Project description
How trade and war were related
In the ancient world, survival often depended on maritime trade. Syracuse, a dominant maritime city-state in Sicily, flourished for centuries by commanding key sea routes. This changed with the Roman conquest in 212 BCE. The ERC-funded MarDepend project uses Syracuse as a lens to explore how deeply states and communities depended on maritime trade and how this led to violent conflict. Specifically, it will reconstruct ancient trade routes, simulate ship performance and analyse material evidence. By quantifying trade flows and the effects of conflict and geography, MarDepend builds a framework for understanding maritime dependencies, not just in antiquity, but across time. The findings could reshape how we view the interrelation of trade and war.
Objective
MarDepend seeks to understand the existential dependency of states and communities on maritime trade. It aims to analyse and quantify how trade, geography, and conflict were interrelated in antiquity, with a focus on the city-state of Syracuse in Sicily. The study will explore economic structures, trade balance, and the impact of maritime routes on trade during both peace and war. Syracuse, a key maritime power from the early 5th century BCE until being conquered by Rome in 212 BCE, serves as an ideal case study. Its position at the crossroads of ancient maritime trade, from which it engaged with a wide range of actors, and its largely consistent trade policies over centuries make it particularly relevant and provide a wealth of evidence, in quantity and quality, conducive to quantitative economic analysis. Building on the case of Syracuse, MarDepend establishes maritime dependencies as a framework for comprehending global trade and political dynamics across diverse historical periods.
MarDepend, characterised by an innovative interdisciplinary approach and a broad methodological basis, combines historical research, archaeology, marine engineering, oceanography, and economic theory through modelling of wind, waves, and currents, measuring the performance of ancient ships with the help of Computational Fluid Dynamics, reconstructing trade routes through simulations, analysing material evidence (coins, inscriptions, amphorae), and developing a formal economic model for ancient trade. Advanced software and digital tools analyse the data and synthesise it in an open-access GIS. The unique approach provides a foundation for applying analogous methodologies to investigate the trade dependencies in a much broader historical and geographical context, such as a diachronic investigation of the relationship between trade and conflict. The research holds the potential to reshape our understanding of ancient economies and maritime history.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software
- humanities history and archaeology history ancient history
- humanities history and archaeology archaeology
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences oceanography
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
54296 Trier
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.