Climate Change, Pandemics and Transformation - A Climate-Historical Database for 3rd c. Roman Egypt

It is typically deemed good practice for comprehensive historical research to consider all possible factors influencing the time period at hand. Oftentimes, this can be hindered by disciplinary boundaries and limitations, or lack of access to needed expertise. Utilizing the case study of Third Century CE Roman Egypt, a period featuring large-scale transformations across the Roman Empire, »The Roman Egypt Laboratory« (2021–2025) in Basel has begun synthesizing the climate historical evidence in hopes of providing a clearer picture of the challenges faced by the population during this time, and their possible causes.
Due to the collaborative nature of the project, conducting a more comprehensive survey of the period's historical evidence is accompanied by several cross-disciplinary challenges (differences in dating, categories, and even technical vocabulary). This thesis aims to provide the necessary synergy by realizing the aim of conceptualizing an interdisciplinary database, facing the unique responsibility of effectively combining historical, archaeological and climate historical proxies within a single overarching chronological framework.
The three-part thesis includes a) a discourse on responsible database etiquette and handling (in the humanities and historical sciences in particular), b) the development of a data(base) model while considering challenges facing humanities databases and c) the consideration of the climate historical datatypes relevant to Third Century CE Egypt. Underlining the compelling opportunities that lie in combining the historical and natural sciences, the thesis makes the case for embracing the individualities of academic fields in a structured manner to make the most of interdisciplinary research.