This research project aims at reconstructing the African History that is relatively underdeveloped in Japan. In order to realize this, the project organized many study meetings with Japanese and overseas scholars who are specialized in other subjects than African History.The basic plan of the project is to attach more importance to the changes and developments of material culture than to the political vicissitudes of the continent. It procures primary historical materials through the visit of the archives or the archeological excavations. It could unearth big buildings totally made of stone which can be the trace of a royal palace of the 10th century. It could also demonstrate intense manufacturing activities before the arrival of Islam in the continent.
As the project has succeeded in finding new date on the past events in Africa and a new method to write societies without the state, we are now preparing a series of books on the African History.

We investigated the roles and implications of Socio-Economic Networks between Mediterranean islands. The results of our research were as follows: firstly, data collected concerning to habitants’ daily lives, secondly, analysis of their attitudes toward the outer world of their own island, thirdly, careful survey on the implications of historical and contemporary investigations on so-called “Mediterranean World”.

From 2007 to 2009, we held symposiums and workshops on "Shikoku-Henro and the Pilgrimages of the World". We had 31 presentations in three years, all of which were published in the proceedings of our project. We researched Shikoku-Henro, Kumano-Sankei, and Saigoku-Junrei in Japan, and 10 pilgrimages in other parts of the world, which cover the Christian world-eastern parts of the ancient Mediterranean, medieval Europe, medieval and early modern Spain, and medieval and modern England-, ancient Greece, and Asia-medieval China, contemporary Korea, medieval Mongol, medieval Egypt, and medieval Java. According to our comparative study, the common feature of the Japanese pilgrimages and the Christian pilgrimages is that medieval and early modern people wished for both their spiritual salvation in the other world and benefits in this world.

This Project was organized for clarification of the formation process of historical civilization in West Africa, especially in eastern part of the Boucle du Historical researches on formation of civilization and states in West Africa were until now largely centered on western part of the region, as Timbuktu or as Kumbi Saleh. On the other hand research in the eastern part of the region was very limited. The aim of our project is to complement of this lack of study. We focused our research on the ancient city of Gao and its surrounding region.
We made a multi-disciplinary team of Japanese anthropologists, historian and paleontologist, and Malian archeologists. TAKEZAWA and NAKAYA executed archeological excavation of the site called Mosque of Kanku Musa in Gao city in collaboration with Malian archeologists. They found a large stone construction with many glass beads and fragments of-imported glass or ceramic pots. It suggests that the site was a part of Royal Palace, which must be much older than the time of King Kanku Musa (14th century). SAKAI and OTOSHI executed historical research on the tomb stones with arabic inscriptions in Gao-Sane, which formed very possibly a twin city with ancient Gao, and also in its surrounding region.
Archeological excavation of Royal Palace of Gao is not yet completed. We must wait the termination of the excavation to make conclusion of our project concerning the formation process of historical civilization in West Africa.

During the term of this project, We opened totally sixteen study meetings at Sophia University/Tokyo, in which the total number of twenty-six investigators and ten invited guest reporters presented their reports.
The investigators conducted severally their field inquiries, whose regions extended almost through all the area of Europe and North Africa, namely England, France, Spain, Italia, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Russia.
Also, having given further comparative study to Sikoku-Junrei, the head investigator SEKI and OOTOSHI who took part in the international symposium of "Sikoku-Junrei and the Pilgrimages of the World" in Ehime University/Matsuyama at 5-6 November, 2005, extended their knowledge.
As a result, we reached the following some summarized aspects :
(1) The great three Religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) in the Pan-Mediterranean World characterized by Monotheism, find in Pilgrimage phenomenon something congenial to themselves, but they have been remarkably different in the doctrines and system of religious organizations.
(2) The Pilgrimage was regarded as the act of religious piety, but always involves the elements of popular religion, so had to be controlled by the authority. It is the healing from disease that was the main motive of the masses of people who have been put spurs to pilgrimage.
(3) The three monotheistic religions have recognized common sacred places and same saints, because Judaism was the origin of Christianity and Muslim.
(4) In order to grasp the Pan-Mediterranean World, it is essential that not only the opinions of religious authorities but also pilgrimage as expression of the popular religion must be noticed.
(5) It is very important that the investigator have a personal experience of field survey and actual pilgrimage.

This research on "propagation" and "conversion" was a tentative project to turn the crisis of representation into an academic chance, in order to re-examine the logic of spontaneous extension of each religious tradition and to study the historical situations as a result. The main purposes were as follows:1) to re-construct a more suitable conception of "religion" on the basis of a new typology (orthodoxy & orthopraxy) instead of an old ethno-centric one (monotheism & polytheism), 2) to re-cover a wider range of research topics for religions study, with the dynamism of modernity contextualized on politico-econo-cultural factors such as nationalism, colonialism and orientalism.
It was through the re-examination of various historical cases that our research meetings held four times as the last project year gave birth to the following ideas:
On propagation and conversion
a)various patterns of missionary process concerning the native customs and languages,
b)world-historical constellation of non-missionary type religions,
c)various patterns of conversions to modernities.
On typology of relirions
a)Christianity as an ideal type of religion (equivalence of practice & belief)
b)limits of comparative method for Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Shintoism (orthodoxy & orthopraxy)
c)Japanese model for religion and so-called animism
These ideas will provide us with valuable leads to solve the outsider/insider problem based on the insoluble border image of each religion

