ANTIQUITATIS

RES

JOURNAL OF ANCIENT HISTORY

RES ANTIQUITATIS is an editorial project of the Centre for the Humanities (CHAM) that aims to become a space for reflexion and debate on Antiquity. The study and investigation of several Antiquities, from the Pre-Classical and Near Eastern to the Classic Antiquity, are the main motivation of this project, both for its intrinsic scientific interest and the conviction that such investigation may become, on the whole, a useful conceptual reflexion for the study of other periods and historical questions. Res Antiquitatis is therefore a contribution to the development in Portugal of investigation in fields related to the Antiquity, and it is open to the scientific production of both consecrated researchers and junior scholars. It will seek to highlight the research produced in our country and, to that purpose, English and French will be the main editorial languages. Internationalization is crucial to the affirmation of Portuguese research. Res Antiquitatis will contribute to that by publishing in these languages the work of both Portuguese and foreign scholars, thus becoming a common channel of communication and discussion.

Another important goal is to conciliate the research on different Antiquities (Pre-Classical, Classical, Biblical, Oriental) with their “reception” in later periods, i.e. how they were perceived since Antiquity itself up to contemporary times. These cultural perceptions witness a reflexion on the otherness, which becomes interesting regarding the self-consciousness that a society or culture gradually constructs. Examples of these perceptions are the Oriental expressions one finds in the 19th century European culture. This Orientalism is manifest in the literature (including the Portuguese one), in painting, in music and even in the press.

Res Antiquitatis, an yearly journal, thus emerges as an innovating project in the background of Antiquity Studies in Portugal, open to Portuguese as well as foreign authors and clearly investing in the quality and international circulation of the scientific work it embraces.

Francisco Caramelo
Editor-in-chief