peoples within the scope of Ancient Mediterranean studies. In the same way, we also intend to contribute a new perspective, from a theoretical-methodological perspective that goes beyond the colonialism present in the exegesis of the documents, in order to give visibility to other peoples involved in the complex process present in the "nodes" on a micro and macro-regional scale in the Mediterranean. Our proposal is to create a new research of line at the Laboratory for Studies on the Ancient City (LABECA), where I have been a collaborating researcher since 2006, in order to continue the successful thematic projects funded by FAPESP. (AU)