Janric van Rookhuijzen
My research (awarded with a VENI grant by the Dutch Research Council, a research stipend by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and the Early Career Award by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) concerns the symbolism, archaeology and reception history of the Acropolis of Athens, in particular that of the so-called 'Parthenon' and its predecessors, as well as the Temple of Athena Polias (incorrectly known as the 'Erechtheion'). I intend to shed light on the role which these monuments played in the formation of Greek, European and Western identities, and to disentangle stories about enemy action (for example destruction and desecration by Persians and Turks) embedded within the discourse surrounding them. My research aims at tracing the role of such stories in a reviewed architectural history and topographical reconstruction of the Acropolis temples.
This interest emerged from my doctoral work at Radboud University, Nijmegen (2018, cum laude), in which I explored the complex relation between Herodotus' account of Xerxes' invasion of Greece (480-479 BCE) and the landscapes of Greece and Anatolia. In my dissertation monograph, which appeared with De Gruyter as "Herodotus and the Topography of Xerxes' Invasion. Place and Memory in Greece and Anatolia", I argue that this account may partly be a product of Greek imagination in the c. fifty years between the Persian Wars and its publication (c. 430 BCE), with the landscape functioning as a catalyst: there is much evidence that suggests that traditions about the wars had sprung up around monuments, temples and natural landmarks.
In 2023, I published a Dutch-language book “De Akropolis van Athene. Geschiedenis van een mythisch icoon.” It won the Homer Award of the Dutch Classics Association for the best book in Classics.
I regularly teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Ancient History, Classical Archaeology and Ancient Greek.
For more information, please contact me at [email protected]
This interest emerged from my doctoral work at Radboud University, Nijmegen (2018, cum laude), in which I explored the complex relation between Herodotus' account of Xerxes' invasion of Greece (480-479 BCE) and the landscapes of Greece and Anatolia. In my dissertation monograph, which appeared with De Gruyter as "Herodotus and the Topography of Xerxes' Invasion. Place and Memory in Greece and Anatolia", I argue that this account may partly be a product of Greek imagination in the c. fifty years between the Persian Wars and its publication (c. 430 BCE), with the landscape functioning as a catalyst: there is much evidence that suggests that traditions about the wars had sprung up around monuments, temples and natural landmarks.
In 2023, I published a Dutch-language book “De Akropolis van Athene. Geschiedenis van een mythisch icoon.” It won the Homer Award of the Dutch Classics Association for the best book in Classics.
I regularly teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Ancient History, Classical Archaeology and Ancient Greek.
For more information, please contact me at [email protected]
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Articles by Janric van Rookhuijzen
For the full paper (available in open access), see https://www.ajaonline.org/archaeological-note/4814
The Acropolis of Athens enjoys a very wide interest among scholars and the general public. Our understanding of the site depends on the application of names transmitted in ancient texts to extant structures. However, this is a difficult undertaking and the current interpretations of the topography of the Acropolis are beset with problems. The present article is a succinct rendering of two earlier articles in which the author challenges the conventional identifications of two buildings mentioned in ancient texts: a treasury called Parthenōn (normally identified with a part of the Great Temple of Athena) and a sanctuary called Erechtheion (normally identified with all or part of the Karyatid Temple). Whereas these buildings are normally discussed separately, they are here studied together. The author proposes to identify the Parthenōn treasury with the west part of the Karyatid Temple (conventionally known as the Erechtheion) on the north side of the Acropolis, in which the (Ancient) Temple of Athena Polias was also located. An alternative name for the Parthenōn treasury may have been Temple of Pandrosos. In turn, the Erechtheion was possibly located on the foundation in the middle of the Acropolis discovered by Wilhelm Dörpfeld in 1885. It may have been known in inscriptions as the Kekropion.
To read the paper, visit: https://brill.com/display/book/9789004534513/BP000007.xml
For ordering information, please visit: http://www.babesch.org/subscriptions.html
L’emplacement du temple du roi mythique Érechthée, connu sous le nom d’Érechthéion, sur l’Acropole d’Athènes est un vieux problème topographique. Au fil des siècles, l’identification traditionnelle de l’Érechthéion avec une partie du temple des Caryatides dans la partie nord de l’Acropole a suscité de nombreux doutes. D’autres emplacements proposés n’ont toutefois pas été communément acceptés. Le présent article analyse tout d’abord le problème et les propositions antérieures. Il examine ensuite l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’Érechthéion était situé sur la « fondation Dörpfeld » au milieu de l’Acropole, le site d’un bâtiment archaïque détruit par les Perses en 480 avant notre ère. De nombreux savants situent déjà la version archaïque de l’Érechthéion dans une partie de ce bâtiment et supposent qu’après sa destruction, l’Érechthéion a été déplacé vers le temple des Caryatides. Le présent article soutient que l’Érechthéion n’a pas été déplacé, mais qu’il a continué à être reconnu dans la fondation Dörpfeld jusqu’à la fin de l’Antiquité.
