Andrew Wilson
My research interests include the economy of the Roman empire; ancient technology; ancient water supply and usage; Roman architecture; Roman North Africa, and field survey. I am particularly interested in the ancient use of water-power, machines and mining techniques, and the relationship between technological progress and economic growth in the Roman world.
With Professor Alan Bowman, I co-direct the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OXREP), which aims to collate and analyse both archaeological and documentary evidence to provide fresh quantitative and qualitative insights into the nature, scale and performance of the Roman economy.
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Much of the project research, and also related work by others, is or will be published in the monograph series Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy with Oxford University Press.
I teach various courses on Roman archaeology, including Roman Urban Systems, The Archaeology of the Roman Economy; and I am particularly interested in supervising graduate students working on the ancient economy, on settlement patterns, or on ancient technology.
Address: All Souls College
High St
Oxford
OX1 4AL
With Professor Alan Bowman, I co-direct the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OXREP), which aims to collate and analyse both archaeological and documentary evidence to provide fresh quantitative and qualitative insights into the nature, scale and performance of the Roman economy.
http://oxrep.classics.ox.ac.uk/new/index.php
Much of the project research, and also related work by others, is or will be published in the monograph series Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy with Oxford University Press.
I teach various courses on Roman archaeology, including Roman Urban Systems, The Archaeology of the Roman Economy; and I am particularly interested in supervising graduate students working on the ancient economy, on settlement patterns, or on ancient technology.
Address: All Souls College
High St
Oxford
OX1 4AL
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Books by Andrew Wilson
The connection between Roman religion and the economy has largely been ignored in work on the Roman economy, but this volume explores the many complex ways in which economic and religious thinking and activities were interwoven, from individuals to institutions. The broad geographic and chronological scope of the volume engages with a notable variety of evidence: epigraphic, archaeological, historical, papyrological, and zooarchaeological. In addition to providing case studies that draw from the rich archaeological, documentary, and epigraphic evidence, the volume also explores the different and sometimes divergent pictures offered by these sources (from discrepancies in the cost of religious buildings, to the tensions between piety and ostentatious donation). The edited collection thus bridges economic, social, and religious themes.
The volume provides a view of a society in which religion had a central role in economic activity on an institutional to individual scale. The volume allows an evaluation of impact of that activity from both financial and social viewpoints, providing a new perspective on Roman religion - a perspective to which a wide range of archaeological and documentary evidence, from animal bone to coins and building costs, has contributed. As a result, this volume not only provides new information on the economy of Roman religion: it also proposes new ways of looking at existing bodies of evidence.
This edited volume addresses this need through critical discussion and convincing examples. It presents the Roman economy as a highly complex system, traditionally studied through critical examinations of material and textual sources, and understood through a wealth of diverging theories. A key contribution of simulation lies in its ability to formally represent diverse theories of Roman economic phenomena, and test them against empirical evidence. Critical simulation studies rely on collaboration across Roman data, theory, and method specialisms, and can constructively enhance multivocality of theoretical debates of the Roman economy. This potential is illustrated, avoiding computational and mathematical language, through simulation studies of a wealth of Roman economic phenomena: from maritime trade and terrestrial transport infrastructures, through the economic impacts of the Antonine Plague and demography, to local cult economies and grain trade.
Through these examples and discussions, this volume aims to provide the common ground, guidance, and inspiration needed to make simulation methods part of the tools of the trade in Roman Studies, and to allow them to make constructive contributions to our understanding of the Roman economy.
Chapters on methodology and metrology introduce statistical tools for analysing patterns of hoarding, explore the relationships between monetary reforms and hoarding practices, and address the question of value, emphasizing the need to consider the whole range of precious metal artefacts hoarded. Several chapters present regional studies, from Britain to Egypt, conveying the diversity of hoarding practices across the Empire, the differing methodological challenges they face, and the variety of topics they illuminate. The final group of chapters examines the evidence of hoarding for how long coins stayed in circulation, illustrating the importance of hoard evidence as a control on the interpretation of single coin finds, the continued circulation of Republican coins under the Empire, and the end of the small change economy in Northern Gaul.
