The Hidden Life of Textiles in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean
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Book Series
Medieval and Post-Medieval Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 5
Feeding the Byzantine City
The Archaeology of Consumption in the Eastern Mediterranean (ca. 500-1500)
Joanita Vroom (ed)
- Pages: 350 p.
- Size:178 x 254 mm
- Illustrations:37 b/w, 107 col., 14 tables b/w., 4 maps b/w, 35 maps color
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2023
- € 75,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60566-1
- Paperback
- Available
- € 75,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60567-8
- E-book
- Available
Feeding the Byzantine City looks at consumption in the Byzantine world in the widest possible sense of the word, making it essential reading for scholars and a larger audience alike.
Subject(s)
Review(s)
“(…) the papers in this volume do much to push forward our understanding of consumption in Byzantium.” (Lucas McMahon, in Early Medieval Europe, 32/2, 2024, p. 234)
“Feeding the Byzantine City had its origins in a roundtable at the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Belgrade in 2016, so that the authors benefitted from what must have been stimulating discussion. Marshalling the papers into this volume has been a worthwhile and positive exercise. It motivates us to think more widely about the nature of consumption in Byzantium.” (Pamela Armstrong, in Byzantine Review, 06, 2024, p. 244)
"El libro editado por Joanita Vroom (…) supone una importante novedad para aquellos que se encuentran trabajando en la arqueología bizantina, y en especial para los que nos dedicamos al estudio de la producción, comercio y consumo. (…) pronto será de referencia para los estudiosos de la sociedad y economía de Bizancio." (Horacio González Cesteros, in Estudios bizantinos, 11, 2023, p. 145-153 DOI: 10.37536/ebizantinos.2023.11.2313)
BIO
Joanita Vroom is Professor of the Archaeology of Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University (Netherlands).
Summary
This book offers new and innovative perspectives on the archaeology of consumption in Byzantine cities and their hinterlands in the eastern Mediterranean . Case-studies range from towns in eastern Macedonia, north-western and central Greece, and Crete to urban centres in Serbia, Bulgaria and western Turkey. The archaeological data and historical insights presented in this volume are always of great interest, often exciting, and more than once outright astonishing. The commodities discussed in the volume are dated between ca. 500 and 1500 CE, and include pottery (e.g., glazed table wares, amphorae, cooking pots, storage jars), textile fragments, metal objects, bronze and golden jewellery, marble carved slabs and columns.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Joanita Vroom (series editor) – Preface
PRODUCTION & CONSUMPTION IN BYZANTIUM: A GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Archibald W. Dunn – The Medieval Byzantine town: Producers, suppliers, and consumers
EARLY & MIDDLE BYZANTINE PERIODS
Vesna Bikić – Caričin Grad (Justiniana Prima) as a market: Searching for an Early Byzantine model of pottery production and consumption
Myrto Veikou – Geographies of consumption in Byzantine Epirus: Urban space, commodification, and consumption practices from the 7th to the 12th century
Natalia Poulou – Production and consumption in Crete from the mid-7th to the 10th century AD: The archaeological evidence
Evelina Todorova – Mapping Byzantine amphorae: Outlining the patterns of consumption in present-day Bulgaria and in the Black Sea Region (ca. 7th-14th centuries)
MIDDLE & LATE BYZANTINE PERIODS
Philipp Niewöhner – Not a consumption crisis: Diversity in marble carving, ruralisation, and the collapse of urban demand in Middle Byzantine Asia Minor
Stefania S. Skartsis & Nikos D. Kontogiannis – Central Greece in the Middle and the Late Byzantine periods: Changing patterns of consumption in Thebes and Chalcis
Joanita Vroom, Elli Tzavella & Giannis Vaxevanis – Life, work and consumption in Byzantine Chalcis: Ceramic finds from an industrial hub in central Greece, ca. 10th-13th centuries
Elli Tzavella – Consumption patterns of ceramics in town and countryside: Case-studies from Corinth and Athens in central Greece
EARLY TO LATE BYZANTINE PERIODS: AN OVERVIEW
Joanita Vroom – Production, Exchange and consumption of ceramics in the Byzantine Mediterranean (ca. 7th-15th centuries)
