Download or read book Spolia in Fortifications and the Common Builder in Late Antiquity written by Jon M. Frey and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through intensive surveys of three fortifications in late Roman Greece, Frey reveals the untapped potential of spolia in demonstrating the critical role played by non-elites in bringing about the architectural and social changes that mark the end of classical antiquity. As his analysis demonstrates, when studied less as displaced objects to be classified by type and more as evidence for the construction process itself, spolia offer a unique opportunity to examine the ways in which common builders met the challenge of using pre-existing building materials to meet their contemporary architectural needs. This “bottom-up” approach offers an alternative to the traditional view that attributes change and innovation only to the genius of prominent individuals known to us in historical sources.

Download or read book Speaking Through Spolia written by Jon Michael Frey and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 1086 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book City Walls in Late Antiquity written by Emanuele Intagliata and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The construction of urban defences was one of the hallmarks of the late Roman and late-antique periods (300–600 AD) throughout the western and eastern empire. City walls were the most significant construction projects of their time and they redefined the urban landscape. Their appearance and monumental scale, as well as the cost of labour and material, are easily comparable to projects from the High Empire; however, urban circuits provided late-antique towns with a new means of self-representation. While their final appearance and construction techniques varied greatly, the cost involved and the dramatic impact that such projects had on the urban topography of late-antique cities mark city walls as one of the most important urban initiatives of the period. To-date, research on city walls in the two halves of the empire has highlighted chronological and regional variations, enabling scholars to rethink how and why urban circuits were built and functioned in Late Antiquity. Although these developments have made a significant contribution to the understanding of late-antique city walls, studies are often concerned with one single monument/small group of monuments or a particular region, and the issues raised do not usually lead to a broader perspective, creating an artificial divide between east and west. It is this broader understanding that this book seeks to provide. The volume and its contributions arise from a conference held at the British School at Rome and the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome on June 20-21, 2018. It includes articles from world-leading experts in late-antique history and archaeology and is based around important themes that emerged at the conference, such as construction, spolia-use, late-antique architecture, culture and urbanism, empire-wide changes in Late Antiquity, and the perception of this practice by local inhabitants.

Download or read book City Walls in Late Antiquity written by Emanuele Intagliata and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The construction of urban defences was one of the hallmarks of the late Roman and late-antique periods (300–600 AD) throughout the western and eastern empire. City walls were the most significant construction projects of their time and they redefined the urban landscape. Their appearance and monumental scale, as well as the cost of labour and material, are easily comparable to projects from the High Empire; however, urban circuits provided late-antique towns with a new means of self-representation. While their final appearance and construction techniques varied greatly, the cost involved and the dramatic impact that such projects had on the urban topography of late-antique cities mark city walls as one of the most important urban initiatives of the period. To-date, research on city walls in the two halves of the empire has highlighted chronological and regional variations, enabling scholars to rethink how and why urban circuits were built and functioned in Late Antiquity. Although these developments have made a significant contribution to the understanding of late-antique city walls, studies are often concerned with one single monument/small group of monuments or a particular region, and the issues raised do not usually lead to a broader perspective, creating an artificial divide between east and west. It is this broader understanding that this book seeks to provide. The volume and its contributions arise from a conference held at the British School at Rome and the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome on June 20-21, 2018. It includes articles from world-leading experts in late-antique history and archaeology and is based around important themes that emerged at the conference, such as construction, spolia-use, late-antique architecture, culture and urbanism, empire-wide changes in Late Antiquity, and the perception of this practice by local inhabitants.

Download or read book Re using Ruins Public Building in the Cities of the Late Antique West A D 300 600 written by Douglas R. Underwood and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In (Re)using Ruins, Douglas Underwood presents the history of Roman urban public monuments in the Late Antique West, demonstrating that their vibrant, yet variable, development was closely tied to significant shifts in urban ideologies and euergetistic patterns.

Download or read book Corinth in Late Antiquity written by Amelia R. Brown and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late antique Corinth was on the frontline of the radical political, economic and religious transformations that swept across the Mediterranean world from the second to sixth centuries CE. A strategic merchant city, it became a hugely important metropolis in Roman Greece and, later, a key focal point for early Christianity. In late antiquity, Corinthians recognised new Christian authorities; adopted novel rites of civic celebration and decoration; and destroyed, rebuilt and added to the city's ancient landscape and monuments. Drawing on evidence from ancient literary sources, extensive archaeological excavations and historical records, Amelia Brown here surveys this period of urban transformation, from the old Agora and temples to new churches and fortifications. Influenced by the methodological advances of urban studies, Brown demonstrates the many ways Corinthians responded to internal and external pressures by building, demolishing and repurposing urban public space, thus transforming Corinthian society, civic identity and urban infrastructure. In a departure from isolated textual and archaeological studies, she connects this process to broader changes in metropolitan life, contributing to the present understanding of urban experience in the late antique Mediterranean.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology written by David K. Pettegrew and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2019 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This handbook brings together work by leading scholars of the archaeology of early Christianity in the Mediterranean and surrounding regions. The 34 essays to this volume ground the history, culture, and society of the first seven centuries of Christianity in the latest currents of archaeological method, theory, and research."--