An introductory chapter by the editors sets the scene within the context of scholarly debate over the scale, nature and importance of Roman trade since the mid twentieth centuries. The chapters in this volume address facets of the subject on the basis of widely different sources of evidence—historical, papyrological and archaeological—and are grouped in three sections. Many of the major institutional factors are discussed in the first section: taxation by Alan Bowman (chapter 2); the legal structures by Boudewijn Sirks (chapter 3); market regulation and transaction costs by Elio Lo Cascio (chapter 4); Republican financial institutions by Philip Kay (chapter 5). A picture begins to emerge of heavy state involvement in establishing institutional frameworks conducive to trade, including provision of transport infrastructure, and, notably, interventions in the market to distort flows of particular goods, whether staples such as grain or olive oil, or luxuries such as marble, to particular concentrations of demands, principally Rome and the army garrisons. But this seems to have been done by the engagement of private contractors, in a way which stimulated private trade on the back of it: Colin Adams’ chapter on Nile transport (chapter 6) points out the incentives or subsidies carrying a private cargo as a supplement to a state cargo, and thus how the imbrication of state and private transport subsidised private trade.
The second and third sections concentrate on internal and external (long-distance) trade, respectively. Among the underlying questions of economic performance, we include: how widely available were different kinds of goods, and what determined differences in availability? How successfully did transport infrastructure provision enable goods to be moved, or did high transport costs deter long-distance land movement? The (predominantly archaeological) evidence reviewed in Part II gives the impression that access to resources via long-distance trade corrected some imbalances in natural reserves, for example in timber (chapter 7), and that traded goods (glass, chapter 9; pottery, chapters 10–12; and metals) were widely and effectively distributed. In normal circumstances, the transport systems, institutional framework, market concentrations of demand, worked pretty well for a preindustrial society. But there is anecdotal evidence of famines which could not be alleviated in time, given the slow transport and communication speeds of a preindustrial world. Although much of the evidence for the scale and reach of Roman trade comes from pottery, since that is one of the most archaeologically durable and traceable commodities, a particularly important feature of this volume is that several papers show what can be done with other goods: timber (William Harris, chapter 7), glass (Daniele Foy, chapter 9), stone (Ben Russell, chapter 8), and even the service industry in cleaning textiles (Ivan Radman, chapter 13). A chapter by Emanuele Papi (ch. 14) examines a particular province, Mauretania Tingitana, and demonstrates how recent archaeological work and a synthesis of what is known about amphorae production sites radically alter the perception of that province as largely isolated from Mediterranean trading networks.
The third and final section deals with trade beyond the boundaries of the empire, especially with India and the far East, a topic on which a mass of new data has become available in the last decade, largely as a result of archaeological excavations. David Graf provides a magisterial survey of the evidence for the development, extent and nature of trade via the so-called ‘Silk Roads’ (chapter 15) The Silk Road trade at the Chinese end originated epiphenomenally on the practice of state tribute and diplomatic embassies, as tribute in kind and diplomatic gifts were resold by their enterprising recipients. As trade developed along the routes westward and gained its own momentum, its value was harnessed by the Chinese and Roman states in the form of heavy customs dues.
Roberta Tomber and Dario Nappo argue, on the basis of ceramic and numismatic evidence respectively, that contrary to a widespread view trade between the Roman world and India had not declined by the mid second century, but remained buoyant at least until the Antonine period. Barbara Davidde’s paper illustrates the role that Arabian ports played in this trade with India and also with the products of Arabia. Qana’ was receiving Campanian, Laodicaean and Egyptian wine, and even wine from Spain and the Black Sea. Some of this was clearly traded in return for frankincense from the interior of Yemen; but some will have been bought for onward shipment to the ports of northern India, and Indian goods would have gone the other way.
Overall, the papers suggest a mixed picture of the development of patterns of trade across the empire, especially in the third and fourth centuries, and no definitive or widely applicable conclusion about ‘economic collapse’. Rome’s external trade with realms to the east emerges as being of particular significance to the fisc. But in the eastern part of the empire at least, the state appears, in collaboration with the elite holders of wealth, to have adapted the mechanisms of taxation, both direct and indirect, to support its need for revenue. On the other hand, the price of that collaboration which was in effect a fiscal partnership, in slightly different forms in east and west, in the longer term fundamentally changed the political character of the empire.
