An archaeology of late antique pilgrim flasks

2004 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Past ◽  
Material Evidence

AbstractPilgrimage happens when a place becomes the focus of veneration because of its association with a person or event. Pilgrim cults from the past can sometimes be identified by grouping certain types of material evidence, although interpretation of a cult's historical meaning is only possible once the material has been fully assessed. This study considers what sorts of information can be drawn from the archaeological context of a group of clay ampullae; miniature flasks originating from Asia Minor in late antiquity.

Christianisation and Local Names in Asia Minor: Fall and Rise in Late Antiquity

2019 ◽  
pp. 258-276
Author(s):  
Sylvain Destephen
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
The Rich

This article analyses processes in detail based on the evidence now provided by the relevant volumes of Prosopographie chr�tienne du Bas-Empire, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and the rich cemetery at Korykos. It is argued that the onomastic patrimony of late antique Asia Minor underwent a twofold process of transformation and simplification but did not vanish. The complete hegemony that the Romans achieved in Asia Minor in the 1st century BC induced a Latinisation of the region that was only superficial. This development had two contrasting effects. Firstly, Hellenistic and Roman influences reduced ethnic and cultural diversity in Asia Minor to the point where indigenous languages were more or less extinct when Christianity arose. Secondly, Hellenisation and Romanisation allowed a general enrichment of the onomastic patrimony in Asia Minor. The study of names therefore provides a balanced response since Asia Minor possesses a rich, varied onomastic patrimony. It also relates to how the conversion of the Roman Empire in general, and of Asia Minor in particular, brought about an overall transformation of the names people bore, even though modifications occurred more rapidly within ecclesiastical and monastic milieus than among ordinary laymen.

Livestock plagues in late antiquity, with a disassembling of the bovine panzootic of A.D. 376-386

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 490-508
Author(s):  
Timothy P. Newfield
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Livestock Disease ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Material Evidence

The history of late-antique animal plagues requires a fresh start. Over the last 30 years, scholars have amassed copious quantities of written and material evidence for major shifts in the natural world experienced, or reported, as disasters in late antiquity. They have read textual passages more critically and interwoven written with physical data more meticulously than researchers before them. As a result, much more is known now about human plagues, climatic downturns and tectonic perturbations in the Late Roman period. Yet knowledge of late-antique livestock disease remains pretty much where animal health specialists left it in the 18th and 19th c. There are, to be sure, histories of late-antique animal plagues, but they are long out of date, unreliable and altogether of poor quality.

Marauders, Daredevils, and Noble Savages: Perceptions of Arab Nomads in Late Antique Hagiography

Der Islam ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantin M. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Past ◽  
Christian Saints

AbstractThis contribution investigates perceptions of Arab nomads in the hagiography of the Late Antique East. Over the past decades, these texts, mostly saints’ lives and episodes from church histories, have often been used to provide social and cultural historians with information on the ethnography, geography, customs and manners of those labelled “Saracens” or “Ishmaelites” in the texts. However, the historicity of the narratives is difficult to assess, and a closer inspection reveals that most of the motifs used in Late Antiquity revert to older models from Classical Antiquity. The article therefore focuses on specific aspects, such as how the writers depicted the Arabs’ manners and customs as contrasting with their own societies and constructed a dichotomy between the civilisation and the animal-like ferocity of the former. It becomes clear that Christian authors used the depiction of the Arabs’ seemingly deviant lifestyle in order to both reassure their readership and excite its curiosity. The display of God’s omnipotence in a large number of the texts discussed here offered a chance to demonstrate that Christian saints could eventually convert such people, or, when conversion was not possible, could still hope for very potent miracles.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF SAMARITAN RESEARCH IN ISRAEL

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
Shimon Dar
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Material Evidence

Archaeological research into the history and culture of the Samaritans in late antique Israel has increased dramatically in recent decades. The Samaritans, a monotheistic sect that separated from Judaism, expanded from their heartland of Samaria to other parts of Eretz Israel. Their presence has been identified through oil lamps, sarcophagi and synagogues, and this material evidence together with literary sources and new excavations in Samaria and elsewhere has encouraged scholars to develop a better understanding of Samaritan archaeology in Late Antiquity.

Eastern and western Christendom in late antiquity: a parting of the way

1976 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brown
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Short Span ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Vast Range

I must begin with the words of the clergyman: ‘My short sermon for today is divided into three parts. One: God. Two: Man. Three: The Universe.’ It will be impossible to do justice to the subject in hand in the short span of one lecture. This is not only because of the vast range of time and space involved in any consideration of the parting of the ways between eastern and western Christianity in the late antique period. To embark on such a theme involves holding up for scrutiny the very nature of ecclesiastical history. For what we have to deal with is not merely what happened in the relations between east and west, but why what happened happened as it did. Once the ecclesiastical historian asks why, he will find himself sooner or later forced to grapple with the whole quality of men’s lives in the past—that is, with how they lived the full twenty-four hours of the day, not only in their books, but in their churches, not only in their churches, but in the most intimate and most monotonous rhythms of their life.

