Safran Publishers

La transmission de l'alphabet phénicien aux Grecs. “Confrontation dialectique” des théories de B. B. Powell et de R. D. Woodard et synthèse de S.-T. Teodorsson

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Studies on the origin and development of the alphabet are very abundant: considering the last twenty years only, I listed more than thirty papers and monographs, which focus their attention on the mother script and antiquity of the Greek alphabet or the place and modalities of its transmission. In this paper, I shall comment three key theories, namely these of B.B. Powell (1991), related with Homeric epics, R.D. Woodard (1997), related with Cypriot syllabic writing, and S.-T. Teodorsson (2006), related with oriental literature. I chose them because they offer a global model of the alphabet’s historical reconstitution, which takes into consideration all parts of the question. Powell’s “Homer related” theory and Woodard’s, on a Cypriot origin, apparently completely opposed, seem to be combined to a certain degree by Teodorsson, who proposes a kind of compromise between literary influence and trade routes.

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Le Platon arabe et les Sabéens de Harran. La "voie diffuse" de la transmission du platonisme en terre d'Islam

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In the absence of integral and litteral Arabic translations of Plato’s dialogues, the transmission of Platonism in the Muslim world was an indirect one, passing through different channels such as medical works, doxographies and gnomologies. The complexity and relative obscurity of this ‘voie diffuse’, in which according to Pierre Thillet oral transmission played an important role, led to all kinds of hazardous speculations about the existence of a Platonic Academy among the “Sabaens” in Ḥarrān, which was supposed to be still in activity in the Xth century. This article proposes a critical analysis of one of the most quoted “evidences” for this theory: al-Mas‘ūdī’s report about a Platonic inscription he claims to have seen on the door-knocker of the maǧma‘ of the Sabaeans in Ḥarrān. Rather than proving the existence of a “Platonic Academy” there, al-Mas‘ūdī offers us an eloquent illustration of the way Platonism was transmitted in the Muslim world.

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La migration du savoir entre les communautés : le cas de la littérature arabe chrétienne

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This paper addresses the important phenomenon of contacts and influences between the various religious communities of the pre-modern Near East in the field of the written heritage, and more particularly in that of Christian Arabic literature. The introduction discusses several examples of such interchange, on the one hand, between the various Christian communities (Melkites, Syrians, Copts) and between various language traditions (Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Arabic) and on the other hand, between Christian and Muslim intellectual environments. The main part of the paper investigates the textual similarities that can be detected in the works of Sulaymān al-Ġazzī, Melkite bishop of Ghazza in the the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D., and the famous Epistles of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’ (Brethren of Purity). Some preliminary suggestions are given for the question as to how such similarities might have come about.

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L’influence du traité "Les airs, les eaux et les lieux" d’Hippocrate chez les penseurs arabes du Moyen Âge

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In this paper, I want to show the influence of the hippocratic treatise On airs, waters, places ((Περὶ ἀέρων, ὑδάτων, τόπων) and Galen’s commentary in particular, on the arabic scientific literature. Of course, we find it in medicine but also in geography. In this field, the Galen’s commentary of hippocratic text determined the base of the theory of geographical determinism, giving a conceptual structure (physic and even physiological) to the influence of the man’s environment. The mediaeval thinkers applied this theory to the humanity and in this context, the hippocratic opposition between Schythians and Egyptians is replaced by the one between Turks and Egyptians or Slaves and Blacks. They used it also to explain the physical constitution and the ethics of a specific population.

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De Baghdad à Cordoue : une migration de la tradition grammaticale arabe

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The Arabic Grammatical Tradition aims at studying the Kalâm-ʾl-ʿArab or “Language of the Arabs”, relying on texts written before 130/750. ʾAbû ʿAlî al-Qâlî (Manâzgird 280/893 – Cordoba 355/966), after having learnt Arabic grammar in Baghdad, has left the city in 328/939 for teaching in Cordoba from 330/941, applying the principles of Basra Grammatical School Tradition. He wrote several books, but one of them may be considered as typical for this Tradition : “The Book of Shortened and Extended Noun”, a critical edition of which has recently been published by Dr. al-Haridi. Al-Qâlî does no more regard “shortened noun” (ʾism maqṣûr) and “reduced noun” (ʾism manqûṣ) as synonymous as Ancient Grammarians did. In his view, a shortened noun is a noun where a /y/ or a /w/ is included as a radical. He looks for a main structural principle organizing grammatical rules, putting aside the nawâdir or unusual words. So that we may think about him as occupying an intermediary position between Ibn Sarrâǧ and Ibn Ǧinnî in the history of Arabic Grammatical Tradition.

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La Chine illustrée d’Athanase Kircher (China monumentis illustrata, 1667). La découverte des caractères chinois et son apport aux débats sur les écritures au XVIIe siècle

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The discovery and knowledge of Chinese characters in the 17th century nourished reflections about the principal ideas that occupied the thinkers of the 17th century. Kircher, best known as an Egyptologist, popularized information about China. As for writing, the comparison with Egyptian hieroglyphs allowed him to oppose on one hand a writing which corresponded to ordinary words and language used in everyday life, and on the other the subtlety and the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphs, which remained removed from the day-to-day life due to their inspiration stemming from more abstract ideas.

