Family history has become one of the most stimulating fields in Middle Eastern studies in the last two decades. The present project inscribes itself into this recent tradition and proposes to advance its agenda in several directions. First, it moves into the early modern period, covering a time frame from the 15th to the 17th century where the historical role of families remains understudied and continues to be very regionally or socially focused. Secondly, it sets out to bridge the increasing gap that exists in scholarship on the Middle East between the Persianate world and the Arab lands under Mamluk and early Ottoman rule. Geographical mobility and contact areas thus deserve our special attention. Finally, it applies the overarching concept of transmission to family history and sets out to locate dynamics of transmitting authority and knowledge inside family structures, both synchronic and diachronic. What is actually passed on can be of a very different nature: it might be mystical knowledge and spiritual authority, it might be military know-how and prowess inside amir families, or it might take the shape of political or administrative power inside constructed families or kin groups. Equally, we have to think of scribal, literary and artistic traditions which are transmitted within families of scholars and savants. They can be traced along real objects and be considered as symbolic and real manifestations of legitimacy, status, and power. Processes of transmission, thus our hypothesis, are shaped by dynamics internal and external to them. Internal with regard to the actual composition of families, external with regard to geographical, temporal and cultural factors such as tribal formations, territorial alignments, economical resources, as well as religious or ideological change. A wide range of sources is at our disposal, including archival material as well as biographical dictionaries, historical narratives and material artefacts. As we try to define the idea of “family” and the protagonists behind it, we aim to provide a better understanding of the role of families and kinship groups in Islamicate cultures before the advent of modernity.

MERYT project aims to build an accurate, complex and multi-technical absolute chronological model for the Egyptian Old Kingdom (~3000-2400 BCE), through an integrated approach bringing together all the analytical criteria of Egyptology, Archaeology and Archaeometry. As part of an interdisciplinary approach to integrative archaeology, it addresses two major issues: 1) To develop a definitive chronological framework of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, reign by reign, by building a statistical model reconciling Egyptological and analytical data; 2) To adapt the 14C IntCal calibration curve considering the specific environmental conditions in Egypt in order to make the 14C dating method more competitive for this geographical area. Supported by the Ifao archaeometry department and a consortium of Egyptologists, archaeologists, archaeometers, curators, physicists and statisticians, this project involves seven research units (Ifao, Orient&Méditerranée, Monaris, APC, LAPTH, MNHN, LMC14) and is divided into four investigation axes. Historical: for each of the ca. 30 reigns, we will re-evaluate all available chronometric evidence from archaeological, historical and textual sources in order to identify all the reign certificates and assess their reliability. Confronted with recent archaeological fieldwork, these data will make it possible to establish different possible relative chronological schemes. Archaeometrical: a database of more than hundred 14C dates will be compiled on samples from archaeological sites currently excavated and collected in a closed context. These analyses will be carried out in the only operating dating laboratory in Egypt, for which the project leader is responsible. Beyond "dating", the challenge will also be to ensure that the analyzed sample is consistent with the associated archaeological event. To do this, we will above all focus on sampling "good" specimens and clearly identifying the associated archaeological context. 14C dating will be the main analytical technique involved in the project, but all archaeometrical fields will be mobilized. Methodological: a major challenge will be to check the applicability of the 14C IntCal13 calibration curve to Egypt and, if necessary, to determine regional offsets. Possible observed discrepancies to IntCal could indeed be explained by seasonal variations in the 14CO2 content in the atmosphere, linked to the particular environmental conditions caused by the annual flooding of the Nile before the construction of the High Dam. To identify these possible offsets, we will first assess the residual 14C ratio of botanical specimens conserved in the MNHN Herbarium, collected during the French military expedition in Egypt in 1798-1801, whose year and location of harvest are documented. We will extend this study to Graeco-Roman and Arabic papyri whose year of writing is mentioned in the text, in order to estimate whether the differences observed in the 19th century were constant over time. Statistics: all the heterogeneous constraints (relative and absolute) deduced from the three previous axes will finally be combined in a strong chronological model based on a solid statistical formalism. Entirely produced by the MERYT consortium, this final model will simulate ages densities and precise estimates of their uncertainties for each reign of the Old Kingdom. MERYT will set the first absolute holistic chronology of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, reaching a consensus between Egyptologists and archaeometrists. Its impact will go far beyond Egyptology but will also, in the long term, affect our chronological knowledge of eastern Mediterranean civilizations of the 3rd millennium, largely based on Egyptian chronology, strongly highlighting the contribution of analytical and modelling approaches to archaeological research.

This project will address the problem of the compartmentalized academic study of the diverse Frankish- and Islamic-ruled societies through the first comprehensive study of Christianities in the Middle East. It aims to study the inter-Christian and Christian-Muslim interactions, on the assumption that these interactions contribute to shaping these communities. Although each Church has been partly studied for its own sake, no analysis of the cross-flows between the churches and with the sovereign powers that have ruled the Middle East from the 12th to the 16th c. has yet been carried out. It is time for a comprehensive and connected history of Christianities in the Middle East. Decompartmentalizing historiographies implies reading new archival sources along with known published texts from a connected history perspective and moving the analysis of communities from their centers to areas of contact. Jerusalem, owing to its centrality in terms of archives and practices, will be placed at the heart of the project, in tension with the regional space as a whole. ChrIs-cross has three main objectives: • To integrate the history of Christianities within the Islamicate world by identifying the actors, places and different contexts of exchange, from a bottom-up perspective; • To study the Christian communities of the Middle East at a pivotal moment, that of reconfiguration in confrontation with the progress of Islamization, through the strategies of Christian churches and communities, and the role of local authorities, both Christian and Muslim; • To provide both a global and a local vision of Jerusalem through a survey of the impact of intercommunity relations on the urban transformation, supported by a geographic information system: as a global city, Jerusalem is likely the manifestation of a plurality of interactions between the Christian and Islamic worlds, that provides a key to understanding the growing integration of the Middle Eastern region.