--- On Thu, 3/5/09, lstrand@... <lstrand@...> wrote:

> From: lstrand@... <lstrand@...>
> Subject: [tsalist] Fwd: Review of book on Late Antiquity material objects
> To: tsalist@...
> Date: Thursday, March 5, 2009, 7:34 AM
> From: "nahum" <pishtani@...>
> Subject: Fw: [agade] REVIEWS: Of "Objects in Context,
> Objects in Use: Material
> Spatiality in Late Antiquity"
>
>
> Note from list administrator:
> It is not until paragraphs 14 and 15 that textiles are
> noted, but if this is
> you area of interest it is worth noting the review.
> Review of book on Late Antiquity material objects
>
> Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.03.05
> Luke Lavan, Ellen Swift, Toon Putzeys (ed.), Objects in
> Context,
> Objects in Use: Material Spatiality in Late Antiquity. Late
> Antique
> Archaeology, v. 5. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2007. Pp.
> viii, 741.
> ISBN 9789004165502. $204.00.
>
> Reviewed by Stefanie Hoss, Small Finds Archaeology Nijmegen
> (NL)
> (www.stefanie.hoss@...)
> Word count: 2687 words
>
> Table of Contents
>
> The book under review is the result of an eponymous
> conference held at
> Oxford in 2004 and promotes the study of material
> spatiality in Late
> Antiquity. Material spatiality tries to reconstruct ancient
> reality
> (e.g., the use of certain rooms) by looking at the use of
> the objects
> found in defined spaces. Social change (and thus the famous
> transition
> of Late Antiquity) manifested itself not only by changes at
> the top
> trickling down, but also by the small changes in the daily
> habits of
> common people (p. 659). In the introduction, the editors
> argue
> convincingly, that this opens up new ways to try to
> understand the
> nature of the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
> (p. 25).
>
> The book is made up of two distinctive parts, the first
> comprising an
> introduction and seven bibliographical essays written by
> the editors
> and the second consisting of eighteen conference articles
> by different
> authors on a variety of subjects. It is both an
> introduction into a
> method relatively new in the context of Mediterranean Late
> Antique
> archaeology as well as a collection of the work done in
> this field up
> to date and it succeeds admirably in both. It is a good
> starting point
> to discover interesting new ideas and methods of analyzing
> finds as
> well as an invaluable resource for further reading. Because
> it is
> necessary to have an understanding of the way material
> objects are
> used in both antiquity and archaeology to understand the
> study of
> material spatiality, the book will be most useful to
> advanced students
> and researchers.
>
> As the book has 25 articles in all, a review of every
> single one at
> length would far exceed the allocated space and reviewing
> only a
> selection seems somewhat unfair. I will proceed by
> reviewing the
> articles of each section together, beginning with the
> introduction and
> bibliographical essays and continuing with the six thematic
> sections.
> For a list of the authors and their articles see table of
> contents.
>
> The first part is written by the editors in varying
> combinations. In
> the introduction, the authors give an extensive overview of
> the
> possibilities and methods of material spatiality in Late
> Antique
> period excavations, with a focus on the Eastern
> Mediterranean. They
> introduce the field and define an agenda to make the
> contextual
> analysis of objects found in future excavations possible.
> This agenda
> begins with the demand to change the focus of research in
> the Eastern
> Mediterranean from buildings towards objects, continues
> with a
> description of the fieldwork and documentation techniques
> necessary to
> record the objects as exactly as possible in their findspot
> as well as
> the post-excavation analysis and publication procedure
> needed to make
> a contextual analysis possible. While this seems excessive
> for
> researchers familiar with the archaeology of Central and
> Western
> Europe, the state of research is somewhat different in the
> Eastern
> Mediterranean, vindicating this thorough approach. The
> observations
> made are very useful and the many examples cited help to
> understand
> how the methods described could be implemented at a given
> excavation.
>
> As a whole, the introduction is very solid, covering all
> the essential
> aspects with the necessary caveats and making a good case
> for the
> interdisciplinary 'soft' interpretation of the
> available data and the
> visual reconstruction of the antique situation. As a
> further benefit,
> the contributions of the second part of the book are cited
> as examples
> whenever appropriate and the work of other researchers in
> this young
> field is also often referred to.
>
> The six bibliographical essays following the introduction
> aim to give
> an overview of the research done in the field up to date.
> They are
> split into different elements of urban space; namely
> domestic,
> productive, commercial, political, social, and religious
> space. The
> authors acknowledge from the start that the varied nature
> of these
> contexts makes for very varied sources of evidence, with
> some essays
> concentrating on literary sources while others mainly cite
> stratigraphical evidence (45). Each essay gives an
> introduction into
> the subject, followed by an extensive bibliography divided
> into
> different aspects, which include both obvious and more
> obscure
> elements of the urban space. The latter part will be
> immensely useful
> to both newcomers and established researchers on the
> subject but could
> have been made more accessible by allowing more space for
> the entries
> by giving each entry its own line. One has to suspect page
> (i.e.,
> financial) constraints here. However, the form does not
> lessen the
> value of the content.
