For the past five years (2012-2017), the Max Weber Center of Erfurt University has hosted a project on 'Lived Ancient Religion: Questioning "cults" and "polis religion"', financed by the European Research Council and embedded in the research group on 'Religious individualisation in historical perspective' (see Fuchs and Rüpke. [2015. "Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective."
In arid and semi-arid regions runoff-fed agriculture has been common for millennia. Recent geographical and archaeological investigations in the north-eastern part of ancient Marmarica (north-western Egypt) revealed a dense network of water harvesting systems associated with settlements and production sites dating back to Ptolemaic times. The environmental conditions and the ancient water management strategies are characterised by minimal intervention but maximised effect and optimised utilisation of the scarce water (100–150 mm seasonal discharge) and soil resources of the region.
Mobility, from a historical perspective, comprises a broad variety of movements of people. This paper focuses on the mobility of multisited groups, based on the preconditions that an arid environment imposes on mobility. The Eastern Marmarica-Plateau in NW-Egypt in Graeco-Roman times (5th century BCE to 4th century CE) serves as case study of the various ways in which people in such landscapes were mobile, and what we can infer from the aspect of mobility about their social practices. In order to elucidate these issues, the discussion centres on archaeological-historical methodology and theoretical implications of mobility and the wayfaring of inhabitants of arid lands. Moreover, the question is pursued of how routes emerged and how habitual knowledge was cemented in order to establish the trails used by generations to follow. The paper shows the interconnection and similarities between the mobility of multisited communities and the seemingly so different mobility of crop-growing groups, according to the exploitation, availability and exchange of resources and goods. As a general concern, the alleged dichotomy of sedentary and nomadic mobility is challenged and replaced by a more open concept of space and place. Mobility, the complexity of interactions and hence the routes themselves are not so much shaped by fixed socio-cultural ascriptions of life-strategies to certain agents, rather by implicit knowledge, varying social practices, and economic drivers.
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