Long-Term Quantification in Ancient Mediterranean History

 

 

This conference, generously supported by the Francqui Foundation, comes as a happy consequence of the Francqui Prize awarded in 2007 to François de Callataÿ for his research on quantification in Greco-Roman numismatics.

A first conference has already been devoted to this specific theme: ‘Quantifying monetary supplies in Greco-Roman times’ (Rome, Academia Belgica, September 29^th and 30^th, 2008).

 

The Brussels conference will enlarge the scope both chronologically (from Babylonian times to Middle Ages) and thematically (beyond numismatics). Seventeen leading experts will present original papers including case-studies as well as methodological thought about quantification itself.

 

Program :

 

François de Callataÿ (Royal Library of Belgium/Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Long-term quantification in ancient history: a historical perspective

 

Claude Diebolt (CNRS - Université de Strasbourg)
The stakes of cliometrics in ancient history

 

Neville S. Morley (Bristol University)
Orders of Magnitude, Margins of error

 

Gerassimos George Aperghis (University College London)
Creating a long-term computer model for an ancient economy

 

Robert J. van der Spek (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
On the efficiency of markets for agricultural products in pre-industrial societies: The case of Babylonia c. 400 – c. 60 BC.

 

Alain Bresson (University of Chicago)
Grain, market and agricultural production in Greece: ancient and modern data

 

Josiah Ober (Stanford University)
Explaining performance in the polis system

 

Didier Viviers (Université libre de Bruxelles)
Demography and ancient towns : questions and difficulties

 

Michael Crawford (University College, London)
Price relativities in the Greco-Roman world

 

Peter Temin (MIT Boston)
Price Behavior in the Roman Empire

 

Elio Lo Cascio (Università degli studi di Roma la Sapienza) and Paolo Malanima (Università degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria)
Per capita GDP in the Roman economy: a revision of the estimates

 

Willem Jongman (Universiteit van Groningen)
The new economic history of the Roman Empire

 

Geoffrey Kron (University of Victoria [Canada])
Comparative evidence and the reconstruction of the ancient economy: Greco-Roman housing and the level and distribution of wealth and income

 

Andrew Wilson (All Souls College - Oxford)
Quantifying Roman economic perfomance by means of proxies : pitfalls and potential

 

Roger S. Bagnall (New York University)
Late Roman Data Collection

 

Jean-Pierre Devroey (Université libre de Bruxelles)
Mesurer et compter dans les écrits de gestion carolingiens de part et d'autre des Alpes

 

Walter Scheidel (Stanford University)
4,000 years of wages and well-being

 

Source : http://www.kbr.be/actualites/colloque/francqui/francqui_fr.html