After an introduction by the editors, which discusses recent developments in the study of Roman craftsmen and traders and their changing place in Roman economic history, the remainder of the volume is divided into four sections. The first three chapters discuss the scholarly history of Roman crafts and trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, identifying different national traditions in the scholarship and showing how they influenced the development of thinking in very different ways in different regions, something which this book aims to overcome by promoting a greater interchange of ideas and perspectives between traditions.
A chapter by Flohr and Wilson discusses the development of academic debate in Germany and the Anglo-Saxon world, highlighting the role of new sets of evidence and changing scholarly ideologies in pushing forward scholarly discourse. This broad chapter sets the stage for the two following chapters. Carla Salvaterra and Alessandro Cristofori sketch the development of debates on craftsmen and traders in twentieth century Italy, with particular emphasis on the fascist era and the marxist fashion in the 1970s. Jean-Pierre Brun discusses the historical development of debate among francophone scholars in the light of recent French approaches to the archaeology of crafts in Roman Italy.
The second section highlights the economic strategies of craftsmen and traders. The first two chapters discuss this issue in general terms. Candace Rice discusses strategies to overcome information deficiencies by people involved in maritime trade over longer distances. Kai Ruffing analyzes the phenomenon of specialization among urban craftsmen and retailers, with a particular emphasis on epigraphic and papyrological evidence from Asia Minor and Egypt. The other two chapters focus on specific trades: Carol van Driel-Murray investigates the marketing strategies of shoemakers in the Northern provinces based on preserved shoeware, while Nicolas Monteix discusses strategies by how bakers to aimed to enhance the efficiency of their workshops, based on archaeological evidence from Pompeii.
Subsequently, there are five chapters highlighting the human factor in urban crafts and trade, with particular reference to labour organisation. A chapter by Christel Freu discusses the phenomenon of apprenticeship. This is followed by a chapter by Lena Larsson Lovén on women’s work. Wim Broekaert analyzes the role of freedmen and their former owners in urban economic life. Nicolas Tran and Ilias Arnaoutoglou discuss the role of professional associations – the former in the port city of Arles, and the latter in Hierapolis in Asia Minor.
The final section discusses the position of crafts in urban space. It starts with two complementary chapters by Penelope Goodman and Kerstin Dross-Krüpe discussing the phenomenon of artisanal clustering from, respectively, an archaeological and papyrological perspective. The other two chapters present case studies of the commercial landscape of two cities: Orsolya Lang sketches the historical development of the civilian town of Aquincum, while Jeroen Poblome focuses on the urban context of the Potters’ Quarter at Sagalassos.
Together, the papers present a range of possible approaches to studying aspects of the socioeconomic lives of craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, on the basis of widely different sources of written and material evidence.
Introduction:
http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/13/9780199602353_chapter1.pdf
See the attached file for cover image and table of contents, or
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Journal Special Issues by Andrew Wilson
Table of contents and links to articles at:
http://link.springer.com/journal/12685/4/1/page/1
Papers by Andrew Wilson
of different types. Most were discovered reused in secondary contexts, but some were found in their original position (i.e. in the courtyards of town houses or villas).The cataloguing of this group of finds has just been completed (although new ones continue to be found in ongoing excavations), and therefore detailed research on the types, material, and economic significance has only just begun (in a cooperation between the University of Oxford and the BHM Aquincum Museum). This paper presents the preliminary results of this work on the find location and dating of these stones, as well as distinguishing between hand querns and water-mills. It explores the potential of this neglected group of Aquincum finds, and especially what they might suggest about the extent of the use of water-powered milling on the Roman frontier in Pannonia.
The connection between Roman religion and the economy has largely been ignored in work on the Roman economy, but this volume explores the many complex ways in which economic and religious thinking and activities were interwoven, from individuals to institutions. The broad geographic and chronological scope of the volume engages with a notable variety of evidence: epigraphic, archaeological, historical, papyrological, and zooarchaeological. In addition to providing case studies that draw from the rich archaeological, documentary, and epigraphic evidence, the volume also explores the different and sometimes divergent pictures offered by these sources (from discrepancies in the cost of religious buildings, to the tensions between piety and ostentatious donation). The edited collection thus bridges economic, social, and religious themes.
