Die Wüsten der Griechen

The Greeks had been present in the arid zones of the southern and eastern Mediterranean since the beginnings of the archaic age. The environment of the desert produced vastly different experiences from those in their spaces of origin and their descriptions were for a long time viewed as mere mythic fragments or fantasies. By employing interdisciplinary methods however, it is possible to identify the various layers of the construction of environmental spaces and to make visible how their spatial production proceeded. Deserts offer a unique opportunity to understand the discovery and the implementation of an environment into an existing system of meaning within Greek culture and thereby to better understand the patterns involved in constructing the categories of “nature” and “space” in general.