Production Economy in Greater Roman Syria

Production Economy in Greater Roman Syria PDF Author: Rubina Raja
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782503591254
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The site of Palmyra, an oasis city in the Syrian desert located at a cultural and geographical crossroads, was a major trading centre in the first three centuries ad. This volume offers an in-depth exploration into one type of trade and its economy, namely that of stone, and the crucial role that this played within the settlement. The papers gathered here explore different aspects of stone, from its use in Palmyra's famous funerary portraiture, the production techniques that underlay these works, and their polychromy, through to where and how marble and limestone were provenanced, quarried, and transported, and what this implies for our understanding of the organization of the stone trade in both Syria and beyond. Chapters on Aphrodisian artists and the rock-cut chambers in Commagene and Cyrrhestice ensure the evidence from Palmyra is set in a wider context, enabling comparisons to be drawn with the work of sculptors elsewhere. Together, the papers within this volume offer a unique insight into a trade and economy of vital importance in an important urban centre of the Roman period. The work presented here is an outcome of the Palmyra Portrait Project, directed by Prof. Rubina Raja.

Production Economy in Greater Roman Syria

Production Economy in Greater Roman Syria PDF Author: Rubina Raja
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782503591254
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
The site of Palmyra, an oasis city in the Syrian desert located at a cultural and geographical crossroads, was a major trading centre in the first three centuries ad. This volume offers an in-depth exploration into one type of trade and its economy, namely that of stone, and the crucial role that this played within the settlement. The papers gathered here explore different aspects of stone, from its use in Palmyra's famous funerary portraiture, the production techniques that underlay these works, and their polychromy, through to where and how marble and limestone were provenanced, quarried, and transported, and what this implies for our understanding of the organization of the stone trade in both Syria and beyond. Chapters on Aphrodisian artists and the rock-cut chambers in Commagene and Cyrrhestice ensure the evidence from Palmyra is set in a wider context, enabling comparisons to be drawn with the work of sculptors elsewhere. Together, the papers within this volume offer a unique insight into a trade and economy of vital importance in an important urban centre of the Roman period. The work presented here is an outcome of the Palmyra Portrait Project, directed by Prof. Rubina Raja.

Economic Circularity in the Roman and Early Medieval Worlds

Economic Circularity in the Roman and Early Medieval Worlds PDF Author: Jonathan Wood
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789259975
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Economic circularity is the ability of a society to reduce waste by recycling, reusing, and repairing raw materials and finished products. This concept has gained momentum in academia, in part due to contemporary environmental concerns. Although the blurry conceptual boundaries of this term are open to a wide array of interpretations, the scholarly community generally perceives circular economy as a convenient umbrella definition that encompasses a vast array of regenerative and preservative processes. Despite the recent surge of interest, economic circularity has not been fully addressed as a macrophenomenon by historical and archaeological studies. The limitations of data and the relatively new formulation of targeted research questions mean that several processes and agents involved in ancient circular economies are still invisible to the eye of modern scholarship. Examples include forms of curation, maintenance, and repair, which must have had an influence on the economic systems of premodern societies but are rarely accounted for. Moreover, the people behind these processes, such as collectors and scavengers, are rarely investigated and poorly understood. Even better-studied mechanisms, like reuse and recycling, are not explored to their full potential within the broader picture of ancient urban economies. This volume stems from a conference held at Moesgaard Museum supported by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Centre for Urban Networks Evolutions (UrbNet) at Aarhus University. To enhance our understanding of circular economic processes, the contributions in this volume aim to expand the framework of the discussion by exploring circular economy over the longue durée and by integrating an interdisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, the volume wants to give prominence to classes of material, processes, agents, and methodologies generally overlooked or ignored in modern scholarship.

The Oxford Handbook of Palmyra

The Oxford Handbook of Palmyra PDF Author: Rubina Raja
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190858117
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 633

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Book Description
With contributions from thirty archaeologists, epigraphists, historians, and philologists, this book covers Palmyra's archaeological remains and history from its earliest phases in the pre-Roman era to the destruction of many of its monuments during the Syrian Civil War and subsequent looting. The authors give comprehensive overviews of already published evidence, as well as significant new findings and analyses from fieldwork, and cover a broad range of themes, which not only relate to the archaeology and history of the site, but also to its relationship with the rest of the ancient world as a major trade hub during the Roman period.

Exploring urbanism in ancient North Syria

Exploring urbanism in ancient North Syria PDF Author: Michael Blömer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110747952
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
This book accounts for the results of fieldwork in Doliche, located in Gaziantep, South East Turkey. Doliche was an important city of ancient North Syria which continued to thrive into the Middle Ages. For the first time, an international research project started to explore the site in 2015. The chapters collected in this volume discuss the main discoveries of the first seasons. It is divided in two parts. The first part considers the main excavation results, with a particular emphasis on a newly discovered early Christian basilica and its decoration. This section also contains the first comprehensive discussion of a newly discovered Roman Imperial hypogeum from the city necropolis. The chapters of the second part deal with the preliminary findings from an intra-urban intensive survey. Between 2017 and 2019, a significant portion of the city area has been investigated, and the results of the survey offer new insights in the spatial and chronological of the city. The chapters consider methodological questions, but also discuss artefact groups. In general, the results presented in this volume add to the knowledge of urbanism in Roman and Late antique North Syria.