First, after scrutinizing various studies and historical materials relating to the Egyptian City of the Dead, we copied some of them in the form of microfilm, especially those materials from the Egyptian National Library. Next, the databasing of buried individuals in the vast Egyptian City of the Dead was carried out. Data from descriptions of Ziyara Books (guidebooks for people visiting cemeteries). were databased in information sheets. The items recorded for each buried person included: name (including nisba, agnomen and nickname), sex, dates of birth and death, general information concerning his/her family, family lineage, physical features, occupation, places inhabited, intellectual background (lineage of the Hadith, law school, theological school, teachers and disciples, education, writings, sufism, tariqa, etc.), karama (miracle/virtue) stories of the dead, and information concerning the tomb (location, shape, material, history, customs, and the content of prayers). In spite of the difficulties involved, we were able to decipher the content of Ziyara texts, and determine the total number of persons whose burials were documented there in. We accumulate a considerable amount of data, and although the database is not complete, the foundation for future research has been laid. Third, from this material, we extracted the information exclusive to sufism, and analyzed as a case study. Through this, we elucidated the development of sufism and reilgious institutions in the Medieval Egyptian society. Fourth, tombs and their visiting circuit were field-surveyed. During this fieldwork, we gathered information from the current residents. In addition, through mapping the topography of cemeteries and analyzing the process of its transformation over the centuries, treatises were composed which present correlations between historical materials and the spatial composition of the cemeteries.

本年度はまず、設定課題に沿って関連史料の閲覧・蒐集に努めた。その結果、現地エジプトにおいて写本・文書史料を閲覧後、エジプトおよび欧米の研究機関から主として写本史料をマイクロフィルムの形で招来することが出来た。その際の現地機関としてはエジプト国立図書館、アラブ連盟大学写本研究所ど、欧米の機関名としてはブリティシュ・ライブラリー、プリンストン大学図書館他が挙げられる。これらの史料分析・検討に加え、現地エジプトにおけるフィールドワークの成果も織り込んだ上で発表したのが、「エジプト・ムスリム社会の聖墓参詣と共同体意識」(『地域の世界史』第8巻「信仰の世界史」所収論文、山川出版社、1997年刊行予定)である。そこにおいては、12〜15世紀を中心として、カイロのいわゆる「死者の街」参詣の歴史的民族誌を史料から再構成し、そのうえで死者の街というメッカ以外の求心地が創出されることによって、来るべき国民国家の下地をなす共同体意識が醸成されたと推論した。さらにこの間のフィールドワークの副産物として、エジプトの少数派キリスト教徒の生活実態も報告した(「コブト・キリスト教徒」、「アラブ」所収、河出書房新社、1997年刊行予定)。
次いで、以上の研究をさらに進め、オスマン朝のエジプト支配初期(16〜17世紀)におけるエジプトの参詣慣行と参詣地であった死者の街の実態についても、写本史料研究を深化させる形で検討することができた。その結果、同時期には以前からの聖墓参詣慣行が基本的に継続して窺えるものの、今後、年代記史料・地誌などによる建築物の研究、そして、旅行記史料による参詣慣行の実態研究を援用してゆく必要が痛感された。このオスマン朝期の参詣に関しては、京都大学東洋史研究会大会(1996年11月3日)、九州史学会大会(同12月15日)において学会研究報告を行った。今後もフィールドワークの成果を踏まえ、人類学等隣接諸学の方法と成果を併用した歴史研究によって、中東イスラム世界における聖者崇敬・聖墓参詣研究をいっそう深めてゆく所存である。

This research group has focussed in the past two years on problems pertaining to interregional networks of minority groups in the Mediterranean coastal cities, both from a contemporary perspective and the historical viewpoint. In the former case, problems must be considered in the framework of the so-called nation state. Members of the group are specialists in various parts of the Mediterranean world with long time of research experience in the areas concerned. We have especially emphasized the analyzes of residential and occupational situations of the minority groups and the formation of various kinds of minority group organizations. We chose the following groups as research samples : Copts and Jews in Egypt ; Greek orthodoxy minority and Jews in Turkey, Turcs in the western Trace ; Jews, Arabs and Albanians in Italy ; Jews in Morocco ; Jews of different origins in Israel. We have held many interviews with sample informants, and collected source materials necessary to conduct the research. We also, when possible, tried to investigate official statistics. We hold regular monthly research meetings at Hitotsubashi University, in order to exchange opinions and integrate the results of the research of the members into the research scheme of the research group. Regarding the publication of our two year achievements, we are now preparing the publication of our collected papers written in European languages, which will constitute the fifteenth volume of the series of the publications of this research group. Each paper will constitute reports of case studies as well as presentations of comparative viewpoints.