The volume provides a view of a society in which religion had a central role in economic activity on an institutional to individual scale. The volume allows an evaluation of impact of that activity from both financial and social viewpoints, providing a new perspective on Roman religion - a perspective to which a wide range of archaeological and documentary evidence, from animal bone to coins and building costs, has contributed. As a result, this volume not only provides new information on the economy of Roman religion: it also proposes new ways of looking at existing bodies of evidence.
This edited volume addresses this need through critical discussion and convincing examples. It presents the Roman economy as a highly complex system, traditionally studied through critical examinations of material and textual sources, and understood through a wealth of diverging theories. A key contribution of simulation lies in its ability to formally represent diverse theories of Roman economic phenomena, and test them against empirical evidence. Critical simulation studies rely on collaboration across Roman data, theory, and method specialisms, and can constructively enhance multivocality of theoretical debates of the Roman economy. This potential is illustrated, avoiding computational and mathematical language, through simulation studies of a wealth of Roman economic phenomena: from maritime trade and terrestrial transport infrastructures, through the economic impacts of the Antonine Plague and demography, to local cult economies and grain trade.
Through these examples and discussions, this volume aims to provide the common ground, guidance, and inspiration needed to make simulation methods part of the tools of the trade in Roman Studies, and to allow them to make constructive contributions to our understanding of the Roman economy.
Chapters on methodology and metrology introduce statistical tools for analysing patterns of hoarding, explore the relationships between monetary reforms and hoarding practices, and address the question of value, emphasizing the need to consider the whole range of precious metal artefacts hoarded. Several chapters present regional studies, from Britain to Egypt, conveying the diversity of hoarding practices across the Empire, the differing methodological challenges they face, and the variety of topics they illuminate. The final group of chapters examines the evidence of hoarding for how long coins stayed in circulation, illustrating the importance of hoard evidence as a control on the interpretation of single coin finds, the continued circulation of Republican coins under the Empire, and the end of the small change economy in Northern Gaul.
An introductory chapter by the editors sets the scene within the context of scholarly debate over the scale, nature and importance of Roman trade since the mid twentieth centuries. The chapters in this volume address facets of the subject on the basis of widely different sources of evidence—historical, papyrological and archaeological—and are grouped in three sections. Many of the major institutional factors are discussed in the first section: taxation by Alan Bowman (chapter 2); the legal structures by Boudewijn Sirks (chapter 3); market regulation and transaction costs by Elio Lo Cascio (chapter 4); Republican financial institutions by Philip Kay (chapter 5). A picture begins to emerge of heavy state involvement in establishing institutional frameworks conducive to trade, including provision of transport infrastructure, and, notably, interventions in the market to distort flows of particular goods, whether staples such as grain or olive oil, or luxuries such as marble, to particular concentrations of demands, principally Rome and the army garrisons. But this seems to have been done by the engagement of private contractors, in a way which stimulated private trade on the back of it: Colin Adams’ chapter on Nile transport (chapter 6) points out the incentives or subsidies carrying a private cargo as a supplement to a state cargo, and thus how the imbrication of state and private transport subsidised private trade.
The second and third sections concentrate on internal and external (long-distance) trade, respectively. Among the underlying questions of economic performance, we include: how widely available were different kinds of goods, and what determined differences in availability? How successfully did transport infrastructure provision enable goods to be moved, or did high transport costs deter long-distance land movement? The (predominantly archaeological) evidence reviewed in Part II gives the impression that access to resources via long-distance trade corrected some imbalances in natural reserves, for example in timber (chapter 7), and that traded goods (glass, chapter 9; pottery, chapters 10–12; and metals) were widely and effectively distributed. In normal circumstances, the transport systems, institutional framework, market concentrations of demand, worked pretty well for a preindustrial society. But there is anecdotal evidence of famines which could not be alleviated in time, given the slow transport and communication speeds of a preindustrial world. Although much of the evidence for the scale and reach of Roman trade comes from pottery, since that is one of the most archaeologically durable and traceable commodities, a particularly important feature of this volume is that several papers show what can be done with other goods: timber (William Harris, chapter 7), glass (Daniele Foy, chapter 9), stone (Ben Russell, chapter 8), and even the service industry in cleaning textiles (Ivan Radman, chapter 13). A chapter by Emanuele Papi (ch. 14) examines a particular province, Mauretania Tingitana, and demonstrates how recent archaeological work and a synthesis of what is known about amphorae production sites radically alter the perception of that province as largely isolated from Mediterranean trading networks.
