Mediterranean and African Worlds cluster

The Mediterranean and African Worlds cluster embraces a vast area spanning both hemispheres, with the Mediterranean and the Sahara as its crossroads. Over the period from Antiquity to the modern era, relations between the different regions of this ensemble have been maintained according to varying geographies and modalities - travel, trade, cultural and institutional transfers, religions, empires (Alexander the Great, Rome, Umayyads and Abbasids, Mali, the Ottomans). The various civilizations researched by professors in this department have left traces - texts, artefacts, monuments, etc. - whose study draws on the disciplines of history, philology and law. Epigraphy, papyrology and paleography play a key role in exploiting written sources and understanding these civilizations, while archaeology makes a decisive contribution to the renewal of material data.

The two libraries in this cluster are benchmarks in their field in France. The Byzantine Library brings together holdings relating to the history and art history of territories belonging to the Byzantine cultural sphere: the Eastern Roman Empire, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa up to the ^7th century, as well as the Balkans, Asia Minor and its margins in the Middle Ages. The Ottoman Studies Library boasts a rich collection relating to the Ottoman world, as well as works on Turkology and the Arab-Muslim world.