Please refer to the Kernos website to order the volume: http://web.philo.ulg.ac.be/kernos/
Please refer to the following link for the full article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3764/aja.124.1.0003
While scholars have long acknowledged the limitations of Herodotus’ Histories as a historical source, Herodotus’ topography of the Persian Wars is still usually seen as historically reliable information. This article, by contrast, aims at showing that memory studies offers an attractive means to understand this layer of information, as the alleged locations of events do not, in many cases, necessarily reflect the historical situation; instead, these places may, for various reasons, have been designated as such in local traditions in the c. fifty years between the wars and Herodotus’ research. As a case in point, this article discusses the topography of Herodotus’ story of the Persian shipwreck along the coasts of Thessaly before the battle of Artemision in 480 BC (Hdt. 7.183, 7.188, 7.191-2). It argues that the attitude among scholars to automatically regard the locations in this account as historically correct has created various problems; in doing so, it identifies the elusive place of Sepias with the coasts near the town of Veneto where a remarkable cluster of sea caves (the so-called ‘Ovens’) plausibly formed an ‘anchor’ for the myth of the abduction of Thetis by Peleus, as well as for the Persian shipwreck.
This article investigates the topography in Herodotus’ account of Xerxes’ visit to the Troad in 480 BC, which consists of Mount Ida, the Scamander River, the Temple of Athena Ilias at Troy and the tumuli in the surrounding landscape. It suggests that this episode, rather than taking us back to historical events of 480 BC, may (partly) be a product of Greek imagination in the c. fifty years between Xerxes’ invasion of Greece and the publication of the Histories, with the landscape of the Troad functioning as a catalyst. To this end, the article traces these places’ Iliadic associations, exposes several topographical problems, and explains how the stories frame Xerxes’ visit as hubristic. While the article is not concerned with the historicity of the episode per se, it suggests that this historicity cannot automatically be accepted, as has hitherto generally been done.
Conference Presentations by Janric van Rookhuijzen
Reviews by Janric van Rookhuijzen
Books by Janric van Rookhuijzen
Bestellen via:
https://uitgeverijprometheus.nl/boeken/akropolis-van-athene-gebonden/
(The Acropolis of Athens is an iconic rock rising in the capital of Greece. It is considered the main tourist destination for visitors to Athens. The Acropolis is dominated by classical temples - for many, the pinnacle of Greece or even all of "Western" civilization. But behind this spectacular facade lies an unknown wealth of history and stories. In the Middle Ages, the largest temple housed a Christian cathedral. Then the same space was used as a mosque, in the midst of a lively Turkish garrison village. And in the 19th century, the Acropolis became a symbol of the resurrection of classical Greece. In this book, Eric Moormann and Janric van Rookhuijzen illuminate the history of the Acropolis from the Bronze Age to the twenty-first century. In addition to classical Athenians, they also allow unknown figures from other times to emerge from the shadows. This is high time, because like no other monument, the Acropolis, with its heavy symbolic and political baggage, shows how the "West" has dealt with its own past.)
Papers by Janric van Rookhuijzen
For the full paper (available in open access), see https://www.ajaonline.org/archaeological-note/4814
The Acropolis of Athens enjoys a very wide interest among scholars and the general public. Our understanding of the site depends on the application of names transmitted in ancient texts to extant structures. However, this is a difficult undertaking and the current interpretations of the topography of the Acropolis are beset with problems. The present article is a succinct rendering of two earlier articles in which the author challenges the conventional identifications of two buildings mentioned in ancient texts: a treasury called Parthenōn (normally identified with a part of the Great Temple of Athena) and a sanctuary called Erechtheion (normally identified with all or part of the Karyatid Temple). Whereas these buildings are normally discussed separately, they are here studied together. The author proposes to identify the Parthenōn treasury with the west part of the Karyatid Temple (conventionally known as the Erechtheion) on the north side of the Acropolis, in which the (Ancient) Temple of Athena Polias was also located. An alternative name for the Parthenōn treasury may have been Temple of Pandrosos. In turn, the Erechtheion was possibly located on the foundation in the middle of the Acropolis discovered by Wilhelm Dörpfeld in 1885. It may have been known in inscriptions as the Kekropion.
