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History and archive
History of the working group
The international working group "Marburg Dialogues on Ancient Healing Arts" is the direct successor of the Interdisciplinary Working Group "Ancient Medicine" of the Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) Mainz. This came into being in November 1980 during a meeting at the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Free University of Berlin and was established as a forum for mutual exchange on ongoing research projects in the field of Ancient Medicine. In annual meetings since 1981, the working group met at the JGU in Mainz.
The organizational leadership of the IAK "Ancient Medicine" was in the joint hands of Klaus-Dietrich Fischer and Werner F. Kümmel for about twenty years. In 2011 Tanja Pommerening became the chairwoman of the working group. With her appointment on 23.10.2020 to the W3 professorship at the Institute of the History of Pharmacy and Medicine in Marburg, the working group also found a new home. Together with Nils P. Heeßel, the profile of the working group was expanded and the format of the annual meetings was extended in favor of more space for discussions. Therefore, the working group henceforth bears the name "Marburg Dialogues on Ancient Healing Arts" ("Marburger Gespräche zu Alten Heilkunde" (MGAH)). The annual meetings are now held at University of Marburg.