scholarly journals The Cultural Biography of a Pilgrimage Token: From Hagiographical to Archaeological Evidence

2020 ◽  
Vol 21-22 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-174
Author(s):  
Dina Boero
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Cultural Biography ◽  
Art Object

AbstractAcross the eastern Mediterranean, the personnel of late antique pilgrimage sites distributed terracotta tokens stamped with depictions of saints, scenes from the life of Christ, and related imagery. Using primarily hagiographical sources, scholars associate tokens with healing practices, the veneration of icons, and the worship of relics. Certainly, hagiographies offer valuable representations of ritual processes, but they also make claims on the proper distribution, meaning, and use of tokens amidst a diversity of intercessory activities. How, in practice, was a token produced and distributed? How did pilgrims use tokens at and away from pilgrimage complexes beyond the assertions made by hagiographers? This article answers these questions by tracing the “cultural biography” of a token. It analyzes the archaeological contexts of tokens in order to clarify select statuses that a token might occupy during its lifetime, including commodity, gift, domestic object, funerary object, relic, rubbish, and art object. This approach lays the foundation for examining hagiographical claims regarding the use of tokens as one among many assertions in the contested process of harnessing the power of saints. It illustrates the capacity of devotees to exhibit diverse practices as well as the efforts of personnel at pilgrimage sites to shape those practices.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF LATE ANTIQUE DINING HABITS IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE EVIDENCE

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 311-361
Author(s):  
Joanita Vroom
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Dining Room ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Pictorial Representations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Silver Metal

This paper sets out to explore the relationship between excavated evidence of dining rooms and table utensils, and changing dining habits in Late Antiquity. In the first part the emphasis is on pictorial representations of dining scenes from the 5th and 6th c. A.D. The second part of the paper examines the archaeological evidence and its relationship to these scenes. On the basis of this evidence, it is not only possible to discuss in detail the architectural layout of the dining room together with its furniture and textiles, but also to give a description of the actual objects (in silver, metal, pottery, glass and in other materials) used on the dining table.

scholarly journals Ceramic finds from the Byzantine fort of Gradina on the island of Žirje

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Karađole ◽  
Igor Borzić
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Main Production ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean Area

Repeated excavations of the area of the early Byzantine fort on Žirje, an island in the Šibenik archipelago, resulted in recovery of a substantial amount of movable finds, predominantly pottery. Most finds date to the period of Justinian's reconquista in the mid-6th century when the fort was used, but there are also some artifacts of earlier or later dating (Iron Age, Hellenistic and early Imperial periods; medieval and postmedieval periods) whose presence is explained by continuous strategic importance of the fort position. Late antique material has been analyzed comprehensively in terms of typology. Dating and provenance contexts of the finds have also been determined. Presence of pottery from the main production centers that supplied the eastern Adriatic at the time has been attested. This refers in particular to the north African and Aegean-eastern Mediterranean area providing fine tableware and kitchen pottery, lamps and various forms of amphorae. On the other hand, participation of local workshops in supply of the Byzantine soldiers stationed in Gradina probably relates to prevailing forms of kitchenware.

Sea Peoples and Land Peoples, 1250 BC–1100 BC

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Archaeological Investigation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Sea Peoples ◽  
The Hill

Both the fall of Troy and the Sea Peoples have been the subject of a vast literature. They were part of a common series of developments that affected the entire eastern Mediterranean and possibly the western Mediterranean too. Troy had been transformed at the end of the eighteenth century BC with the building of the most magnificent of the cities to stand on the hill of Hisarlık: Troy VI , which lasted, with many minor reconstructions, into the thirteenth century BC . The citadel walls were nine metres thick, or more; there were great gates and a massive watchtower, a memory of which may have survived to inspire Homer; there were big houses on two floors, with courtyards. The citadel was the home of an elite that lived in some style, though without the lavish accoutrements of their contemporaries in Mycenae, Pylos or Knossos. Archaeological investigation of the plain beneath which then gave directly on to the seashore suggests the existence of a lower town about seven times the size of the citadel, or around 170,000 square metres, roughly the size of the Hyksos capital at Avaris. One source of wealth was horses, whose bones begin to appear at this stage; Homer’s Trojans were famous ‘horse-tamers’, hippodamoi, and even if he chose this word to fit his metre, it matches the archaeological evidence with some precision. In an age when great empires were investing in chariots, and sending hundreds of them to perdition at the battle of Kadesh (or, according to the Bible, in the depths of the Red Sea), horse-tamers were certainly in demand. Opinion divided early on the identity of the Trojans. Claiming descent from Troy, the ancient Romans knew for sure that they were not just a branch of the Greek people. Homer, though, made them speak Greek. The best chance of an answer comes from their pottery. The pottery of Troy is not just Trojan; it belongs to a wider culture that spread across parts of Anatolia.

