This project proposes an interdisciplinary study on the ways the ancient societies theorised and materialised peace in the religious discourse and how contemporary societies restored the heritage of peace in the museum space. It analyses a selection of case studies from five different historical contexts and geographical areas: ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, India; the Roman Empire; early Christianity between the Mediterranean and Asia. This project aims also to investigate how the ancient perspectives of peace have been embodied in the cultural heritage of modern societies through the musealisation of ancient symbols of peace. The purpose of this research is thus two-fold: firstly, it aims to reconstruct the semantics and narratives of peace in antiquity with a focus on religious strategies related to negotiations and material representation of peace; secondly, it intends to highlight the ways the ancient symbols of peace have been restored and reinterpreted, in building a heritage of peace that influences cultures nowadays. Finally, the project will examine the links between peace and religion through artefacts and bodies and analyse the conceptual and material development of their connection in the process of separation of objects from the cultural environment and of giving them a museal status. To do that, the research group will explore textual and iconographic sources of the past and investigate how these ancient documents still constitute a cultural tradition that today influences the narratives of peace as a political and religious issue. To this end, great attention will be paid to the processes of interpretation and dissemination of historical records, considering the social impact of their academic reading and heritagisation. Given its interdisciplinarity, this project will combine the philological and archaeological skills and the various expertises of the participants in the field of the history of religions, sociology, anthropology, and museology.
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the role of religions in promoting peace processes. The emergence of Peace Studies contributed to the creation of new specialised scholarship, and research projects. New research centres arose especially in the UK and the Americas, such as Oxford Network of Peace Studies; The Winchester Centre of Religion, Reconciliation and Peace; University for Peace, Costa Rica; Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame, USA; The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
However, in academic research, there is a gap between the historical and the political-juridical approach to the study of the peace process and the role of religion in peacebuilding. Approaching discourses on peace from a critical perspective requires a comparative analysis of their historical-religious background since the role of religion in conflict and peacebuilding is often ambiguous and driven by multiple interests. As a result, the influence of religion on peacebuilding is often understood in terms of either 'source of violence' or 'source of appeasement'; this vision often casts religions as monolithic identities, overlooking the complexity of daily life practices and interactions.
This project aims to investigate the narratives and geographies of religious peace in the great empires or wide multicultural regions of the past as a lens to interpret the present time: ancient Mesopotamia; ancient Egypt, ancient India; the Roman Empire; early Christianity between the Mediterranean and Asia. It takes as a starting point that the fluidity of borders was a condition of religious plurality in the past but also a potential for political disorder in great dominions. In this regard, the project proposes a shift in perspective: instead of sticking to a traditional narrative based on the separation between distinct geo-cultural entities, it considers the historical and spatial continuity of the empires of the past. Following the radical change introduced by Fernand Braudel with the concept of geohistory and the developments of Space Studies and Place Studies in all sectors, this project aims to look at historical phenomena horizontally and cross the borders established by traditional historiography. By looking at the peacebuilding dynamics through the lenses of a global-history approach, it aims to highlight the mobility of the borders within the empires and the cross-cutting, transnational nature of coexistence and peacebuilding practices.
This project focuses also on the construction of the symbols of peace in the large multicultural regions of the past and their reuse in modern times through their heritagisation and musealisation. In this regard, it will take into account the cultural and symbolical heritage of the following records:
-Cyrus Cylinder in Mesopotamia (Sander 2016; Van de Ven 2017);
-Pharaohs' Mummies in Egypt (Wood 1998);
-Rock Edicts of Asoka Maurya in India (Olivelle et al 2012);
-Ara Pacis in the Roman Empire and under Fascism (Kallis 2011);
-Manichean Art in early Christianity between the Mediterranean and Asia (Gulacsi 2011).
Since "heritage formation is a complicated, contested political aesthetic process that requires detailed scholarly explorations and comparative analysis" (Meyer, de Witte 2013), the innovative character of this project is related to the conjunction of Peace Studies and the material religion approach. Such a combination of semantic and materiality allows a shift in perspective to explore the construction and symbolisation of peace over time and the instrumentalisation of the past (texts, artefacts, bodies) to construct a national heritage or claim for peace heritage through the musealisation of the symbols of peace in the past. The comparison between these different records (inscriptions, artefacts, bodies) will give new data to rethink the peacebuilding processes and the construction of peace as something to preserve, catalogue, and exhibit (Walsh 1992; Desvallées, Mairesse 2010). This latter aspect offers a further starting point to rethink the role of the 'peace heritage' in present-day ideologies and nationalisms.
Further readings
Z. Gulacsi 2001 Manichaean art in Berlin collections
A. Kallis 2011 'Framing' Romanità: The Celebrations for the Bimillenario Augusteo and the Augusteo-Ara Pacis Project (J. of Contemporary History 46/4:809-31)
P. Olivelle et al 2012 Reimagining Asoka: memory and history
R. Sander 2016 Human Rights and the Cyrus Cylinder. In Freedom: A Shared Dream.
A. Van de Ven 2017 The many faces of the Cyrus Cylinder: displaying contested objects as constellations. PhD Diss.
K. Walsh 1992 The Representation of the Past: Museums and Heritage in the Post-Modern World
M. Wood 1998 The Use of the Pharaonic Past in Modern Egyptian Nationalism (J. of the American Research Center in Egypt 35:179-96)