Ecumene

This is a heartfelt and well-deserved academic tribute, but also one of friendship and camaraderie, to Prof. Dr. Margherita Bonanno Aravantinos, a distinguished classical archaeologist whose long and fruitful career stands out for its everlasting fruits as a teacher and researcher, but also as a teacher, friend, wife and mother. A large group of colleagues, disciples and, above all, friends, have wanted to unite their efforts and offer Prof. Bonanno, the fruit of their work as a gift and a token of gratitude and recognition. Italian, Greek, Spanish and German archaeologists and historians draw a chronological arc that runs through the Mediterranean with arguments extending from the pre-Hellenic world to Late Antiquity and focused on topics and epicentres of Greco-Roman culture. Hence the main title of this work. The inhabited land or ecumene was in Antiquity the whole of the world known and defined by Greco-Roman culture. A cultured and civilised world structured by the Mare Nostrum, in particular tributary to Greece, Rome and other peripheral cultures. The ecumene was first the land inhabited by the Greeks and later the Roman Empire, with its immense territories bathed by the Mediterranean waters. This concept of universality, later adopted by Christianity and still present today, is a constant that defines and shapes the life of Margherita Bonanno. Deeply rooted in Italy, her homeland, and Greece, her adopted country, her Mediterranean links, especially with the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, have marked her academic life and her personal experience.