MONASTERIES AS RURAL SETTLEMENTS: PATRON-DEPENDENCE OR SELF-SUFFICIENCY?

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 447-476
Author(s):  
Beat Brenk
Keyword(s):  
Late Antique ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Productive Activities ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
East And West ◽  
Economic Nature

This paper is an examination of the textual and archaeological evidence for the economic nature of late antique monasteries. It considers to what extent monasteries were dependent on patronage, and to what extent they engaged in agriculture and other productive activities, and so were linked economically to the landscapes which surrounded them. Sites in Egypt and especially the Levant are examined, with literary and papyrological evidence from both East and West

REHABILITATING THE GREAT ESTATE: ARISTOCRATIC PROPERTY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE LATE ANTIQUE EAST

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Sarris
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Economic Importance ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Economic Expansion ◽  
Early Byzantine

This article argues that recent emphasis on late antique economic expansion in the eastern Mediterranean and the prosperity of the peasantry of the East Roman empire has led historians to underestimate the economic importance of great estates owned by members of the imperial service aristocracy. This tendency has been exacerbated by the misleading testimony of early Byzantine saints’ lives, and an assumption that great estates were inherently autarchic and economically regressive. Rather, the evidence of the papyri and imperial legislation on the colonate would suggest that such great estates were highly commodified and monetised enterprises that contributed to economic growth.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE STYLITE

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 329-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Amadeus Schachner
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Road ◽  
Literary Sources

Stylites or pillar ascetics and their Syrian prototype, Symeon the Elder (d. 459), are well known from our literary sources and have been studied extensively within late antique historiography. This is in contrast to the far more limited attention that has been paid to the archaeological evidence of the stylites’ pillars, their spatial setting and infrastructure, their representations and other material forms of evidence. This article seeks to outline what has been achieved so far on the archaeology of the stylites and proposes a possible agenda for future research, particularly in Syria and Mesopotamia. Such work, desperately needed, could also pave the road for a better understanding of the stylites’ Lebenswelten, function and liturgy.

TECHNOLOGY AND IDEAS: ARCHITECTS AND MASTER-BUILDERS IN THE EARLY BYZANTINE WORLD

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 379-405
Author(s):  
Enrico Zanini
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
Master Builders

Eastern literary and epigraphic sources from the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. mention several architects/engineers in the service of the imperial court at Constantinople. They give us an idea of the scientific knowledge, technical expertise and social status of these men. A larger group of architects and master-builders are also attested. They operated mainly in a lower-key, local context, but they also moved abroad to answer the requests of patrons. A comparison between the written sources and archaeology allows us to reconstruct some examples of the mobility of people and ideas, and to advance some hypotheses about the development of building material culture in the late antique eastern Mediterranean world.

scholarly journals A late antique ceramic workshop complex: evidence for workshop organisation at Sagalassos (southwest Turkey)

2016 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Murphy ◽  
Jeroen Poblome
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Ceramic Production ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Organisational Structure ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Work Units ◽  
Independent Work

AbstractSites of ceramic production have been discovered throughout the area that was once the Roman Empire; as a result, it is becoming increasingly clear that this industry was, in the Roman and late antique worlds, organised in numerous ways. In consideration of the organisational diversity in ceramic production attested during the period, this article presents some of the findings from the excavations of a late antique complex of ceramic workshops at the site of Sagalassos in order to consider archaeological evidence in terms of, not only the organisation of the manufacturing process, but also structures of workshop decision-making. Several lines of archaeological evidence are outlined, and argue for a model of independent work units integrated into a larger organisational structure of decision-making, and possibly even ownership, across the complex. In addition, the motivation to invest in a multi-workshop complex during the late antique period at Sagalassos is contextualised within the wider history of local and regional economic development.

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