Public Statues Across Time and Cultures

Public Statues Across Time and Cultures PDF Author: Christopher P. Dickenson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000368262
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This book explores the ways in which statues have been experienced in public in different cultures and the role that has been played by statues in defining publicness itself. The meaning of public statues is examined through discussion of their appearance and their spatial context and of written discourses having to do with how they were experienced. Bringing together experts working on statues in different cultures, the book sheds light on similarities and differences in the role that public statues had in different times and places throughout history. The book will also provide insight into the diverse methods and approaches that scholars working on these different periods use to investigate statues. The book will appeal to historians, art historians and archaeologists of all periods who have an interest in the display of sculpture, the reception of public art or the significance of public monuments.

Individualizing the Dead

Individualizing the Dead PDF Author: Maura Heyn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782503591261
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
During the Roman era, when the ancient city of Palmyra was at the height of its powers, several thousand funerary portraits were sculpted, each carefully crafted to represent the men, women, and children who had once lived there as members of the Palmyrene elite. In their commemorative monuments, these individuals were given specific attributes to express their social status, wealth, identity, and skills. This volume provides an in-depth exploration of different aspects of these funerary portraits, and illuminates in particular the addition of attributes and how and why they were used by both artists and their patrons. The eight contributions gathered here examine the range of choices available to commissioners of art works in Palmyra, the prevalence or rarity of specific attributes, and the ways in which the variation and selection of attributes could be used in funerary, religious, or public contexts to express social cohesion and group identity, as well as to demonstrate individuality. Crucially, while these funerary monuments may be closely associated with Palmyra, they in fact provide clear evidence of the city's relationships across the wider region: examination of the different attributes suggests that the Palmyrenes were aware of how these were used, perceived, and adapted by neighbouring people as a way of transmitting various social meanings and expressing their own values.

The Economy of Roman Palestine

The Economy of Roman Palestine PDF Author: Ze'ev Safrai
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134851871
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
The Economy of Roman Palestine presents a description of the economy of the province of Judea-Palestina in the Roman era (AD70 to AD400) on the basis of a broad selection of primary rabbinic sources and a considerable volume of archaeological findings. The period studied is characterised by demographic growth and corresponding economic development. The work describes the agricultural and agrarian structure of the province, the pattern of settlement, trade, and other aspects, depicting an economy based to a great extent on an open market.

Color and Meaning in the Art of Achaemenid Persia

Color and Meaning in the Art of Achaemenid Persia PDF Author: Alexander Nagel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009361295
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
This book introduces aspects of polychromies at Persepolis in Iran and their context in a modern historiography of Achaemenid Persian Art.

Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies

Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies PDF Author: Sitta Reden
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110607646
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 858

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Book Description
The second volume of the Handbook describes different extractive economies in the world regions that have been outlined in the first volume. A wide range of economic actors – from kings and armies to cities and producers – are discussed within different imperial settings as well as the tools, which enabled and constrained economic outcomes. A central focus are nodes of consumption that are visible in the archaeological and textual records of royal capitals, cities, religious centers, and armies that were stationed, in some cases permanently, in imperial frontier zones. Complementary to the multipolar concentrations of consumption are the fiscal-tributary structures of the empires vis-à-vis other institutions that had the capacity to extract, mobilize, and concentrate resources and wealth. Larger volumes of state-issued coinage in various metals show the new role of coinage in taxation, local economic activities, and social practices, even where textual evidence is absent. Given the overwhelming importance of agriculture, the volume also analyses forms of agrarian development, especially around cities and in imperial frontier zones. Special consideration is given to road- and water-management systems for which there is now sufficient archaeological and documentary evidence to enable cross-disciplinary comparative research.

The Middle East Under Rome

The Middle East Under Rome PDF Author: Maurice Sartre
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674016835
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description
The ancient Middle East was the theater of passionate interaction between Phoenicians, Aramaeans, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, and Romans. At the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian peninsula, the area dominated by what the Romans called Syria was at times a scene of violent confrontation, but more often one of peaceful interaction, of prosperous cultivation, energetic production, and commerce--a crucible of cultural, religious, and artistic innovations that profoundly determined the course of world history. Maurice Sartre has written a long overdue and comprehensive history of the Semitic Near East (modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel) from the eve of the Roman conquest to the end of the third century C.E. and the dramatic rise of Christianity. Sartre's broad yet finely detailed perspective takes in all aspects of this history, not just the political and military, but economic, social, cultural, and religious developments as well. He devotes particular attention to the history of the Jewish people, placing it within that of the whole Middle East. Drawing upon the full range of ancient sources, including literary texts, Greek, Latin, and Semitic inscriptions, and the most recent archaeological discoveries, The Middle East under Rome will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars. This absorbing account of intense cultural interaction will also engage anyone interested in the history of the Middle East.