Roman Household Organization

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penelope Allison
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Household Organization ◽  
Urban Elite ◽  
Household Activities

This chapter surveys current perspectives on children and stages of childhood within Roman households and examines how archaeological evidence for household organization can change these perspectives. It discusses what can be gleaned from analyses of archaeological evidence for household space and household activities, and notably from assessing skeletal remains, material culture, and decoration. It discusses what this evidence can tell us about potential numbers of children in households, how they might have inhabited this space and played with their pets and their toys, and how this evidence might be used to deepen understandings of children and their sociospatial practices within household organization. It uses two case studies, from urban elite households in Pompeii and from provincial non-elite households, notably military households of ordinary soldiers.

How Roman Are Roman Houses in the Eastern Mediterranean? The House of Leukaktios (Ptolemais, Cyrenaica) and the House of Orpheus (Nea Paphos, Cyprus) as Case Studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-121
Author(s):  
Monika Rekowska
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Residential Units ◽  
Urban Elite

Cyprus and Cyrenaica, two regions strongly influenced by the Alexandrian cultural heritage, which came under the Roman rule already in the 1st century BC, are simultaneously both typical and unusual examples of acculturation understood as a mixture of Hellenistic and Roman components. This is reflected in various spheres of life, including the architecture of the houses owned by members of the urban elite which are investigated in this article. Two residential units – the House of Leukaktios at Ptolemais in Cyrenaica and the House of Orpheus at Nea Paphos in Cyprus – will be presented to discuss different attitudes towards Romanisation from the perspective of an individual as reflected by particular dwellings.

Syncretisms

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippa Adrych ◽  
Robert Bracey ◽  
Dominic Dalglish ◽  
Stefanie Lenk ◽  
Rachel Wood
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Ancient Religion

The Conclusion to this volume returns to the three main questions posed in the Introduction, examining how a shared name, alongside material culture, can affect our understanding of ancient religious practices. The first section explores the benefits of a collaborative and comparative endeavour, drawing out examples from the earlier chapters and showing how they informed our perceptions of what a name can mean. The second and third parts ask more theoretical questions about how we can use our case studies to explore broader problems of interpreting ancient religious practices, and the role of objects within them. Finally, we return to the main theme of the volume: the name Mithra, and the ideas, expectations, and traditions that have been attached to it in antiquity and in modern scholarship. We suggest a new way of approaching the phenomenon of the shared name, and what that can entail for those interested in ancient religion.

Material Culture and Making Visible: On the Portrayal of Philistine Gath in the Book of Samuel

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Daniel Pioske
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Book Of Samuel

Over the past twenty years our understanding of Philistine Gath's history (Tell es-Safl) has been transformed by what has been revealed through the site's early Iron Age remains. But what has received much less attention is the effect these ruins have on how we read references to the location within the Hebrew Bible. The intent of this study is to draw on the archaeological evidence produced from Tell es-Safl as an interpretive lens by which to consider the biblical portrayal of the site rendered in the book of Samuel, where the material traces of more amicable associations between Gath and highland populations invite us to reconsider the city's depiction in this ancient literary work.

3D Dead

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3–4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwen Robbins Schug ◽  
Kristina Killgrove ◽  
Alison Atkin ◽  
Krista Baron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
3D Scanning ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Human Skeletal Remains ◽  
3D Scanners

Humans have interacted with the remains of our dead for aesthetic and ritual purposes for millennia, and we have utilized them for medical, educational, and scholarly pursuits for several centuries. Recently, it has become possible to use digital technologies such as 3D scanners and printers for reconstructing, representing, and disseminating bodies. At the same time, there is growing interest among academics and curators in taking a more reflexive approach to the ethical and social dimensions of conservation. This paper considers theoretical and practical aspects of ethics as they apply to the 3D scanning and printing of human skeletal remains for curation or dissemination, provides case studies from our work in the United States, and suggests guidelines for best practices.   Los seres humanos hemos interactuado con los restos humanos de nuestros muertos por razones estéticas y rituales por milenios. Asimismo, estos restos han sido utilizados para conducir investigaciones médicas, educativas, y académicas por varios siglos. Recientemente, con la ayuda de la tecnología digital de los escáneres e impresoras 3D ha sido posible reconstruir, representar, y difundir estos cuerpos. Al mismo tiempo, los académicos y los conservadores proponen ser más reflexivos al lidiar con las dimension eséticas y sociales del campo de la conservación. Este artículo considera los aspectos teóricos y prácticos de la ética de los escaneos e impresiones 3D de restos óseos humanos para su conservación y diseminación, aporta casos prácticos de nuestros trabajos investigativos en los Estados Unidos como ejemplos, y sugiere normas para una práctica adecuada. 