Download or read book Archaeology of the Mediterranean during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages written by Angelo Castrorao Barba and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2023-03-14 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Varied approaches to an overlooked time period in the history and archaeology of the Mediterranean This book presents multidisciplinary perspectives on Greece, Corsica, Malta, and Sicily from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries, an often-overlooked time in the history of the central Mediterranean. The research approaches and areas of specialization collected here range from material culture to landscape settlement patterns, from epigraphy to architecture and architectural decoration, and from funerary archaeology to urban fabric and cityscapes. Topics covered in these chapters include late Roman villas; the formation of Byzantine and Islamic settlements in western Sicily; reuse of protohistoric sites in late antiquity and the middle ages in eastern Sicily; early Christian landscapes and settlements in Corsica; the transition from late antiquity through Byzantine rule to Muslim conquest in Malta; trade network trajectories of the Aegean islands and Crete; and crosscultural interactions in medieval Greece. Together, these essays show the potential of post-Ancient and post-Classical archaeology, highlighting missing links between the Roman world and medieval Byzantium and broadening the horizons of new generations of archaeologists. Contributors: Carla Aleo Nero | Effie F. Athanassopoulos | Giuseppe Bazan | Amelia R. Brown | Gabriele Castiglia | Angelo Castrorao Barba | David Cardona | Santino Alessandro Cugno | Michael J. Decker | Franco Dell’Aquila | Scott Gallimore | Matt King | Rosa Lanteri | Pasquale Marino | Roberto Miccichè | Philippe Pergola | Filippo Pisciotta | Natalia Poulou | Grant Schrama | Claudia Speciale | Davide Tanasi

Download or read book Postcolonialism Heritage and the Built Environment written by Jessica L. Nitschke and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes new ways of looking at the built environment in archaeology, specifically through postcolonial perspectives. It brings together scholars and professionals from the fields of archaeology, urban studies, architectural history, and heritage in order to offer fresh perspectives on extracting and interpreting social and cultural information from architecture and monuments. The goal is to show how on-going critical engagement with the postcolonial critique can help archaeologists pursue more inclusive, sensitive, and nuanced interpretations of the built environment of the past and contribute to heritage discussions in the present. The chapters present case studies from Africa, Greece, Belgium, Australia, Syria, Kuala Lumpur, South Africa, and Chile, covering a wide range of chronological periods and settings. Through these diverse case studies, this volume encourages the reader to rethink the analytical frameworks and methods traditionally employed in the investigation of built spaces of the past. To the extent that these built spaces continue to shape identities and social relationships today, the book also encourages the reader to reflect critically on archaeologists’ ability to impact stakeholder communities and shape public perceptions of the past.

Download or read book New Directions and Paradigms for the Study of Greek Architecture written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Directions and Paradigms for the Study of Greek Architecture collects chapters by nearly three dozen scholars who describe recent discoveries, new theoretical frameworks, and applications of cutting-edge techniques in their architectural research.

Download or read book Byzantine Fortifications written by Nikos D. Kontogiannis and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-06-02 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging study examines the Byzantine Empire’s network of military fortifications from the Aegean to Asia Minor and Africa. The Byzantine empire was one of the most powerful forces in the Mediterranean and Near East for over a thousand years. Strong military organization, anchored by widespread fortifications, was essential for its defense—yet this aspect of its history is often neglected. Historian Nikos Kontogiannis corrects this oversight with this ambitious account of Byzantine fortifications, detailing their construction and development as well as their role in times of war. Byzantine Fortifications combines the results of decades of wide-ranging archaeological work with an account of the armies, weapons, tactics and defensive strategies of the empire throughout its long history. Fortifications built in every region of the empire are covered, from those in Mesopotamia, Syria, and Africa, to those in Asia Minor, the Aegean and the Balkan peninsula.

Download or read book Economic Circularity in the Roman and Early Medieval Worlds written by Jonathan Wood and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2023-12-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic circularity is the ability of a society to reduce waste by recycling, reusing, and repairing raw materials and finished products. This concept has gained momentum in academia, in part due to contemporary environmental concerns. Although the blurry conceptual boundaries of this term are open to a wide array of interpretations, the scholarly community generally perceives circular economy as a convenient umbrella definition that encompasses a vast array of regenerative and preservative processes. Despite the recent surge of interest, economic circularity has not been fully addressed as a macrophenomenon by historical and archaeological studies. The limitations of data and the relatively new formulation of targeted research questions mean that several processes and agents involved in ancient circular economies are still invisible to the eye of modern scholarship. Examples include forms of curation, maintenance, and repair, which must have had an influence on the economic systems of premodern societies but are rarely accounted for. Moreover, the people behind these processes, such as collectors and scavengers, are rarely investigated and poorly understood. Even better-studied mechanisms, like reuse and recycling, are not explored to their full potential within the broader picture of ancient urban economies. This volume stems from a conference held at Moesgaard Museum supported by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Centre for Urban Networks Evolutions (UrbNet) at Aarhus University. To enhance our understanding of circular economic processes, the contributions in this volume aim to expand the framework of the discussion by exploring circular economy over the longue durée and by integrating an interdisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, the volume wants to give prominence to classes of material, processes, agents, and methodologies generally overlooked or ignored in modern scholarship.