The third and final section deals with trade beyond the boundaries of the empire, especially with India and the far East, a topic on which a mass of new data has become available in the last decade, largely as a result of archaeological excavations. David Graf provides a magisterial survey of the evidence for the development, extent and nature of trade via the so-called ‘Silk Roads’ (chapter 15) The Silk Road trade at the Chinese end originated epiphenomenally on the practice of state tribute and diplomatic embassies, as tribute in kind and diplomatic gifts were resold by their enterprising recipients. As trade developed along the routes westward and gained its own momentum, its value was harnessed by the Chinese and Roman states in the form of heavy customs dues.
Roberta Tomber and Dario Nappo argue, on the basis of ceramic and numismatic evidence respectively, that contrary to a widespread view trade between the Roman world and India had not declined by the mid second century, but remained buoyant at least until the Antonine period. Barbara Davidde’s paper illustrates the role that Arabian ports played in this trade with India and also with the products of Arabia. Qana’ was receiving Campanian, Laodicaean and Egyptian wine, and even wine from Spain and the Black Sea. Some of this was clearly traded in return for frankincense from the interior of Yemen; but some will have been bought for onward shipment to the ports of northern India, and Indian goods would have gone the other way.
Overall, the papers suggest a mixed picture of the development of patterns of trade across the empire, especially in the third and fourth centuries, and no definitive or widely applicable conclusion about ‘economic collapse’. Rome’s external trade with realms to the east emerges as being of particular significance to the fisc. But in the eastern part of the empire at least, the state appears, in collaboration with the elite holders of wealth, to have adapted the mechanisms of taxation, both direct and indirect, to support its need for revenue. On the other hand, the price of that collaboration which was in effect a fiscal partnership, in slightly different forms in east and west, in the longer term fundamentally changed the political character of the empire.
After an introduction by the editors, which discusses recent developments in the study of Roman craftsmen and traders and their changing place in Roman economic history, the remainder of the volume is divided into four sections. The first three chapters discuss the scholarly history of Roman crafts and trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, identifying different national traditions in the scholarship and showing how they influenced the development of thinking in very different ways in different regions, something which this book aims to overcome by promoting a greater interchange of ideas and perspectives between traditions.
A chapter by Flohr and Wilson discusses the development of academic debate in Germany and the Anglo-Saxon world, highlighting the role of new sets of evidence and changing scholarly ideologies in pushing forward scholarly discourse. This broad chapter sets the stage for the two following chapters. Carla Salvaterra and Alessandro Cristofori sketch the development of debates on craftsmen and traders in twentieth century Italy, with particular emphasis on the fascist era and the marxist fashion in the 1970s. Jean-Pierre Brun discusses the historical development of debate among francophone scholars in the light of recent French approaches to the archaeology of crafts in Roman Italy.
The second section highlights the economic strategies of craftsmen and traders. The first two chapters discuss this issue in general terms. Candace Rice discusses strategies to overcome information deficiencies by people involved in maritime trade over longer distances. Kai Ruffing analyzes the phenomenon of specialization among urban craftsmen and retailers, with a particular emphasis on epigraphic and papyrological evidence from Asia Minor and Egypt. The other two chapters focus on specific trades: Carol van Driel-Murray investigates the marketing strategies of shoemakers in the Northern provinces based on preserved shoeware, while Nicolas Monteix discusses strategies by how bakers to aimed to enhance the efficiency of their workshops, based on archaeological evidence from Pompeii.
Subsequently, there are five chapters highlighting the human factor in urban crafts and trade, with particular reference to labour organisation. A chapter by Christel Freu discusses the phenomenon of apprenticeship. This is followed by a chapter by Lena Larsson Lovén on women’s work. Wim Broekaert analyzes the role of freedmen and their former owners in urban economic life. Nicolas Tran and Ilias Arnaoutoglou discuss the role of professional associations – the former in the port city of Arles, and the latter in Hierapolis in Asia Minor.
