Denkschriften der philosophisch-historischen Klasse

This book considers aspects of nomads’ culture and craft traditions in Tibetan cultural areas with a research focus on Damzhung in Central Tibet from a range of scientific perspectives, including technical, spatial, environmental, economic, and social dimensions. The book also looks beyond the Tibetan plateau to compare nomadic craft traditions across other regions, including Mongolia, Iran, and Turkey, as well as furtherly selected regions of West Asia and North Africa, setting a focus on the...

The present volume documents eight haords of Late Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian copper coins from various sources. Apart from the presentation of the numismatics material, different topics such as rulers, mints, metrology, and additional marks are discussed in detail. Above all, however, is the first comprehensive attempt since Robert Göbl's studies from 1984 and 1993 to fit the Kushano-Sasanian copper coinage into the history of Eastern Iran in Late Antiquity on the basic of numismatic system...

The new inscriptions published in this volume are an impressive cross-section of the prosperous urban society of Roman Imperial Cibyra. Outstanding honorary families, some of whose members were able to rise to the imperial aristocracy, stand before our eyes in desirable differentiation of their kinship relations: the Claudii Paulini, the Claudii Polemones or the hitherto unknown Flavii Captiones, who were among the builders of the impressive stadium of Cibyra. The findings of the excavations in...

Mongolia has faced rapid ideological shifts towards global cosmopolitan perspectives since the collapse of state socialism in the 1990s. Contemporary Mongolian music and the performing arts are dynamic and market-oriented, and these new artistic practices contrast with existing institutional patterns and social settings inherited from the previous regime. In the field of artistic practices, there is a conflict between the old state structure, which was left intact as a vessel, and new...

Comprehensive research, undertaken by a multidisciplinary team from the University of Vienna between 1974 and 2001 in the Lower town of Velia, studied the evolution of the city walls in relation to the urban development of the Phocaean polis on the Tyrrhenian coast and provided new information on the development of the city mainly between the 5th and the 2nd c. BC. The contextualization and processing of the finds from these excavations (pottery, small finds and coins) allowed for a new,...

The urban development of a city is often closely linked to its fortifications. Comprehensive research, undertaken by a multidisciplinary team from the University of Vienna between 1974 and 2001 in the Lower town of Velia, studied the evolution of the city walls in relation to the urban development of the Phocaean polis on the Tyrrhenian coast and provided new information on the development of the city mainly between the 5th and the 2nd c. BC. The study focused on the architecture of the...

The book opens up a completely new perspective on Roman catacomb painting. As key monuments of Christian Archaeology, the catacombs of Rome repeatedly have been the focus of research since their rediscovery. Nevertheless, overarching questions concerning the conceptual design of their burial sites decorated with paintings, have hardly been addressed so far. The present study fills this research gap by using a comprehensive material base to analyze which guiding principles were decisive for the...

This is the first book-length palaeographic study of about a thousand fragments in Syriac and Sogdian languages discovered between 1902 and 1914 in the Turfan area on the ancient Northern Silk Roads. This manuscript material, probably dating between the late 8th and 13th /14th centuries, is of utmost relevance for the history of an area that represents a crossroads region of various communities, languages and religions, not least the East Syriac Christian community. Palaeographic factors such...

The publication deals with the importance and function of inscriptions in residential homes in the upper layer from around 400 BC to AD 600. It investigates commonalities, differences and the development of the use of text in residential homes. The inscriptions are found on architectural components such as façades, door frames and pillars, as well as featuring in mosaics and wall paintings and on sculptures. In wall paintings we find both dipinti and spontaneous graffiti, including drawings....

Im Laufe der letzten 120 Jahre wurden im Boden der antiken Stadt Lauriacum, an der Mündung der Enns in die Donau gelegen, knapp 32.000 antike Münzen gefunden, die überwiegend im Museum Lauriacum der Stadt Enns verwahrt werden. Schon aufgrund der Menge, und noch mehr aufgrund der überragenden Bedeutung Lauriacums für das römische Österreich, zählen die Fundmünzen dieses Ortes zu den wichtigsten antiken Kulturgütern unseres Landes. Für die Geschichte Lauriacums als Militärstandort, Knotenpunkt...

The present volume contains 40 papers on the Roman Empire, published between 2004 and 2020. Several papers have as their starting point the province of Dacia. They focus upon themes like the conquest of Dacia; the foundation, the colonisation, the organisation and the urbanisation of the province; its economic, social and politic structures; its military history (legions, auxiliary units, hierarchy) and, finally, the reasons for its abandonment. Prosopographical studies deal with personalities...