This paper deals with the Palmyrene divine title MR ‘LM’ which can be translated as Master of the World, of the Universe or of the Eternity. As a point of departure, it takes the theory of relativity and the sense of the time and space in the reference to the divine competences. Does the god called by this particular name have unlimited power, when he is the ruler of the entire universe and time? This paper shows the equal relevance of the title to the two Palmyrene gods: Bel and Baalshamin, remembering the transdivine character of the epithets

Starting from the respective onomastic landscapes of Dionysos and Poseidon, this chapter draws portraits of each god before comparing them. Indeed, as far as divine onomastics, and especially cult epithets, are concerned, points of convergence can be investigated, such as fishing or plant-growing. On the other hand, oppositions are even more representative of the situation of each god in structuring axes of ancient Greek Weltanschauung: Poseidon seems to be very ‘male’ while Dionysos is definitely more mobile between genders; and while the former is deeply rooted in stability and ‘holding together’, the latter makes waves and ‘loosens’. As other deities in a polytheistic system, what distinguishes these two gods is not so much a space (the sea, for example or a domain (such as that of vegetation) as the way in which they invest it. In other words, gods and goddesses of ancient polytheisms can be better understood when looking at their relations with and situations vis-à-vis each other.

The first occurrences of the onomastic formula ‘Zeus Helios great Sarapis’ belongs to the reign of Trajan. Appearing in the military and economic context of the quarries of the Egyptian eastern desert, this divine name associates, in a single henotheistic entity, the great gods of Egypt (Amon-Ra-Helios), the Greco-Roman world (Zeus-Iuppiter) and Alexandria (Sarapis), giving pre-eminence to the latter. The iconographic translation of this theological evolution can be found in the provincial coinage of Alexandria during the Antonine period.

The divine beings of the ancient Near East were complex entities, endowed with numerous prerogatives. In light of their multiplicity, this chapter investigates the narrative and symbolic strategies used by the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia to describe and conceptualise the divine. Firstly, it focuses on how the polysemy and polyphony typical of cuneiform writing were skillfully used to express the multiple features of gods and goddesses. Subsequently, the text focuses on some of the oldest cuneiform sources ever known: the god lists, in which the many names and onomastic attributes of the divinities were listed, following a specific conceptual order. Finally, the importance of the name for the definition of a deity is investigated by examining the case of Marduk and Aššur, two gods who established their supremacy precisely through the accumulation of theonyms.

In the 4th century BCE, the Mareotis region developed as a crucial connection between Egypt and the Mediterranean, supplying Alexandria with all sorts of agricultural or artisanal goods; it was renowned above all for its wine. Yet despite ideal geologic conditions for growing grapes, a remarkable concentration of Roman and Byzantine wineries in the area, and ample evidence for widespread wine cultivation by ancient Egyptians, up until now no Pharaonic installation of wine-making had been discovered in the region. However, for the first time, concrete examples of vine-growing remains, from the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic period, have been uncovered at the site of Plinthine/Kom el-Nugus. Relying on our archaeological and geomorphological research, this chapter concentrates on the early development of wine-making in Mareotis, showing how it developed alongside the growing interest of the state in these western margins. It shows how wine-making evolved from the New Kingdom to the Late Period, and assesses what kind of impact (if any) the coming of the Greeks had on local viticulture. It confirms that viticulture did not take off after the Macedonian conquest; rather, there exists strong continuity irrespective of political changes.

This chapter gives an overview of the major hydraulic works that have been undertaken in Alexandria from its foundation to the Arab conquest. Fresh water in and around Alexandria is positioned as a historical agent around which the city’s plurisecular history wove itself. Built on a rocky substrate that, until recently, protected it from the subsidence that affected most of the northern edge of the Delta, the city stood on a locus that was rich in subterranean water. This chapters shows how for centuries, Alexandrians were careful to collect, store, and distribute this underground freshwater as a way to keep themselves alive. Concomitantly, geoarchaeological and written evidence document sustained yet at times interrupted attempts by state authorities to enhance the city’s commercial appeal and water supply by tying it to the Nile via artificially maintained canals. These canals’ histories, as well as those of the city’s known hyponomes, cisterns, and other lifting devices, allowed the Macedonian foundation to develop on a grand scale, and to survive during periods of water crisis.

This chapter explores water development in the Buhayra province (western Delta), mainly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, to examine the canal system and how it was developed. Buhayra province, an administrative prefecture in Ottoman Egypt, was located on the route that connected Alexandria to Cairo. From the early Islamic period down to the Mamluk period (1250–1517), the province had seen the development of canals for navigation and irrigation. Although Mamluk sources describe these water development works, we know less about them through the Ottoman period due to a lack of contemporary accounts. The most accessible and seemingly accurate source on the rural landscape is the Napoleonic map from Description de l’Égypte; this map, however, only reflects the landscape at the end of the eighteenth century. Such a situation makes the Ottoman period a blank space in the province’s history. This chapter aims to analyse what happened in the Ottoman period to those canals developed in the Mamluk period to understand, as sequentially as possible, how the canals and the landscape along them changed. The analysis also gives us a glimpse of the fringes of Ottoman rural administration, revealing how the canals were maintained at the time.

Chapter 3 shifts discussion to the broader political landscape of the kingdom and to the nature of Hieron’s relationship with the cities of southeastern Sicily that recognized his political authority as a king.