The first PCMA Seminar in the “Local Traditions, Shared Faith: Early Christianity in Comparative Perspective” series will feature Prof. Basema Hamarneh (Institut für Klassische Archäologie, Universität Wien) with a presentation: “The Monastic Traditions of the South Levant in a Transhistorical Perspective”.
Abstract: Monasticism in southern Levant reflects a complex interplay between landscape, local tradition, and evolving religious practice. The aim here is examine how monastic life beyond urban centers developed as both a spiritual and social phenomenon from Late Antiquity through the early Islamic centuries. Drawing on archaeological evidence, hagiographic texts, and patterns of settlement continuity, it explores how different forms of monasteries mediated between urban and rural communities, pilgrimage networks, and shifting political agendas.
Rather than treating the rise and decline of monasticism as discrete chronological episodes, the study traces the adaptive resilience of monastic traditions within changing economic, environmental, and cultural frameworks. By applying a transhistorical perspective, it highlights processes of persistence and transformation that positions South Levant as a dynamic frontier of shared faith practices. This approach links local monastic expressions to broader Eastern Mediterranean models, inviting a reconsideration of how “rural” and “religious” identities co-evolved across periods of transition.
The seminar will be held on Thursday, 16 April at 4 pm (Warsaw time) on the Zoom platform.
To receive the link, please email: seminarium.pcma@uw.edu.pl
The seminar series “Local Traditions, Shared Faith: Early Christianity in Comparative Perspective” is a thematic series within the PCMA Seminar. 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). The event brings together scholars working on Early Christianity and monasticism across the Eastern Mediterranean and adjacent regions from Late Antiquity to the early Islamic period.