The final section discusses the position of crafts in urban space. It starts with two complementary chapters by Penelope Goodman and Kerstin Dross-Krüpe discussing the phenomenon of artisanal clustering from, respectively, an archaeological and papyrological perspective. The other two chapters present case studies of the commercial landscape of two cities: Orsolya Lang sketches the historical development of the civilian town of Aquincum, while Jeroen Poblome focuses on the urban context of the Potters’ Quarter at Sagalassos.
Together, the papers present a range of possible approaches to studying aspects of the socioeconomic lives of craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, on the basis of widely different sources of written and material evidence.
Introduction:
http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/13/9780199602353_chapter1.pdf
See the attached file for cover image and table of contents, or
http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/91399//Location/Oxbow
Table of contents and links to articles at:
http://link.springer.com/journal/12685/4/1/page/1
of different types. Most were discovered reused in secondary contexts, but some were found in their original position (i.e. in the courtyards of town houses or villas).The cataloguing of this group of finds has just been completed (although new ones continue to be found in ongoing excavations), and therefore detailed research on the types, material, and economic significance has only just begun (in a cooperation between the University of Oxford and the BHM Aquincum Museum). This paper presents the preliminary results of this work on the find location and dating of these stones, as well as distinguishing between hand querns and water-mills. It explores the potential of this neglected group of Aquincum finds, and especially what they might suggest about the extent of the use of water-powered milling on the Roman frontier in Pannonia.
The purpose of the discussion here is not to attempt to summarise the findings of earlier chapters, but to sketch some avenues for how some of these questions might be pursued further, especially under the headings of: Agriculture; Transport, Distribution, Connectivity, and Trade; Demography; and Epidemiology. A review of useful source datasets is given, together with a discussion of desiderata.
In this paper, the authors explore the relationship between the development of the Garamantian state and the development of complex irrigation systems. We consider the role of the hyper -arid environment and its impact on the adoption of intensive oasis agriculture and the potential for declining water tables and failing foggaras to have contributed to the decline of Garamantian power and cohesion. We also consider the human dimension of technological innovation and managerial responses in creating a constantly evolving set of irrigation systems with corresponding evidence for cooperation and conflict.
This report describes the landscape features recorded and the steps taken to try to preserve the evidence from obliteration in the face of modern agricultural development. Important new information was recorded about the date and furnishing of some key types of Proto-Urban tombs, linking with a refined view of the relationship of these cemeteries to contemporary foggara construction and the creation of pioneer farming settlement in the Taqallit region. Significant additional details of the foggara systems were recorded through a combination of satellite image interpretation, surface observation and selective descent into rock-cut shafts. The discovery of an unexpected number of ancient settlements and structures of Garamantian date represents another major achievement of the work. The composite picture of the Garamantian landscape encompassing cemeteries, foggaras and settlements is arguably the most complete yet recorded in the FP/DMP work.
A total of 22 burials was investigated at TAG001, an imposing cemetery of stone-built stepped tombs that had been badly damaged by illegal bulldozing in the 1990s. Although these had been subjected to robbing at some point in the past, many preserved considerable parts of the skeletons buried within and some surprisingly complete artifact groups. Of particular importance are a series of Garamantian necklaces in ostrich eggshell, carnelian and glass beads, which we were able to lift in perfect sequence and restring. At TAG012, about 2 km north of the Taqallit headland, we excavated an area of a mudbrick cemetery, exposing 12 square/rectangular tombs. Two further burials were excavated at the dispersed cemetery TAG006, in both cases involving tombs that had an interesting stratigraphical relationship with foggara spoil mounds.
La quantification des trouvailles céramiques montre que Euesperides se trouvait dans un cadre des routes commerciales qui traversaient la Méditerranée. La 90% pourcent des céramiques fines etaient importées, dont une groupe importante de céramique commune Punique. Les amphores pour vin, huiles et poissons salées viennent de toutes régions circum-Mediterranéens, des Etroits de Gibraltar à l’Égéen du nord. Parmi les exportations de Euesperides étaient probablement le silphium, et des textiles ou de laine tintés en pourpre, comme indique la fouille d’un atelier de la 3ème siècle avant J.-C. qui produisait la teinture de pourpre du Murex, et aussi l’identification des grands dépotoirs des Murex cassés des ateliers divers.
