In the coming months, the PCMA Seminars will feature a new series “Local Traditions, Shared Faith” which will focus on early Christianity in Comparative Perspective across the Eastern Mediterranean.
The series is organized by Dr. Aleksandra Pawlikowska-Gwiazda (National Museum in Warsaw), the head of the PCMA UW expedition to Sheikh Abd el-Qurna (Egypt).
This seminar series brings together scholars working on Early Christianity and monasticism across the Eastern Mediterranean and adjacent regions from Late Antiquity to the early Islamic period. By looking beyond regional and disciplinary boundaries, the series aims to compare and contextualise the material, architectural, and social traditions that emerged alongside the spread of Christianity from the 4th century onward.
As Christianity gradually replaced earlier religious systems, the transformation was neither uniform nor immediate. In many regions, new religious practices developed through the adaptation of long-standing local traditions, landscapes, and building practices. Christian communities—both lay and monastic—negotiated these continuities while responding to major geopolitical and cultural shifts, including the gradual Christianisation of society and the profound transformations brought about by the Arab conquests.
The lectures in this series explore how these processes unfolded in different parts of the wider Eastern Mediterranean world. They address themes such as the development of monastic landscapes and settlement patterns in the South Levant, the role of architecture and local materials in shaping sacred space in the Red Sea region, and the ways in which Christian communities interacted with wider networks of pilgrimage, trade, and cultural exchange.
By moving geographically from the Levantine coastline to the Horn of Africa and back to Egypt, the series highlights both regional diversity and shared patterns in the development of Christian traditions. Through archaeological evidence, architectural analysis, and textual sources, the speakers examine how local communities navigated changing political realities and how these transformations are reflected in the material record that scholars study today.
Program:
April 16, 4 pm
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Basema Hamarneh (Institut für Klassische Archäologie, Universität Wien),
The Monastic Traditions of the South Levant in a Transhistorical Perspective
May 14, 2 pm
Prof. Gabriele Castiglia (Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Roma),
Basalt, Alabaster, Coral: Building Sacred Space in Early Christian Adulis
June 18, 2 pm
Dr. Ina Eichner (Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften),
The monastery of Deir el-Bachît in Western Thebes/Upper Egypt and a brief look at Byzantium
June 25, 2 pm
Dr. Aleksandra Pawlikowska-Gwiazda (National Museum in Warsaw),
From Tomb to Hermitage: Monastic Strategies of Adaptation, Transformation, and Reuse in Western Thebes
The seminars will be held on Thursdays – on the Zoom platform.
To receive the link, please write to seminarium.pcma@uw.edu.pl
