Amphithéâtre Marguerite de Navarre, Site Marcelin Berthelot
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Abstract

This presentation looks at the environmental history of the Roman province of Egypt, the granary of the Roman Empire. The Nile is the only source of water in this region, its green band easily recognizable on satellite images contrasting with the arid background. The annual flooding of the Nile, fluctuating with the seasons, was therefore of paramount importance to farmers and the central administration, influencing agricultural yields, food security, social stability, as well as tax export levels and grain supplies for the population of Rome and the Roman army. I will present a detailed reconstruction of the annual patterns of Nile flooding during Roman times, covering the period from 30 BC to 299 AD. Using a synthesis of papyrological, epigraphical, numismatic, literary and paleo-environmental sources, this research focuses on the impact of summer Nile floods on the economic and political history of Egypt and the Roman Empire. Water-related conflicts are once again a burning issue in the region with the construction of the great Ethiopian Renaissance dam, exacerbated by climate change, economic development and population growth.

Sabine Hübner

Sabine Hübner

Sabine R. Huebner holds the chair of Ancient History at the University of Basel in Switzerland. She studied History and Classical Philology in Münster and Rome receiving her PhD from the University of Jena (2005) and her Habilitation from FU Berlin (2010). She held visiting fellowships at the University of California at Berkeley (2005), Columbia University (2006-2009), the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU (2007/8), a Membership at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (2010), a visiting professorship at Central European University (2015), at Princeton University (2018) and at Università La Sapienza (2024). Her research focuses on the everyday lives of the common people in the Eastern Roman Mediterranean and she has published widely on the religious, social, and environmental history of the Roman and Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean. Her monographs include The Family in Roman Egypt (Cambridge, 2013) and Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament (Cambridge, 2019), and she is the co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (12 vols. Oxford, 2012), Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009), Inheritance, Law and Religion in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Paris, 2014), Mediterranean Families in Antiquity (Oxford, 2016), The Single Life in the Roman and Later Roman World (Cambridge, 2019), P.Bas. II, the edition of the Basel papyrus collection (Berlin 2020), Living the End of Antiquity (Berlin and Boston 2020) and Mother Absence in Antiquity (Leuven 2021). In her most recent publications she has focused on the influence of climatic/environmental change and infectious disease on Roman civilizations.

Speaker(s)

Sabine Hübner

Professor of Ancient History, University of Basel

See also

Lecture related to the seminar: History, society, climate : between fragility and resilience
Kyle Harper, chair Avenir Commun Durable
New approaches to climate history

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