Studies on the shell species and breakage patterns by Estíbaliz Tébar Megías provide insights into the methods used for collecting and preparing the Murex shells, and forms the basis for a preliminary quantification of production. It is likely that the manufacture of purple dye at Euesperides was linked also to wool production; and that wool or textiles were among the goods exported in return for the large amount of imported trade goods found at the site.
In Area P excavations continued below the primary floors of the antepenultimate phase in Room 5a where a series of inter-cutting pits beneath the primary floor provided a section through the stratigraphy to natural. The results of the work showed that occupation in the sixth to fourth centuries BC was less intensive and accumulated at a slower rate than in the Hellenistic period. Three phases of early activity were represented, the earliest levels dated to the period c. 580–560 BC. A comparable picture emerged in Area R, but in Area Q a second phase set of buildings laid-out in or after the late sixth century BC, with houses flanking the street, persisted until late in the life of the city. Excavations in Area Q extension revealed a large circular building with internal floor of terracotta sherds set in cement, tentatively interpreted as part of a set of public baths. A late reuse of the building was indicated by a number of plaster lined tanks formed over the terracotta floor. The presence of the building was taken to indicate that the building and an associated street, aligned over an in-filled quarry may have been inter-mural, suggesting that the late city was of greater size than hitherto thought.
Selected finewares, coarsewares and amphora from the excavations are presented, together with preliminary observations, resulting from the environmental sampling of occupation deposits.
Selected finewares from the excavations are presented, ranging in date from the sixth to the third centuries BC. Work on the coarse pottery and amphora assemblages has begun to distinguish products of different production centres within Cyrenaica. Besides demonstrating the quantities of imported coarsewares from Corinth, the Aegean and the Punic world, we can now recognise four classes of Cyrenaican amphorae, including exports present at Punic Sabratha. The study of the wall plaster, environmental remains and other finds are also briefly discussed.
Euesperides is a site both of archaeological importance and of considerable scientific interest for its rare wetland vegetation, but both of these aspects remain vulnerable to ongoing damage as a result of urban development, uncontrolled rubbish dumping and a lack of effective protection of the site.
Study of the finds also continued. Further work on reconstructing the design of the final phase mosaic in Area P suggests a central motif probably of two dolphins set within a wave-crest surround. The initial results of the analysis of the mosaic samples taken from the final-phase Building A are presented. The study of the wall plaster fragments was begun, enabling some preliminary observations on the decoration. New forms of local black glaze pots have been recovered this year along with fineware imports from Attica, Corinth, East Greece, south Italy and the Punic world throwing light on the interrelations between Euesperides and the Mediterranean world from the fifth to third centuries BC. Full quantification of the coarse pottery assemblages continued this season, doubling the dataset of fully recorded pottery, whilst detailed analysis of vessel forms and their variations identified production techniques and chronological developments of vessel shapes within the local and imported wares. The study of the amphorae identified more Punic amphorae and an unusual basket-handled amphora which may be of Cypriot origin. Initial assessments of environmental and faunal remains were conducted.
Study of the finds also continued. Work began on reconstructing the design of the final phase mosaic in Area P, the central motif of which was probably a dolphin, within a wave-crest surround. Analysis of the coarsewares demonstrated that between 40–60% of third-century BC coarsewares at the site were imported, many from areas of the Punic world; this suggests active and regular trading networks. Study of the amphorae revealed that forms of Corinthian B amphorae were produced at Euesperides.
Handout for Classical Archaeology seminar, Oxford, 14 February 2002, 5 pm GMT.
This talk explores both what St Augustine’s writings can tell us about the material world of late antique North Africa and, more excitingly, ask how archaeology can help us understand some of Augustine’s writings, and in particular explain why he came up with some of his more forced and elaborate theological metaphors.
The talk can be viewed online via Panopto at:
https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=42749d63-f1cb-4a3c-ad68-ae1901047b39
Free registration.