To read the paper, visit: https://brill.com/display/book/9789004534513/BP000007.xml
For ordering information, please visit: http://www.babesch.org/subscriptions.html
L’emplacement du temple du roi mythique Érechthée, connu sous le nom d’Érechthéion, sur l’Acropole d’Athènes est un vieux problème topographique. Au fil des siècles, l’identification traditionnelle de l’Érechthéion avec une partie du temple des Caryatides dans la partie nord de l’Acropole a suscité de nombreux doutes. D’autres emplacements proposés n’ont toutefois pas été communément acceptés. Le présent article analyse tout d’abord le problème et les propositions antérieures. Il examine ensuite l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’Érechthéion était situé sur la « fondation Dörpfeld » au milieu de l’Acropole, le site d’un bâtiment archaïque détruit par les Perses en 480 avant notre ère. De nombreux savants situent déjà la version archaïque de l’Érechthéion dans une partie de ce bâtiment et supposent qu’après sa destruction, l’Érechthéion a été déplacé vers le temple des Caryatides. Le présent article soutient que l’Érechthéion n’a pas été déplacé, mais qu’il a continué à être reconnu dans la fondation Dörpfeld jusqu’à la fin de l’Antiquité.
Please refer to the Kernos website to order the volume: http://web.philo.ulg.ac.be/kernos/
Please refer to the following link for the full article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3764/aja.124.1.0003
While scholars have long acknowledged the limitations of Herodotus’ Histories as a historical source, Herodotus’ topography of the Persian Wars is still usually seen as historically reliable information. This article, by contrast, aims at showing that memory studies offers an attractive means to understand this layer of information, as the alleged locations of events do not, in many cases, necessarily reflect the historical situation; instead, these places may, for various reasons, have been designated as such in local traditions in the c. fifty years between the wars and Herodotus’ research. As a case in point, this article discusses the topography of Herodotus’ story of the Persian shipwreck along the coasts of Thessaly before the battle of Artemision in 480 BC (Hdt. 7.183, 7.188, 7.191-2). It argues that the attitude among scholars to automatically regard the locations in this account as historically correct has created various problems; in doing so, it identifies the elusive place of Sepias with the coasts near the town of Veneto where a remarkable cluster of sea caves (the so-called ‘Ovens’) plausibly formed an ‘anchor’ for the myth of the abduction of Thetis by Peleus, as well as for the Persian shipwreck.
This article investigates the topography in Herodotus’ account of Xerxes’ visit to the Troad in 480 BC, which consists of Mount Ida, the Scamander River, the Temple of Athena Ilias at Troy and the tumuli in the surrounding landscape. It suggests that this episode, rather than taking us back to historical events of 480 BC, may (partly) be a product of Greek imagination in the c. fifty years between Xerxes’ invasion of Greece and the publication of the Histories, with the landscape of the Troad functioning as a catalyst. To this end, the article traces these places’ Iliadic associations, exposes several topographical problems, and explains how the stories frame Xerxes’ visit as hubristic. While the article is not concerned with the historicity of the episode per se, it suggests that this historicity cannot automatically be accepted, as has hitherto generally been done.
Bestellen via:
https://uitgeverijprometheus.nl/boeken/akropolis-van-athene-gebonden/
(The Acropolis of Athens is an iconic rock rising in the capital of Greece. It is considered the main tourist destination for visitors to Athens. The Acropolis is dominated by classical temples - for many, the pinnacle of Greece or even all of "Western" civilization. But behind this spectacular facade lies an unknown wealth of history and stories. In the Middle Ages, the largest temple housed a Christian cathedral. Then the same space was used as a mosque, in the midst of a lively Turkish garrison village. And in the 19th century, the Acropolis became a symbol of the resurrection of classical Greece. In this book, Eric Moormann and Janric van Rookhuijzen illuminate the history of the Acropolis from the Bronze Age to the twenty-first century. In addition to classical Athenians, they also allow unknown figures from other times to emerge from the shadows. This is high time, because like no other monument, the Acropolis, with its heavy symbolic and political baggage, shows how the "West" has dealt with its own past.)