City Walls in Late Antiquity

City Walls in Late Antiquity PDF

Author: Emanuele Intagliata

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1789253675

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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.

City Walls in Late Antiquity

City Walls in Late Antiquity PDF

Author: Emanuele Intagliata

Publisher:

Published: 2020-04-15

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781789253641

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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.

The City in Late Antiquity

The City in Late Antiquity PDF

Author: Dr John Rich

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 113476135X

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The city was the nexus of the Roman Empire in its early centuries. The City in Late Antiquity charts the change undergone by cities as the Empire was weakened by the third-century crisis, and later disintegrated under external pressures. The old picture of the classical city as everywhere in decline by the fourth century is shown to be far too simple, and John Rich seeks to explain why urban life disappeared in some regions, while elsewhere cities survived through to the Middle Ages and beyond.

Cities and the Meanings of Late Antiquity

Cities and the Meanings of Late Antiquity PDF

Author: Mark Humphries

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-11-04

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13: 9004422617

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This study examines how cities have become an area of significant historical debate about late antiquity, challenging accepted notions that it is a period of dynamic change and reasserting views of the era as one of decline and fall.

The Afterlife of the Roman City

The Afterlife of the Roman City PDF

Author: Hendrik W. Dey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-11-17

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1107069181

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This book offers a new perspective on the evolution of cities across the Roman Empire in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

Greek City Walls of the Archaic Period, 900-480 BC

Greek City Walls of the Archaic Period, 900-480 BC PDF

Author: Rune Frederiksen

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2011-04-07

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780199578122

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In this fully illustrated study, Rune Frederiksen assembles all sources for Archaic city walls in the ancient Greek world, and argues that widespread fortification of settlements and towns, usually considered to date from the Classical period, in fact took place much earlier.

Corinth in Late Antiquity

Corinth in Late Antiquity PDF

Author: Amelia R. Brown

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-02-22

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1786723581

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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.

Changing Townscapes in North Africa from Late Antiquity to the Arab Conquest

Changing Townscapes in North Africa from Late Antiquity to the Arab Conquest PDF

Author: Anna Leone

Publisher: Edipuglia srl

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 8872284988

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"This book examines the complex transition of North Africa from the Late Roman period to the Arab conquest, focusing on three provinces: Zeugitana, Byzacena and Tripolitana. In particular, it considers the continuity and transformation of towns, as a result of economic, political and social changes. The period sees the wide diffusion of Christianity, the imposition of Vandal rule and Arianism, the presence of a new Empire and the Arab/Muslim takeover. It is also a period of archaeological and material transition: physically towns changed and classical structures, in particular, decayed and were reused. The evidence considered here encompasses a wide range of material, including publications from 1800 (Italian and French colonial excavations) to modern times. These data form the basis for a detailed review of archaeological evidence in this geographical area and for the analysis of the processes of evolution that characterised North African cities"--

Ostia in Late Antiquity

Ostia in Late Antiquity PDF

Author: Douglas Boin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-07-22

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1107024013

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'Ostia in Late Antiquity' narrates the life of Ostia Antica, Rome's ancient harbor, during the later empire.

Urban Interactions: Communication and Competition in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Urban Interactions: Communication and Competition in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages PDF

Author: Michael J. Kelly

Publisher: Punctum Books

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 9781953035059

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"This volume is dedicated to eliciting the interactions between localities across late antique and early medieval Europe and the wider Mediterranean. Significant research has been done in recent years to explore how late "Roman" and post-"Roman" cities, towns and other localities communicated vis-à-vis larger structural phenomena, such as provinces, empires, kingdoms, institutions and so on. This research has contributed considerably to our understanding of the place of the city in its context, but tends to portray the city as a necessarily subordinate conduit within larger structures, rather than an entity in itself, or as a hermeneutical object of enquiry. Consequently, not enough research has been committed to examining how local people and communities thought about, engaged with, and struggled against nearby or distant urban neighbors.Urban Interactions addresses this lacuna in urban history by presenting articles that apply a diverse spectrum of approaches, from archaeological investigation to critical analyses of historiographical and historical biases and developmental consideration of antagonisms between ecclesiastical centers. Through these avenues of investigation, this volume elucidates the relationship between the urban centers and their immediate hinterlands and neighboring cities with which they might vie or collaborate. This entanglement and competition, whether subterraneous or explicit across overarching political, religious or other macro categories, is evaluated through a broad geographical range of late "Roman" provinces and post-"Roman" states to maintain an expansive perspective of developmental trends within and about the city."