The History of Greco-Roman Religions in the Light of Cultural Evolution: A Computational Text Analysis of Ancient Greek Inscriptions
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Studying Religion, Past and Present: Essays in Honor of Panayotis Pachis |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/studying-religion-past-and-present-9781350340015/ |
| Keywords | Cultural evolution; ancient religions; quantitative textual analysis; Greek epigraphy |
| Description | This study contributes to the debate on the cultural evolution of religion by examining the emergence of moralizing religions in historical Greece within the broader Ancient Mediterranean context. The research explores the perspective of the so-called Affluence Hypothesis. The Affluence hypothesis suggests that moralizing religions emerge in environments with increased economic prosperity, for example during the Axial Age in the ancient Mediterranean. This study employs quantitative analysis of digital datasets of Greek epigraphy to test the relationships between morality and religious domains across time and whether moralizing religious motifs are more frequent in these data in times of increased affluence based on the Development Index for ancient Greece developed by Josiah Ober. |
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