This conference series was launched in 1999 by Professor György Németh, who was then the Head of the Department of Classical Philology and Ancient History at the Faculty of Humanities (BTK) of the University of Debrecen. At present, he is a professor at the Department of Ancient History at the Faculty of Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest (ELTE). As a result of his sustained efforts, the professional symposium has by now expanded to reach beyond national confines in order to function and be recognized at the international level.
- During the twenty-five years since the first roundtable held in Debrecen, we have managed to host as many as ten Hungarian and five international epigraphic conferences here, and we have also attended conventions in Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Timișoara, Sibiu, and Vienna- said Professor Péter Forisek in his opening address delivered on behalf of the Department of Classical Philology and Ancient History at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Debrecen.
In this address, the chief organizer of the conference underlined that this current event is indeed a special occasion because it not only offers a forum for presenting the latest research findings but also pays homage to the scholar who founded the Debrecen conference series and has remained an active participant and supporter of it ever since.
- Professor György Németh has arrived at a significant milestone in his life and professional career this year, which is why we would also wish to use the present event to pay tribute to his scholarly work and his achievements as a university professor- said Péter Forisek.
In addition to scholars from Hungarian universities, such as UD, ELTE, the National University of Public Service, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Semmelweis University and the University of Szeged, participants also included representatives of neighboring countries from Romania (Babeș-Bolyai University at Cluj-Napoca’s, the University of Iași, Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy, the University of Timișoara, and the Oradea Museum), as well as from the Universities of Vienna, Sofia and Podgorica, the Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade, the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra and the Csallóköz Museum in Dunajska Streda.
The talks and presentations delivered at the conference featured, among others, topics such as the Carpathian Basin in the Bronze Age, the Danube region during the Roman era (including Pannonia, now Transdanubia, Dacia, present-day Transylvania, Moesia, modern-day Bulgaria, and Dalmatia), the Roman provinces in ancient Anatolia, as well as elections in Roman municipal governments and the history of Roman law.
The event also honored György Németh, the founder of the conference, former head of the Department of Classical Philology and Ancient History at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Debrecen, currently professor at ELTE, Budapest, whose work and achievements was laudated by Péter Forisek. Preofessor Forisek gave György Németh our institution’s medal, the bronze level of the Pro Universitate Debreceniensi 2000 Award, which was bestowed by the leadership of the University of Debrecen for the top-level academic and teaching activities at the University of Debrecen and its legal predecessor, Kossuth Lajos University, as well as for establishing the network of international relations at his former department.
The papers and talks given at the conference, just like the proceedings published in 2022 under the title Defending the Polis - Defending the Empire and in 2024 under the title The Danubian Region and the Balkans during the Roman Empire in Military Inscriptions, are soon to be made accessible in the Studia Epigraphica Pannonica Supplementum series by Phoibos Verlag in Vienna.
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