scholarly journals Landscape archaeology and urbanism at Meninx: results of geophysical prospection on Jerba (2015)

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 357-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Ritter ◽  
Sami Ben Tahar ◽  
Jörg W. E. Fassbinder ◽  
Lena Lambers
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Landscape Archaeology ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Production ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The City ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Geophysical Prospection

This paper presents the results of the geophysical prospection conducted at the site of Meninx (Jerba) in 2015. This was the first step in a Tunisian-German project (a cooperation between the Institut National du Patrimoine, Tunis, and the Institut für Klassische Archäologie der Ludwig-Maximilans-Universität München), the aim of which is to shed light on the urban history of the most important city on the island of Jerba in antiquity.Meninx, situated on the SE shore of the island (fig. 1), was the largest city on Jerba during the Roman Empire and eponymous for the island's name in antiquity. The outstanding importance of this seaport derived from the fact that it was one of the main production centers of purple dye in the Mediterranean. With the earliest secure evidence dating to at least the Hellenistic period, Meninx saw a magnificent expansion in the 2nd and 3rd c. A.D. It was inhabited until the 7th c. when the city was finally abandoned.

The Roman Empire

2021 ◽  
pp. 240-289
Author(s):  
Peter Fibiger Bang
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Roman History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Standing Army ◽  
The City

This chapter identifies a comparative context for the Roman Empire in the Muslim imperial experience, from the Caliphate to the Mughals and Ottomans. As Crone once noted, the Caliphate was founded by Arab conquerors, but was quickly taken over by provincial converts to Islam in a process that saw the consolidation of an imperial monarchy, a court society, and garrisoned army. The course of Roman history mirrors this story of provincial takeover. A coalition of Italian conquerors expanded across the Mediterranean. Consolidation of conquests happened in a revolution that saw the institutionalization of a monarchy, the formation of a court, and a standing army. Only a little more slowly than in the Arab case, the history of the monarchy evolved as provincials came increasingly to constitute the personnel of the empire. At the end, power abandoned the city of Rome, only to find a durable seat in Constantinople on the Bosporus.

The Plancii in Asia Minor

1974 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 27-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
South Coast ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
The South ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

In elucidating the history of Asia Minor it has always been profitable to examine the origin, background and influence of the wealthy families of the Greco-Roman cities, and the connections they established between themselves. As more information comes to light it becomes increasingly obvious how complex the relationships between the various families were, and how far the influence of any one family could extend. From this evidence we are beginning to be able to form a convincing, if sketchy, picture of a power structure, based on a close-knit network of dominant families, which produced the ruling élite of the cities, the dynasts of the Hellenistic period, and the senators and consuls who made careers for themselves in the eastern provinces and maintained their family traditions of power and influence within the framework of the Roman Empire. Fresh evidence now allows us to weave more threads into the pattern, linking two important families of the city of Perge on the south coast, one certainly of Italian descent, with the cities and families of the vast Anatolian hinterland, and suggesting an important source for the wealth which enabled members of these families to rise from a mercantile background to become senators in the first and second centuries A.D.

Emotional Cities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Ben Prestel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Capital Flows ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Dynamic Transformation ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

Between 1860 and 1910, Berlin and Cairo went through a period of dynamic transformation. During this period, a growing number of contemporaries in both places made corresponding arguments about how urban change affected city dwellers’ emotions. In newspaper articles, scientific treatises, and pamphlets, shifting practices, such as nighttime leisure, were depicted as affecting feelings like love and disgust. Looking at the ways in which different urban dwellers, from psychologists to revelers, framed recent changes in terms of emotions, this book reveals the striking parallels between the histories of Berlin and Cairo. In both cities, various authors associated changes in the city with such phenomena as a loss of control over feelings or the need for a reform of emotions. The parallels in these arguments belie the assumed dissimilarity between European and Middle Eastern cities during the nineteenth century. Drawing on similar debates about emotions in Berlin and Cairo, the book provides a new argument about the regional compartmentalization of urban history. It highlights how the circulation of scientific knowledge, the expansion of empires, and global capital flows led to similarities in the pasts of these two cities. By combining urban history and the history of emotions, this book proposes an innovative perspective on the emergence of different, yet comparable cities at the end of the nineteenth century.

Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

This book analyses the physical, social, and cultural history of Rome in late antiquity. Between AD 270 and 535, the former capital of the Roman empire experienced a series of dramatic transformations in its size, appearance, political standing, and identity, as emperors moved to other cities and the Christian church slowly became its dominating institution. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome provides a new picture of these developments, focusing on the extraordinary role played by members of the traditional elite, the senatorial aristocracy, in the redefinition of the city, its institutions, and spaces. During this period, Roman senators and their families became increasingly involved in the management of the city and its population, in building works, and in the performance of secular and religious ceremonies and rituals. As this study shows, for approximately three hundred years the houses of the Roman elite competed with imperial palaces and churches in shaping the political map and the social life of the city. Making use of modern theories of urban space, the book considers a vast array of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic documents to show how the former centre of the Mediterranean world was progressively redefined and controlled by its own elite.

Population of Chernigov in the 10th–13th Centuries According to Paleodemographic Data

Epohi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yurii Dolzhenko ◽  
◽  
Anna Tarasova
Keyword(s):  
Life Quality ◽  
Demographic Structure ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Average Life ◽  
Average Life Expectancy ◽  
Three Samples ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Different Parts

The work is devoted to the 10th–13th-century paleodemographic data regarding the city of Chernigov and its districts, and to their introduction into the scientific domain. The study is based on the data on the anthropological series of Chernigov in the 10th–13th centuries, divided into three samples according to the topographic principle. This series is characterized by a low average life expectancy in comparison to other southern Old Rus cities. The feature of the necropolises of Chernigov indicating the predominance of female burials over male ones, revealed in the 1980s, has been confirmed at a new level. A study of the demographic parameters of the Chernigov population groups in the 10th–13th centuries, united on a territorial basis, has shown differences in their structure, probably reflecting the peculiarities of the life quality, social status, and professional specialization of the population of different parts of the city. Further research into the remains of the city’s population with methods of paleopathology, osteometry, osteoscopy, radiology, etc., as well as the analysis of aspects of the political history of the region, would help shed light on the possible causes of the identified features of the demographic structure of the population in the pre-Mongolian period.

Italy's Sea

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
National Project ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
New Perspective

Enriching the metropole-colony frame that has tended to dominate studies of European colonial empire, this book assumes a transnational approach to modern Italy and establishes how Italy’s national project and history of nationalism was intimately bound up with the fantasy—and then reality during the fascist period—of an empire in the Mediterranean. Although largely forgotten in both Italy and Greece, Italian imperial rule in the Dodecanese islands tells the story of the making of modern Europe at its margins. Unlike other studies of Italian colonialism, that emphasize Mussolini’s creation of a new ‘Roman’ empire, Italy’s Sea demonstrates that ambitions for colonization in the Mediterranean extend back to the Liberal unification of Italy. By retracing how ideas of the local, the regional and the global were united with the idea of the ‘national’ in Italy, the book offers of new perspective of postcolonial critique of both Italy and Europe, and sheds light on contemporary ideas of race, nation and belonging today.

The Well-Watered Acropolis at Athens

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dora P. Crouch
Keyword(s):  
Water Supply ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Water Sources ◽  
Water Utilization ◽  
The North ◽  
Drainage Channels ◽  
History Of ◽  
Map Series ◽  
The City

Persons with some knowledge of the Athenian acropolis are likely to be aware of the very early Mycenaean spring in the north-northwest quadrant, and of the still flowing Klepsydra Spring at the northwest corner, as well as remember stories about Poseidon’s salt spring adjacent to the Erechtheum. Yet to connect the presence of water on the Acropolis with the urban history of Athens has not been explicitly done to date, even though the Acropolis has been the focus of settlement from earliest times until today. It is the purpose of this section to set out what is known about water utilization at the Athenian Acropolis, thereby suggesting firm ecological reasons why settlement should have taken place on and near the Acropolis (Fig. 18.1). Travlos’ map series of the city of Athens (1960) centered on the Acropolis show us that this hill has always been the focus of settlement, a fact well known to the ancient Athenians themselves (Thucydides, 2:15.3– 6). I suggest that not only the defensive capabilities of the Acropolis but specifically its water supply made it the logical choice of location for groups who intended to live securely and to dominate the region. The number and diversity of water sources here is impressive. In each era it has been necessary to cope with the water that occurred naturally and to save for later use the rain and spring waters that drew settlers to this rocky outcropping. Let us note the locations of water on the Acropolis at several levels, with references to published accounts of some of the features and descriptions (based on surface reconnaissance and discussion with experts) of those for which I have not been able to find such accounts. Discussion of the geology of the Acropolis will be found with the paragraphs about the salt spring. After this topographical discussion, we will look briefly at the chronology of water on the Acropolis, followed by a concluding discussion of urban history. Immediately to the left of the Propylaea, inside the Acropolis wall, are rectangular cisterns dug into the rock of the surface, with rock-cut drainage channels leading to them from the central pathway.