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Les échanges de motifs littéraires entre chrétiens et musulmans à l’époque ottomane : le cas de la tradition orale des âşık

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The analysis of the Turkish popular literature, which was told and sung by the âşık, the story-tellers who used to recite their folk stories in the remote villages of Anatoly, shows that though these folk stories are original, some of their episodes go back to former traditions, like the Armenian legends and the Byzantine epos. In the same time, the religious and/or ethnic minorities of the Ottoman Anatolia – Greek, Armenian and Georgian Christians, but also Jews and Shiite Muslims – developed various attitudes toward these Anatolian folk stories. In some cases, they adopted it as they were told and they introduced them in their own repertory. In other cases, they adapted, partially or totally, these folk stories, making their heroes Christians or Shiites, changing their names and their places of birth. All these attitudes show the extreme vitality of the oral tradition in Anatolia.

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La circulation des biens et des savoirs en Égypte romaine

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There is still a false look about commerce in Antiquity. Many clichés like life in autarky always exist. But, in Roman Egypt, commerce seems to be something of more complex.
There is local productions (like mining exploitations), but some towns are true centres of circulation of goodies coming from far away. Some sites testify of contacts with Arabia, India, Red Sea…by the way of ports like Berenice. Roads for caravans lie through deserts, with some military camps, wells and temples along them. Religious centres in commercial towns seem to be some keys to understand much the conception of commerce in Antiquity. In Roman Egypt, the emperor is portray like pharaoh offering local goodies (or exportation products coming in the site) to the pantheon. This fact could be easily explain: the piety of the king help to focalise the goodness of the gods on earthly economy.

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Le développement de la coupole dans l’architecture iranienne à l’époque islamique : un exemple de diffusion du savoir

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The technical developpment of the dome has been improved step by step during the islamic period. Political rulers have understood that the knowledges in architecture may serve the spread of Islam. In Iran, the power encouraged different groups of builders that became under the supervision of experts in the art of construction true shools giving birth to different styles and moods in architecture. According to the territorial increase of Islam, teachers and their most skillful students were invited to built monuments through the islamic world. They greatly helped the spread of knowledges. With regard to the problem of the weight of the dome, they contribued to the progressive increase of its stability through more simple forms.

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Dalla città romana alla città alto-medievale in Italia. Il modello classico urbano verso l’eterogeneità delle forme insediative medievali

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L’article aborde le problème complexe de la transformation urbaine entre l’Antiquité tardive et le Haut Moyen Age ; le contexte enquêté est celui de l’Italie du Nord entre le iiie et le viiie s. de notre ère, en particulier les siècles de la domination lombarde de la péninsule. L’analyse de l’administration et de l’économie de la civitas est amplement étudiée, ainsi que le problème posé par des termes tels qu’urbs, civitas, municipium, toutes expressions provenant de formules issues de la tradition et du droit romains.
Après une étude de cas concrets en milieu urbain (Brescia, Milan, Vérone), les résultats montrent que le schéma idéal d’une ville lombarde en l’Italie du nord n’existe pas. Les recherches montrent les données archéologiques qui mettent en évidence la grande diversité de plans des centres urbains qui ont survécu à la transition de l’Antiquité tardive à l’époque médiévale.

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Dendour ou le temple exilé

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Dendour is a tiny but very interesting temple made by emperor Augustus in the Dodekaschenos, in the south of Egypt, next to the frontier with Nubia. Now, it is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, USA because it was given to the American government as thanks for help in the Aswan project. It is dedicated to two drowned brothers, venerated as “saints” by the local people. The scenes show these young men (but also divinities particularly venerated in Nubia) honorated by Augustus who give them local goodies as gold, incense, ivory…The cartouche of the king are interesting: some contain his name of pharaoh but some only the title Per- aha. The localisation of these cartouches seems to be not free: it could be an expression of political message of Augustus in this area what suffer of many conflicts and revolts involving Roman Empire and Nubian sovereigns as the queen “Candace”.

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Euhemeros von Messene. Ökonomisches Denken in einer “Utopie” der hellenistischen Zeit

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Dans l’Écriture Sacrée de Evhémère le Messinien, conseiller du roi des Macédoniens, Cassandre décrit la situation socio-économique des îles de l’Océan indien, que lui-même a visitées. Les traits caractéristiques de la structure de la société et de l’économie des îles sont la répartition sociale du travail entre la population, l’évaluation positive du manoeuvre, ainsi que la politique économique centralisée et l’économie des incitations à la partie la plus productive de la population. Un passage souligne ce que possèdent les prêtres, lesquels exercent le pouvoir supérieur. Le travail de Evhémère, relevant du genre littéraire politique “mytho-historique” (Staatsroman) des temps hellénistiques, appartient à la catégorie du mirror for princes, qui aboutit à projeter sur le prince la conception de la société idéale.

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