Slaves without Shackles: An Archaeology of Everyday Life on Gorée Island, Senegal

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahima Thiaw
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Settlement Pattern ◽  
Heterogeneous Population ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Urban Settlement ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Transnational Community ◽  
Changing Patterns

This chapter examines how slavery was imprinted on material culture and settlement at Gorée Island. It evaluates the changing patterns of settlement, access to materials, and emerging novel tastes to gain insights into everyday life and cultural interactions on the island. By the eighteenth century, Gorée grew rapidly as an urban settlement with a heterogeneous population including free and enslaved Africans as well as different European identities. Interaction between these different identities was punctuated with intense negotiations resulting in the emergence of a truly transnational community. While these significant changes were noted in the settlement pattern and material culture recovered, the issue of slavery — critical to most oral and documentary narratives about the island — remains relatively opaque in the archaeological record. Despite this, the chapter attempts to tease out from available documentary and archaeological evidence some illumination on interaction between the different communities on the island, including indigenous slaves.

Gath of the Philistines

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Pioske
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
The Creation ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City

Chapter 2 begins a series of case studies that are devoted to exploring what knowledge was drawn on by the biblical scribes to develop stories about the early Iron Age period. This chapter’s investigation is devoted to the Philistine city of Gath, one of the largest cities of its time and a site that was destroyed ca. 830 BCE. Significant about Gath, consequently, is that it flourished as an inhabited location before the emergence of a mature Hebrew prose writing tradition, meaning that the information recounted about the city was predicated primarily on older cultural memories of the location. Comparing the biblical references to the site with Gath’s archaeological remains reveals moments of resonance between these stories and the material culture unearthed from the location. Accordingly, what comes to light through this chapter’s analysis is one mode of remembering that informed the creation of these biblical stories: that of resilience.

Trends in the Use of Perfumes and Incense in the Near East after the Muslim Conquests

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMAR ZOHAR ◽  
EFRAIM LEV
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Medical Literature ◽  
New Crops ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Level Of Importance

AbstractPerfumes have been known as utilizable but exclusive products since antiquity. Use of aromatic substances was first mentioned in archaic sources of the ancient world. The origin of such fragrant substances was mainly vegetable and animal. Throughout history, the use of subtle perfumes increased and some of the exotic materials became expensive and valuable commodities. They were the source of wealth for cultures and rulers. The contribution of the Arabs to the distribution of new crops, knowledge, industrial techniques and substances is a well-known phenomenon. In our article we intend to focus on the new perfumes that were distributed throughout the world thanks to the Arab conquests and the knowledge of their other uses, mainly medicinal, that was handed down along with the products themselves. About 20 common perfumes are known to have been used in the medieval world, though half of them were not mentioned in earlier sources.These phenomena will be dealt with and presented in a profile we built up for four perfumes: agarwood, camphor, musk and ambergris. The theoretical and practical uses of these perfumes that are presented in detail (based on various sources including traders’ documents, medical literature and practical Genizah fragments, dealing mainly with medicine) will serve as case studies for the understanding of new trends in the uses of perfumes after the Muslim conquest. Arab perfumes can be divided into three groups, according to their level of importance:A. New perfumes, mainly from the vast region named “India”; most of which (such as camphor, ambergris and sandalwood and a compound made out of them known as nadd and ghāliya) were not known in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region until the Muslim conquests.B. Perfumes that kept their popularity including: a variety of cinnamon, costus, spikenard, frankincense, saffron and rose.C. Perfumes that lost their worth like balsam and myrrh.It seems that camphor was the best and most cherished perfume that substituted balsam. Like balsam, the importance of myrrh that was imported from Arabia and East Africa also declined and it seems that its substitute was musk. Transformations in perfume fashion were in fact only part of a wider revolution of the Arabic material culture which the Middle East, the Mediterranean region and even many European countries experienced due to the Arab conquests.

Danish Bell Beaker pottery and flint daggers – the display of social identities?

2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torben Sarauw
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Wide Distribution ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Type I ◽  
Male Identity ◽  
Social Perspective ◽  
Settlement Site ◽  
Bell Beaker

This article summarizes and discusses recent research into the Danish Bell Beaker phenomenon c.2350–1950 BC. Its focus is on the meaning of material culture here represented by Bell Beakers and bifacial lanceolate flint daggers, both seen from a social perspective. The Bell Beaker pottery is known to have had a very wide distribution. However, questions remain as to why Bell Beakers were only adopted in some regions and what meaning this special pottery had? Similarly the Danish type I daggers, which were manufactured within the context of the Danish Bell Beaker phenomenon in the northern parts of Jutland, had a wide distribution. Daggers of this type, which in general denote male identity, were exported in vast quantities, especially to Norway and the western parts of Sweden. In both case studies the evidence from a Danish Bell Beaker settlement site excavated in recent years – Bejsebakken – plays a major part.

Divergent Ways of Relating to the Past in the Viking Age

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Lund ◽  
Elisabeth Arwill-Nordbladh
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dynamic Part ◽  
Ancient Monuments

The flexibility of material culture encourages material phenomena to take a dynamic part in social life. An example of this is material citation, which can provide society with links to both the past and connections to contemporary features. In this article, we look at the diverging ways of relating to and reinventing the past in the Viking Age, exploring citations to ancient monuments in the landscape of Gammel Lejre on Zealand, Denmark. Complementing the placement of landscape monuments, attention is also brought to examples of mortuary citations related to bodily practices in Viking-age mortuary dramas, such as those visible at the mound of Skopintull on the island of Adelsö in Lake Mälaren, Sweden. Through these case studies, we explore the variability in citational strategies found across tenth-century Scandinavia.

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