This event is organised with the generous support of the Oxford Roman Economy Project and Baron Lorne Thyssen, the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, All Souls College, and the Department of Classics of the University of Reading.
The afternoon will begin with a series of short presentations by Todd Hickey, James Keenan, Jean Gascou, Andrew Wilson and Peter Sarris.
It will move on to a round-table discussion with Philip Booth, Alan Bowman, Jennifer Cromwell, Nikolaos Gonis, James Howard-Johnston, Roberta Mazza, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Bryan Ward-Perkins, and Mark Whittow..
Abstracts:
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Aligning itself with a recent brand of American economic history that evolved from the cliometrics revolution of the 1960s (The New Institutional Economics), the stated aim of the recent Cambridge Economic History of the Graeco-Roman World (Scheidel et al. 2007) is to compare the structure and performance of economies of different historical epochs. This has manifested itself in the use of the quantitative approaches just mentioned, as well as an interest in finding possible proxies for economic growth: the number of shipwrecks recorded through time, or alterations in the quantity of pollution in the ice-core data, for example. Is it, therefore, possible to describe the current paradigm as neoliberal?
The session includes papers from scholars with a range of different viewpoints: Dr Matthew S. Hobson (University of Leicester), Dr Willem M. Jongman (University of Groningen) and Dr Koenraad Verboven (University of Ghent). Professor Andrew Wilson (University of Oxford) has kindly agreed to be a discussant. The intention is to encourage healthy debate and to drive the discipline forward in a positive new way.
Paper titles
Matthew S. Hobson, University of Leicester: ‘The growth of neoliberalism and the study of the Roman economy.’
Willem M. Jongman, University of Groningen: ‘Why modern economics applies - even to the distant past.’
Koenraad Verboven, University of Ghent: ‘Markets, institutional change and economic development in the Roman World’.
Andrew Wilson - Discussant
References
BOLDIZZONI, F. 2011. The poverty of Clio: resurrecting economic history. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.
HARVEY, D. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
HOBSON, M. S. 2012. The African Boom? Evaluating Economic Growth in the Roman Province of Africa Proconsularis. School of Archaeology and Ancient History, PhD Thesis. University of Leicester, Leicester. Available for download at https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/11050.
HOPKINS, K. 1980. 'Taxes and trade in the Roman Empire (200 B.C.-A.D. 400).' JRS 70: 101-125.
1983. 'Introduction.' In P. Garnsey, K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker (eds.), Trade in the Ancient Economy. London: Chatto and Windus.
2002. 'Rome, Taxes, Rents and Trade.' In W. Scheidel and S. Von Reden (eds.), The Ancient Economy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press: 190-230.
HOWARD, M. C. and KING, J. E. 2008. The Rise of Neoliberalism in Advanced Capitalist Economies: A Materialist Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
KLEIN, N. 2004. The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism. London: Allen Lane.
SCHEIDEL, W. 2010a. 'Human development and quality of life in the long run: the case of Greece. Version 1.0.' Princeton\Stanford Working Papers in Classics: 1-10.
2010b. 'Physical wellbeing in the Roman world. Version 2.0.' Princeton\Stanford Working Papers in Classics: 1-12.
SCHEIDEL, W., MORRIS, I., and SALLER, R. 2007. The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SILVER, M. 2007. 'Roman Economic Growth and Living Standards: Perceptions Versus Evidence.' Ancient Society 37: 191-252.
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Talks will be given by the French, Spanish and British teams working at the site with the Tunisian Institut National de Patrimoine about their 2012 seasons. These talks will be followed by a reception to celebrate the project and the site, and to welcome our Tunisian, French and Spanish colleagues and friends.
The talks will take place in the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles’, Oxford (OX1 3LU) between 2 and 6 pm.
For more information and to register for a place please contact [email protected].
We look forward to seeing you there.
very much based in out-dated core-periphery models of interaction, where an economically-successful core region was forced to support frontier regions through surplus redistribution by the state. This model fails to accommodate the ever-expanding body of archaeological and historical material that highlights both chronological and geographical variability in frontier economies, and we feel that it is time to discuss new ideas that may move the discussion forward into a better integrated
and more dynamic economic history.