Alexander Dale

Alexander Dale obtained his DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2009, with a thesis on the lyric fragments of Callimachus (comprising a new text and commentary) and the Greek lyric tradition. His primary areas of research interest and expertise are Greek poetry, particularly of the Archaic and Hellenistic periods; Greek meter and literary papyrology; and historical linguistics, particularly of the Greek and Anatolian branches of Indo-European.

His research project at ISAW focuses on the nature and extent of the influence of the Anatolian languages and cultures of the second and first millennia BC on early archaic Greek language and literature in the east Aegean and Asia Minor. Recent developments in our understanding of the linguistic identity and geographical distribution of Anatolian language speakers in Asia Minor (from Luwian in the second millennium to Lydian, Carian, and Lycian in the first) make it possible for the first time to attempt a comprehensive account of the reception of Luwo-Hittite language and culture in archaic Greece. In particular, rather than seeking to identify vaguely-defined ‘eastern influence’, this project seeks to unravel the various strands of Anatolian influence in Greek, and to clarify what can be described as specifically Luwian influence (entailing cultural contact in the Late Bronze Age), as well as specific instances of cultural contact with Lydians and Carians in the historical period. A further consideration will be whether a ‘Luwo-Hittite bridge’ might be a better model of transmission in some cases for specifically Mesopotamian elements in early Greek poetry and myth, rather than trade-driven contact with the Levant in the Late Iron Age / early Archaic period.