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Eivind Heldaas Seland
Photo: Eivind Senneset

Eivind Heldaas Seland

Position

Professor, ancient history and premodern global history, vice dean for research

Affiliation

E-mail
eivind.seland@uib.no
Phone number
+47 55583111
Visitor address
Dokkevein 2b
5007 Bergen
Room: 508
Postal address
P.O. Box 7805
NO-5020 Bergen
Norway

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Eivind Heldaas Seland

Position

Professor, ancient history and premodern global history, vice dean for research

Affiliation

Research

 

Most of my research addresses how economy, environment, political power, and ideology/religion interacted in early states/complex societies in the the ancient world. In particular I work with the Indian Ocean/Red Sea region and the Near East, but I am also interested in the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Currently I am investigating how the physical environment influenced travel and communication along both sea and land routes. I also study how historians, archaeologists and paleoclimatologists have cast climate as an agent of historical change, in order to identify good models of climate-society interrelation. Over the next years (2024–2027), I'll be taking part in the project SILKROMO: Like Islands in a Sea of Sand. Understanding the Silk Roads of Late Antiquity as a layered network model, funded by the Research Council of Norway.

I'm also interested in the use and reception of ancient history in later periods. Together with my colleague Ingvar Mæhle I coordinate a research group on that topic. 

2020-2022 I had the pleasure of supervising the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie-IF-projects of Francesca Mazzilli, Regional Religious Networks in the Roman Empire (RENE)and Tomas Glomb, Favorable Conditions of the Spread of the Cult of Asclepius across the Transportation Network of the Roman Mediterranean: A Quantitative Evaluation (ASCNET).

With colleagues I have been co-organizing the exploratory workshop series: Globalization, Urbanization and Urban Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Roman and Early Islamic periods, funded by The Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2018-2019).

2013 to 2017 I was principal investigtor of the project "Mechanisms of cross-cultural interaction: Networks in the Roman Near East", funded by the Research council of Norway. The project investigated networks of commercial, religious and political nature within and across fluctuating imperial borders in the Near East in the Roman period. My postdoc was on the trade of Palmyra, Syria and how it related to the different overland and maritime networks of the ancient world. I have also worked with Indian Ocean trade and global history, and continue to engage with all these topics.

 

Publications
2024
2021
2009
2014
2012
2017
2005
2018
2007
2010
2008
2006
2013
2016
2004
2015
2011
2023
2025
2020
2022
2019
2003
2001

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

Projects

2024-2027: Like Islands in a Sea of Sand. Understanding the Silk Roads of Late Antiquity as a layered network model (SILKROMO), Research Council of Norway, partner.

2020-2022 I supervise the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie-IF-projects of Francesca Mazzilli, Regional Religious Networks in the Roman Empire and Tomas Glomb, Favorable Conditions of the Spread of the Cult of Asclepius across the Transportation Network of the Roman Mediterranean: A Quantitative Evaluation. 

Globalization, Urbanization and Urban Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Roman and Early Islamic periods. Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) exploratory workshops grant (partner 2018-2019)

Mechanisms of cross-cultural interaction: Networks in the Roman Near East (Project manager 2013-2016)

Local dynamics of globalization in the pre-modern Levant (core group member 2014-15)

Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan Trade between Orient and Occident (Postdoc 2009-2012)