>
> The first of the thematic sections on domestic space has
> three
> articles, starting with a methodological one on the Urban
> Villa in
> Sagalassos. Toon Putzeys et al. introduce a
> three-step-method to
> "detect patterns within found assemblages in order to
> classify human
> habitation" (p. 206). The thorough and well-argued
> approach of the
> article gives an idea of the possibilities of including all
> finds into
> the analysis and the statistical methods necessary to make
> it work.
>
> The second article is an analysis of the urban development
> of six
> houses on the mound of Pella (Jordan). With the help of the
> 'snapshot'
> assemblages of the AD 749 earthquake, which caused many
> human and
> animal deaths and ensured a fairly undisturbed material
> record, Alan
> Walmsley reconstructs the structural arrangement of the
> ground floor
> of the houses.
>
> The third article is less concerned with spatiality and
> more with
> magical practices, as it is a study of apotropaic mosaic
> images and
> amulets found in the tri-conch house in Butrint and the
> tri-conch
> church in nearby Antigoneia. John Mitchell here gives an
> very
> interesting overview of the magical imagery in Late
> Antiquity and
> provides some definite dates which demonstrate this habit
> to have
> started (at the very least in Butrint) during the late 4th
> century.
>
> The section on vessels combines two analyses of (mainly)
> dining and
> drinking vessels with a study on several well-hoards.
> Joanita Vroom
> takes the pictorial representations of objects used in Late
> Antique
> dining as a starting point to understand the use of the
> archaeological
> finds of vessels. The author establishes a change from
> individual
> bowls or plates to large, communal dishes in Late Antiquity
> and a
> likelihood that the same is true for drinking vessels.
>
> In her article on the decoration of vessels, Ellen Swift
> examines the
> correlation of the decoration with the function and use of
> objects of
> conspicuous consumption in social contexts. She formulates
> five
> principles which govern the decoration of objects and
> proceeds to give
> examples of the principles drawing (mainly) on vessels used
> in
> connection with formal dining. Her arguments are clearly
> set out and
> very convincing, especially through the judicious use of
> anthropological theory.
>
> In the third article, Sauro Gelichi re-examines the finds
> of eight
> well-hoards found in the space of 150 years in the Modena
> region.
> These share seven recurring types of objects, which
> surprisingly
> include farming tools and local cooking pots. In an older
> publication,
> the same author surmised that the objects were purposefully
> hidden.
> Having had doubts about this conclusion, he here compares
> the
> assemblages with roughly contemporary rubbish deposits from
> the rural
> settlement of Castelecchio di Reno, but has to conclude
> that the two
> assemblages differ markedly as well.
>
> The section on shops and workshops has two articles
> examining
> excavated shops in Dura Europos and Skythopolis
> respectively and one
> on an unusual workshop in Xanthos. Jennifer Baird's
> re-examines the
> shops of Dura with the help of a database filled with the
> field object
> register and other excavation records of the Yale
> excavation between
> the World Wars. In contrast, Elias Khamis in his article on
> Skythopolis presents the result of a modern excavation. In
> both
> instances, the artefact assemblages are often inconclusive,
> but for
> different reasons. In Skythopolis, the shops were
> continually used
> from the early Roman to the Umayyad periods and could only
> provide
> information on their last phase before destruction. While
> this is of
> course also true for Dura, the methods of the time of the
> excavation
> further limited the artefacts that might have provided
> insights into
> the precise merchandise sold at the shops. Whereas the
> analysis of the
> Dura shops demonstrates the possibilities of studying older
> excavations with the help of databases, both authors make
> good use of
> the available architectural and artefact information to
> present a
> picture that gives a good idea of the shared traits of
> shops in each
> city.
>
> The third article on Xanthos is an architectural analysis
> of an
> isolated one-room structure containing a large oven and six
> basins.
> Anne-Marie Mani=E8re L=E9v=EAque explores several
> hypotheses (workshop,
> fullonica, thermopolium) and concludes that it was used for
> storing
> perishable foodstuffs (perhaps beans) and cooking both. The
> author
> ably demonstrates here how a very close and detailed study
> of the
> architectural remains can be helpful to determine the use
> of such an
> unusual building with no parallels.
>
> Only two articles make up the section on dress, the first
> of which is
> an overview of the secular attire (dress and accessories)
> of different
> social groups in Late Antiquity, from the emperor himself
> down to
> ordinary people. In this lucid and very readable account,
> Maria Parani
> describes how attire was used in the changing society of
> Late
> Antiquity to demark class and station in life and construct
> an
> individual's identity.
>
> The following article by Mary Harlow further illuminates
> this point.