Athens

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
City State ◽  
Peasant Farmers ◽  
The Hill ◽  
The City

In the Mediterranean world, only Rome rivals Athens as a city famed for its antiquities. Ancient travelers came to marvel at its grand temples and civic buildings, just as tourists do today. Wealthy Romans sent their children to Athens to be educated by its philosophers and gain sophistication in the presence of its culture. Democracy, however faltering its first steps, began in this city, and education and the arts flourished in its environment. Even at the height of the Roman Empire, the Western world’s government may have been Roman but its dominant cultural influence was Greek. Latin never spread abroad as a universal language, but Greek did, in its Koine (common) form. By the 4th century B.C.E. this Attic dialect of Plato and the Athenian orators was already in use in countries around the Mediterranean. The monuments of Athens and the treasures of its National Museum still amaze and delight millions of visitors from every nation who come to see this historic cradle of Western culture. A settlement of some significance already existed at Athens in Mycenaean times (1600–1200 B.C.E.). Toward the end of the Dark Ages (1200–750 B.C.E.) the unification of Attica, a territory surrounding Athens of some 1,000 square miles, was accomplished under the Athenians. The resulting city-state was governed by aristocrats constituted as the Council of the Areopagus, named for the hill below the Athenian Acropolis where they commonly met. But only the nobility—defined as the wealthy male landowners—had any vote in the decisions that influenced affairs in the city, a situation increasingly opposed by the rising merchant class and the peasant farmers. The nobles seemed paralyzed by the mounting social tensions, and a class revolution appeared imminent. In 594 B.C.E. the nobles in desperation turned to Solon, also an aristocrat, whom they named as archon (ruler) of the city with virtual dictatorial powers. Solon, however, refused to rule as dictator of the city, instituting instead a series of sweeping reforms that mollified the lower classes without destroying the aristocracy.

Ancient water robotics and Abou-l Iz Al-Jazari

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 699-709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zekâi Şen
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Southeastern Part ◽  
Water Power ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

Although water resources have been developed throughout the centuries for the service of different civilizations, at different scales and in different regions, their use in automation has been conceived only recently. Research into the history of water from an automation point of view has led to some unknown or hidden facts. Starting from the ancient Greek period before the prophet Christ and after about the 12th century, many researchers tried to make use of water power for working some simple but effective devices for the service of mankind. Among these are the haulage of water from a lower level to a higher elevation by water wheels in order to irrigate agricultural land. Hero during the Hellenistic period and Vitruvius of the Roman Empire were among the first who tried to make use of water power for use in different human activities, such as water haulage, watermills, water clocks, etc. The highlights of these works were achieved by a 12th century Muslim researcher, Abou-l Iz Al-Jazari, who lived in the southeastern part of modern day Turkey. He reviewed all the previous work from different civilizations and then suggested his own designs and devices for the use of water power in automation of excellent types. He even combined animals and water power through early designs of valves, pistons, cylinders and crank mills, as will be explained in this paper. His works were revealed by German historians and engineers in the first quarter of the 19th century. Later, an English engineer translated his book from Arabic into English, revealing the guidelines for modern automation and robotic designs originating from the 12th century. This paper gives a brief summary of the early workers' devices and Abou-l Iz Al-Jazari's much more developed designs with his original hand-drawn pictures.

scholarly journals Reconsidering Hilberseimer’s Chicago

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-248
Author(s):  
Philip Denny ◽  
Charles Waldheim
Keyword(s):  
Urban History ◽  
American City ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

The German architect and urbanist Ludwig Hilberseimer spent the second half of his career as an internationally influential urbanist, author, and educator while living and working in Chicago. The city of Chicago provided both context and content to inform his theories of planning the American city. While in Chicago, Hilberseimer taught hundreds of students, authored dozens of publications, and conceived of his most significant and enduring professional projects. Yet, in spite of these three decades of work on and in Chicago, the relationship between Hilberseimer’s planning proposals and the specific urban history of his adopted hometown remains obscure. This commentary reconsiders the role that Chicago played in Hilberseimer’s work as well as the impact that his work had on the planning of the city.

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