Undergraduate Research: Ancient Mediterranean
Oracles and Divinity of the Ancient Mediterranean
I started this project as an assignment for an independent study with Professor Kristin Heineman. I have always been extremely interested in Hellenistic religion, foreign relationships, and Alexander the Great and wanted to combine all of these aspects into one project.
Oracles and the concept of deification have been a consistent area of fascination since I started studying Archaeology and the Classics, furthering my decision to revolve my project around these aspects of Hellenistic religion.
Throughout this project, I critically analyzed primary and secondary ancient and contemporary sources from and about ancient Egypt, Anatolia, Greece, and Rome. While also examining and translating biographies by Diodorus and Plutarch recounting Alexander the Great’s consultation of Zeus-Ammon from their original languages of Ancient Greek to Modern English to understand their original intent and context, as translations can often distort the original meaning of an ancient text.
The majority of research for this project occurred in the Fall semester of 2024 and resulted in a 12-page research paper. Something about this project I found the most interesting was the syncretic god of Zeus-Ammon that the oracle at Siwa, Egypt revolved around.
This was particularly intriguing to me due to its illustration of the compatibility between ancient polytheistic religions. These polytheistic religions, instead of being in constant competition with one another, would draw ideas and gods from other polytheistic religions to integrate into them into their own religions.
Through this research, I concluded that ancient Hellenistic religion, specifically devices like oracles and concepts of divinity, deeply effected and influenced political and foreign spheres in the ancient Mediterranean. Specifically in the case of Alexander the Great and the Roman Emperors, as oracles and these rulers divinity aided in the legitimacy of their reign and gave them a divine right to rule the territories they did.
This project is deeply meaningful to me as it represents my dedication to the Classics and my expanding interest in antiquity I hope to take to graduate school. I have presented this project to lab meetings and will be presenting this research to CSU’s MURALs as well.
Additionally, this research has been accepted to be published in CSU’s Graduate Anthropology Journal: Furthering Perspectives, and additional research is being conducted for this publication.
