Books by Salvatore Liccardo
Brill's Series on the Early Middle Ages, 2023
No people is nameless, and lists of words are as old as writing systems. And yet, both subjects c... more No people is nameless, and lists of words are as old as writing systems. And yet, both subjects can appear unpromising to historians. This volume shows the contrary by examining the various meanings and functions of ethnonyms in Late Antiquity: added to catalogues of provinces, they reflect the political messages and the regulating power of the imperial bureaucracy; included in schoolbooks, they mirror educational practices and reveal the geographical and ethnic landscapes taught at school; placed on a map, they help make sense of the world in times of transition.
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Papers by Salvatore Liccardo
Nature, Apr 24, 2024
From AD 567–568, at the onset of the Avar period, populations from the Eurasian Steppe settled in... more From AD 567–568, at the onset of the Avar period, populations from the Eurasian Steppe settled in the Carpathian Basin for approximately 250 years1. Extensive sampling for archaeogenomics (424 individuals) and isotopes, combined with archaeological, anthropological and historical contextualization of four Avar-period cemeteries, allowed for a detailed description of the genomic structure of these communities and their kinship and social practices. We present a set of large pedigrees, reconstructed using ancient DNA, spanning nine generations and comprising around 300 individuals. We uncover a strict patrilineal kinship system, in which patrilocality and female exogamy were the norm and multiple reproductive partnering and levirate unions were common. The absence of consanguinity indicates that this society maintained a detailed memory of ancestry over generations. These kinship practices correspond with previous evidence from historical sources and anthropological research on Eurasian Steppe societies2. Network analyses of identity-by-descent DNA connections suggest that social cohesion between communities was maintained via female exogamy. Finally, despite the absence of major ancestry shifts, the level of resolution of our analyses allowed us to detect genetic discontinuity caused by the replacement of a community at one of the sites. This was paralleled with changes in the archaeological record and was probably a result of local political realignment.
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The Routledge Handbook of Cartographic Humanities, edited by Tania Rossetto and Laura Lo Presti, 2024
Late Antiquity (c. 250–750 CE) marks an important moment in the history of geography and mapmakin... more Late Antiquity (c. 250–750 CE) marks an important moment in the history of geography and mapmaking. Maps took a more prominent role in intellectual life, and geography was largely integrated into school curricula. Drawing upon both textual and iconographic sources, this contribution analyses the role played by texts and illustrations in the development of geographical imagination and knowledge. An up-to-date overview on the Tabula Peutingeriana highlights the interplay of texts, diagrams, memory and travel within the context of late antique cartography.
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ИСТОРИК И ВЛАСТЬ, ИСТОРИК У ВЛАСТИ: АЛЬФОНСО X МУДРЫЙ И ЕГО ЭПОХА, 2024
In the Early and High Middle Ages, the Cosmography of Julius Honorius was read, adapted and used ... more In the Early and High Middle Ages, the Cosmography of Julius Honorius was read, adapted and used as an authoritative source. In the Iberian Peninsula, redaction B of the Cosmography influenced both the Latin and Arabic historiographical traditions. Although the text deals only hastily with the geography of the Iberian Peninsula, the information contained was used to integrate the geographical knowledge of later authors and writers. Furthermore, it served as a reminder of Rome's claims to world domination and of the close connection between geographical research and imperial power. Passages drawn from the Cosmography were incorporated by the author of the Chronica Gothorum Pseudoisidoriana in a summary of Roman history and could enrich scientific collections such as the Florilegium Italicum.