Download or read book Reset in Stone written by Sarah A. Rous and published by University of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the various ways ancient Athenians purposefully reused stone artifacts, objects, and buildings in order to shape their own and their descendants' collective ideas about their community's past and its bearing on the present and future. The book introduces the concept of "upcycling" to refer to this intentionally meaningful reuse, where evidence is preserved of an intentionality behind the decision to re-employ a particular object in a particular new context, often with implications for the shared memory of a group. Utilizing archaeological, literary, and epigraphic evidence, this investigation connects seemingly disparate cases of upcycling over eight centuries of Athenian history, treating the city as a continuously evolving cultural community. In establishin g upcycling as a distinct phenomenon of intentionally meaningful reuse, this study offers a process- and agency-focused alternative to the traditional discourses on spolia and reuse, while also making a substantial contribution to the growing field of memory studies by identifying a crucial component within the overall "work of memory" within a community. Through an original interdisciplinary approach, the book illuminates a vital practice through which Athenians shaped social memory in the physical realm, literally building their history into their city.

Download or read book A Companion to Cities in the Greco Roman World written by Miko Flohr and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2024-08-22 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A COMPANION TO CITIES IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD A Companion to Cities in the Greco-Roman World offers in-depth coverage of the most important topics in the study of Greek and Roman urbanism. Bringing together contributions by an international panel of experts, this comprehensive resource addresses traditional topics in the study of ancient cities, including civic society, politics, and the ancient urban landscape, as well as less-frequently explored themes such as ecology, war, and representations of cities in literature, art, and political philosophy. Detailed chapters present critical discussions of research on Greco-Roman urban societies, city economies, key political events, significant cultural developments, and more. Throughout the Companion, the authors provide insights into major developments, debates, and approaches in the field. An unrivalled reference work on the subject, the volume focusses on both the archaeological (spatial, architectural) as well as the historical (institutions, social structures) aspects of ancient cities, and makes Greco-Roman urbanism accessible to scholars and students of urbanism in other historical periods, up to the present day. Part of the authoritative Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World series, A Companion to Cities in the Greco-Roman World is an excellent resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and lecturers in Classics, Ancient History, and Classical/Mediterranean Archaeology, as well as historians and archaeologists looking to update their knowledge of Greek or Roman urbanism.

Download or read book Plundered Empire written by Michael Greenhalgh and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-07-01 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing extensive documentation, the book examines the mechanics, trials and tribulations of plundering the Ottoman East for private and public collections in Europe. It helps document the continuing debate about the ethics of museum collections.

Download or read book Recycling and Reuse in the Roman Economy written by Chloë N. Duckworth and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recycling and reuse of materials and objects were extensive in the past, but have rarely been embedded into models of the economy; even more rarely has any attempt been made to address the scale of these practices. Recent developments, including the use of large datasets, computational modelling, and high-resolution analytical chemistry are increasingly offering the means to reconstruct recycling and reuse, and even to approach the thorny issue of quantification. This volume is the first to bring together these new approaches, and the first to present a consideration of recycling and reuse in the Roman economy, taking into account a range of materials and using a variety of methodological approaches. It presents integrated, cross-referential evidence for the recycling and reuse of textiles, papyrus, statuary and building materials, amphorae, metals, and glass, and examines significant questions about organization, value, and the social meaning of recycling.

Download or read book The Parthenon Marbles and International Law written by Catharine Titi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-05-24 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Parthenon marbles case is the most famous international cultural heritage dispute concerning repatriation of looted antiquities, the Parthenon marbles in the British Museum’s ‘Elgin Collection’. The case has polarised observers ever since Elgin had the marbles hacked out of the ancient temple at the turn of the 19th century in Ottoman-occupied Athens. In 1816, a debt-stricken Elgin sold the marbles to the British government, which subsequently entrusted them to the British Museum, where they have remained since then. Much ink has been spilled on the Parthenon marbles. The ethical and cultural merits of their repatriation have been fiercely debated for years. But what has generally not been considered are the legal merits of their return in light of contemporary international law. This book is the first in legal scholarship to provide an international law perspective of the cause célèbre of international cultural heritage disputes and, in doing so, to clarify the new customary international law on the return of cultural property unlawfully removed from its original context. The book, which includes a foreword by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, is a unique reference work on the legal case for the return of the Parthenon marbles and the new normative framework for the protection of cultural heritage.