Ancient Weather Perspectives

This project investigates the way in which weather influenced the lives of people in Late Antiquity. Weather in classical antiquity has raised considerable interest in recent years, with a focus on climate change and natural disasters. In this project, however, the period of (long) Late Antiquity (4th-7th century AD) is central, with a focus on 'normal', everyday weather and its representation in Greek and Latin sources.
In cooperation with Ghent University, we organize an international and transdisciplinary conference (2026) in order to retrieve late antique reflections on weather, the distribution and transmission of meteorological sources from Antiquity, religious representations (literary and visual) of weather and the agency of weather in late antique sources. The results from this wide-range of case-studies are linked to the actual weather conditions in several climate zones of the Ancient world.
The proceedings of this conference will be published.