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Il mondo di Solino Atti del convegno Roma, 16-17 febbraio 2023 Istituto Italiano per la Storia Antica, 2024
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Medieval Worlds, 2024
Family life among medieval Eurasian nomads is still largely unknown due to the scarcity of writte... more Family life among medieval Eurasian nomads is still largely unknown due to the scarcity of written sources and the need to rely on ethnographic information originating from disparate chronological and geographical contexts. Thanks to developments in aDNA research, these uncharted territories are being progressively explored. This allows us to re-evaluate past paradigms on ethnicity, family dynamics, and human mobility. This article attempts to reassess the social limits and cultural connotations of the levirate marriage by drawing on recent genetic findings in burial sites of the Carpathian Basin (in today's Austria and Hungary). The term »levirate« refers to a marriage between a widow and her late husband's sibling or other relative. The custom was widespread throughout space and time, although it was particularly common in patriarchal cultures that permitted polygyny and enforced bride price. The paper aims to investigate the practice and rhetoric of levirate marriage in intercultural interactions between sedentary and nomadic communities, as well as within the writers' ethnographic and literary traditions. The article will provide an analysis of ancient and medieval sources discussing levirate and marriage customs among Eurasian nomads coming from both western Eurasia (Greece, Rome, the Caucasus, the Near East, and Europe) and China. Following an examination of the biblical origin of the term levirate and an analysis of the socioeconomic impact of this practice, the paper will demonstrate how the authors' varying degrees of familiarity with the custom influenced the cultural significance that they assigned to the practice and will make it possible to place the newly discovered genetic data within a more comprehensive historical perspective.
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Early Medieval Europe, 2024
The history of the Heruli represents a historical conundrum. Because of the
poor state of the sou... more The history of the Heruli represents a historical conundrum. Because of the
poor state of the sources, caution is required when analysing this subject.
However, the peculiarity of the case encourages us to rethink the way we
conceive of and describe migrations in Late Antiquity. Adopting an
interdisciplinary approach to the history of the Heruli, this article offers a
new analysis of the written evidence, identifies a need for different mapping
strategies, and offers a possible interpretation of the origins of the so-called
eastern and western Heruli.
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The Past Through Narratology: New Approaches to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, 2022
Within the 'spatial turn', in the course of the last three decades a new theorisation of maps and... more Within the 'spatial turn', in the course of the last three decades a new theorisation of maps and mapping has fundamentally changed the way we look at maps and their production today. This rethinking of maps has paved the way to an innovative interaction between cartographers and literary scholars. If maps function within a communicative act, they can not only be 'read' but also 'narrated'. The type of maps that seems the most suitable to study from a narratological perspective is itinerary maps. Such maps, in fact, reflect more clearly how space is experienced, thus allowing us to detect the dialectic between place and narrative. They might present a scaled representation of space, but the main attribute of itineraries is to mirror a specific 'lived space', one made significant by the movement of people. This contribution focuses on a few details of the 'Peutinger Table'-the references to Alexander the Great and his campaigns in Central Asia and India-with the purpose of highlighting how such textual and iconographic elements assisted the imaginations of Roman and medieval observers and provided stories associated with these places. These map's elements reflect and preserve the emotional ties and intellectual engagement that map-readers might develop with these particular locations. They show the participation of political ideologies and ethnic discourse in the creation and representation of a distinct sense of place.
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Historia 72, 2, 242-258, 2023
Long forgotten, the Expositio totius mundi et gentium, a Late Antique geographical treatise that ... more Long forgotten, the Expositio totius mundi et gentium, a Late Antique geographical treatise that was first rediscovered in the 17th century, has attracted considerable scholarly atten- tion. This article offers new interpretations of two passages, namely Expositio 37 and 61. These are description of the political activism of the citizens of Alexandria and the moral condemna- tion of the inhabitants of Roman Africa. These sections stand out amidst the work’s routine de- piction of Roman provinces and urban centers. Analysis of the passages suggests 358–361 as the most likely dating of the Greek original and further elucidate the author’s cultural background.
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I Longobardi a Venezia, 2020
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Orbis Terrarum 18, 2020
This paper aims at understanding ethnonyms in their intellectual context
and, more specifically, ... more This paper aims at understanding ethnonyms in their intellectual context
and, more specifically, at highlighting their role in the Late Antique perception and representation of space. In particular, the following text offers an overview of the ethnonyms found in the Tabula Peutingeriana. There are plenty of ethnonyms on
the map, which vary greatly in terms of size and chronology. This large collection
of names reflects a multifaceted understanding of the ethnic landscape and provides
an invaluable example of the interplay between Late Antique ethnic discourse and
sense of place. According to the proposed analysis, the map’s ethnonyms are one of the main tools used by the mapmakers to represent and give meaning to non-Roman spaces.
