The National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) is a research center for ethnology and cultural anthropology.

Mirabilia Mundi: “Wonders of the World” in Comparative Perspective, Focusing on the Middle East and Europe

Joint Research Coordinator　YAMANAKA Yuriko

Reserch Theme List

Objectives

The wonders of the world which form the object of this research are referred to as mirabilia in Latin and ʿajāʾib in Arabic and Persian. This form of discourse deals with marvelous phenomena and curious beings in remote places, strange worlds, and time immemorial. Episodes like these which tell of the bizarre affairs of unknown worlds are recorded in historical chronicles, natural histories, geographies, epics and romances, and travel journals from both East and West. Many of these descriptions were passed down from the ancient world to the Middle East and Europe during the middle ages and early modern period, and shared by people in various cultural spheres.

This joint research team will be comprised of experts in literature and history of the Middle East and Europe. Through their cooperation we hope to compare the wonders of the world from various historical periods and regions, in terms of diffusion processes, differences in world view, and dynamism of cultural interchanges, addressing the following three pivotal issues.

  1. Frameworks for genres and classification of motifs
  2. Diffusion of knowledge and changes in world views
  3. Religious, linguistic and cultural particularities and trans-regional universality