“The Redeemer to Arise from the House of Dan”: Samson, Apocalypticism, and Messianic Hopes in Late Antique Galilee

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 553-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Grey
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
The Past ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
The Future ◽  
Liturgical Texts ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Late Roman

Abstract In the last five years, two mosaics depicting Samson’s biblical exploits have been discovered in Lower Eastern Galilee. Both mosaics were found in synagogues that date to the Late Roman/Byzantine period and are located in close proximity to Tiberias. Because of the rarity of Samson in ancient Jewish art and Samson’s lack of historical ties to the region, the significance of these mosaics requires explanation. This article explores this significance by considering the socio-religious context of the region in which the mosaics were discovered. Sources indicate that apocalyptic thought and messianic expectations flourished in Jewish Galilee throughout late antiquity, particularly in the vicinity of Tiberias. In addition, liturgical texts show that some Jews in this period viewed Samson as a biblical type of the future messiah—a redeemer of the past who foreshadowed Israel’s eschatological redemption. This confluence of evidence suggests that the Samson mosaics can be viewed as apocalyptic images reflecting messianic hopes that were popular in late antique Galilee.

Nicopolis ad Istrum: Backward and Balkan?

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. WHITTOW
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

The story of Nicopolis ad Istrum and its citizens exemplifies much that is common to the urban history of the whole Roman Empire. This chapter reviews the history of Nicopolis and its transition into the small fortified site of the fifth to seventh centuries and compares it with the evidence from the Near East and Asia Minor. It argues that Nicopolis may not have experienced a cataclysm as has been suggested, and that, as in the fifth and sixth century west, where landowning elites showed a striking ability to adapt and survive, there was an important element of continuity on the lower Danube, which in turn may account for the distinctive ‘Roman’ element in the early medieval Bulgar state. It also suggests that the term ‘transition to Late Antiquity’ should be applied to what happened at Nicopolis in the third century: what happened there in the fifth was the transition to the middle ages. This chapter also describes late antique urbanism in the Balkans by focusing on the Justiniana Prima site.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND LATE ANTIQUE SOCIAL STRUCTURES

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-56
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Sodini
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Near East ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Rural Environments ◽  
The Social

The archaeological remains of late antique sites can be interpreted in terms of what they can tell us about ancient social structures. This is more straightforward when examining the social structures of the upper classes, who possessed the attributes that allow them to be recognised as such. These attributes occur on a Mediterranean-wide basis and include lavishly decorated residences (in both urban and rural environments), monumental funerary structures within churches, splendid garments, precious table wares and implements, and the insignia of rank in the form of jewellery such as gold brooches, fibulae, or belt buckles. The middle class is also traceable in the cities (mostly in the form of craftsmen) and in the countryside, where small landowners and peasants could share similar lifestyles, marked in some regions (such as the Near East and Asia Minor) by conspicuous levels of wealth. However, the lives of these middle classes could change abruptly, casting them into poverty and consequently making them difficult to trace archaeologically. Nonetheless, judicious interpretation of the material remains in tandem with the evidence of documentary and epigraphic sources allows us to make some suggestions as to the social structures of Late Antiquity.

Petrification and Portability: Monks as Statues in Late Antique Egypt

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Georgia Frank
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique

This essay considers how ascetics in Late Antiquity were perceived to be statue-like and how they functioned as statues in the ritual lives of the communities that surrounded them. Saints’ lives from Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria describe ascetics whose statue-like immobility played a role in the Christianization of the landscape, at a time when some monks committed violence against statues. I focus on examples from Late Antique Egypt, with comparisons drawn from Syriac and Greek hagiography.

THE FATE OF TEMPLES IN LATE ANTIQUE ANATOLIA

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Talloen ◽  
Lies Vercauteren
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Sacred Landscape ◽  
Ritual Activity

When Christianity rose to prominence during the 4th c. temples were no longer the vibrant centres of ritual activity they had once been. A precise chronology for the last phases of temples in Asia Minor cannot be established with the limited evidence we possess. Yet, the examples presented here do allow an approximate pattern to be laid down. Furthermore, they demonstrate that the fate of temples in Late Antiquity comprised more than just destruction or conversion to churches. That said, the preservation of the sacred landscape through in situ conversion of temples did play a crucial role in the Christianisation of late antique Asia Minor.

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