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The Medieval History Journal, 2018
This article aims to examine the narrative of the Amazons as part of a political and ethnic disco... more This article aims to examine the narrative of the Amazons as part of a political and ethnic discourse. It pays particular attention to the connection between the tale of the Amazons and the history of the origins of the Goths. The Historia Augusta and Jordanes’ Getica are among the most significant sources for shedding light on the versatility and the popularity of the saga of the Amazons. It also highlights the authors’ lexical strategy of identifying the ancient Amazons with one or more barbaric groups. This cultural operation allowed them to integrate the old story of women warriors into their historical narrative. In the last part of this article, the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum is taken into consideration, stressing continuities and discontinuities in Adam of Bremen’s use of the tale of the Amazons.
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Hungarian Historical Review, 2018
This article examines ethnonyms for Persians in Medieval Latin, Greek, and Arabic sources. These ... more This article examines ethnonyms for Persians in Medieval Latin, Greek, and Arabic sources. These ethnonyms are part of ethnic terminologies which changed over time and varied in different regional contexts. The ethnonyms for Persians are approached in different textual genres from a combination of historiographical, philological, and social anthropological perspectives. In the first part, the investigation of Persians in Late Antique source material sets out from the Tabula Peutingeriana and examines the entries on the map which refer to the Persians, highlighting both their ethnic and political meanings. The second part deals with source material on medieval South Arabia. First, it focuses on the texts of the tenth-century Yemeni scholar al-Hamdānī and his use of a set of ethnonyms for the Persian minority population, of which each term evokes a different association. This is followed by an analysis of the early thirteenth-century account of Persian traveler Ibn al-Mujāwir, in which the roles and meanings of ethnonyms for Persians in different narrative units are discussed. This case study shows that there are interdependencies between ethnonyms and other means of identification, such as language, lifestyle, place of dwelling, kinship, descent, and the division of the world into different spatial and ideological realms. The case of the Persians illustrates how the authors under discussion used ethnonyms as part of narrative strategies which support processes of selfing and othering.
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Porphyra , 2012
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Porphyra, 2011
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Conference Presentations by Salvatore Liccardo
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Books by Salvatore Liccardo
Papers by Salvatore Liccardo
poor state of the sources, caution is required when analysing this subject.
However, the peculiarity of the case encourages us to rethink the way we
conceive of and describe migrations in Late Antiquity. Adopting an
interdisciplinary approach to the history of the Heruli, this article offers a
new analysis of the written evidence, identifies a need for different mapping
strategies, and offers a possible interpretation of the origins of the so-called
eastern and western Heruli.
and, more specifically, at highlighting their role in the Late Antique perception and representation of space. In particular, the following text offers an overview of the ethnonyms found in the Tabula Peutingeriana. There are plenty of ethnonyms on
the map, which vary greatly in terms of size and chronology. This large collection
of names reflects a multifaceted understanding of the ethnic landscape and provides
an invaluable example of the interplay between Late Antique ethnic discourse and
sense of place. According to the proposed analysis, the map’s ethnonyms are one of the main tools used by the mapmakers to represent and give meaning to non-Roman spaces.
Conference Presentations by Salvatore Liccardo
poor state of the sources, caution is required when analysing this subject.
However, the peculiarity of the case encourages us to rethink the way we
conceive of and describe migrations in Late Antiquity. Adopting an
interdisciplinary approach to the history of the Heruli, this article offers a
new analysis of the written evidence, identifies a need for different mapping
strategies, and offers a possible interpretation of the origins of the so-called
eastern and western Heruli.
and, more specifically, at highlighting their role in the Late Antique perception and representation of space. In particular, the following text offers an overview of the ethnonyms found in the Tabula Peutingeriana. There are plenty of ethnonyms on
the map, which vary greatly in terms of size and chronology. This large collection
of names reflects a multifaceted understanding of the ethnic landscape and provides
an invaluable example of the interplay between Late Antique ethnic discourse and
sense of place. According to the proposed analysis, the map’s ethnonyms are one of the main tools used by the mapmakers to represent and give meaning to non-Roman spaces.
www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-117484
Un centro politico, culturale ed economico (Secoli V-XIII)
AMALFI
9-11 dicembre 2021
livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y7GPv_1Uc4
Biblioteca Comunale "Pietro Scoppetta"