> In her study of the rhetoric of female dress in the letters
> of Jerome,
> she can demonstrate that because of the rigid nature of
> dress
> proprieties, the literary use of dress was shorthand to
> reflect on the
> character of a person or group. Jerome uses different
> attires to
> praise and condemn female behaviour. As is to be expected
> of a
> heretic, he condemns expensive and ostentatious clothes,
> revealing the
> body and using make-up or false hair. More surprisingly, he
> also
> criticizes women who dress modestly in cheap and rough
> clothes,
> suspecting them of secret pride in their asceticism.
>
> In the section on religious space all articles are dealing
> with
> churches and three of the four revolve around the objects
> found within
> a church. B=E9atrice Caseau's first article uses the
> inventories of
> churches to try to reconstruct the objects used within a
> church which
> do not appear in the archaeological record. While Caseau
> has
> documentary evidence as her starting point, Vincent Michel
> uses
> archaeological finds to investigate the functions of church
> annexe
> rooms in Palestine. In his opinion, specific furniture and
> furnishings
> (especially cupboards) discovered in annexe rooms with
> direct access
> to the church, point to the use of these rooms as
> diakonikon (dean's
> room). A diakonikon was used for the preparation of the
> Eucharist and
> storage of liturgical objects and vestments as well as the
> treasure of
> the church, which in addition to liturgical objects could
> include
> money and relics.
>
> The third article by Zbigniew Fiema studies the artefact
> assemblage in
> room I of Petra church, which was destroyed by fire. Fiema
> is able to
> reconstruct that the room had been used as a storage place
> for a
> family archive and for other valuable, but seldom used
> objects. With
> the help of the exact find spots of the artefacts, Fiema
> can also
> partly reconstruct the likely progression of the
> destruction fire. The
> first three articles each use a different method to try to
> reconstruct
> the same sort of space and the result is especially
> convincing in
> combination. Because the space is explored from three
> different
> directions--the documentary evidence, the combined
> archaeological
> evidence from several churches and the specific
> archaeological
> evidence of a single room--the articles complete each other
> and thus
> give an even better impression of church contents that they
> would have
> standing on their own.
>
> The last article of the section deals with the
> non-liturgical objects
> in healing sanctuaries. In this (her second article),
> B=E9atrice Caseau
> uses the literary evidence of miracle stories to vividly
> describe the
> daily proceedings at a healing sanctuary, where quite a lot
> of people
> could be searching relief from their afflictions, often
> staying days
> or years. Because ordinary objects often played an
> important role in
> miracle stories, the author here opens a treasure trove of
> descriptions of ordinary objects present in sanctuaries as
> well as
> glimpses at their use and significance.
>
> In the last section on military space, Andrew Gardner
> describes the
> change in both the use of space and artefacts in some Late
> Roman forts
> in Britain and Belgium. The material indicates, that while
> some
> traditions persisted (e. g. the eating of pork), others
> changed and
> became more local. The article resembles an iceberg in that
> it has a
> large and (at first reading) largely unseen theoretical
> background
> which nevertheless is able to spark new thoughts on the
> nature of
> social change and the best way to archaeologically detect
> it.
>
> The remaining two articles are on the same sites, namely
> the city of
> Nicopolis and the nearby fort of Dichin in Bulgaria. Andrew
> Poulter
> demonstrates with the help of several sites within theses
> two
> complexes how the artefact assemblage can assist with the
> interpretation of both the use and destruction phase of
> contexts. Pam
> Grinter illustrates how the accurate record of sampling for
> plant
> remains can help to differentiate the storage spaces of
> different
> crops, allowing various interesting interpretations.
>
> To conclude, the book as a whole is a good example of how
> to introduce
> an approach that is yet relatively unknown to a special
> field. While
> similar approaches have been used in Early Roman
> archaeology in the
> Northwestern provinces for some time now, it is still quite
> new to the
> study of the late antique central and eastern
> Mediterranean. As the
> book includes both a bibliography of the work done up to
> now as well
> as a selection of very diverse practical examples, it gives
> the
> newcomer to this interpretational technique a starting
> point from
> which to further explore the world of material spatiality
> and the
> seasoned researcher new food for thought besides a very
> useful source
> of comparative studies in the bibliography.
>
> As to the errors, some redundant word repetitions and typos
> as well as
> some misspellings were noticed, none of which hindered the
> understanding of the text. Considering the frequency of
> about one
> error found per hundred pages, the book may be described as
> admirably
> edited.
>
> Table of Contents
> Introduction:
> L. Lavan, E. Swift, T. Putzeys, Material Spatiality in Late
> Antiquity:
> Sources, Approaches and Field Methods.
> Bibliographical Essays:
> L. Lavan, T. Putzeys, Material Spatiality in Late
> Antiquity: An
> Introduction to the Bibliography.
> T. Putzeys, Domestic Space in Late Antiquity.
> T. Putzeys, Productive Space in Late Antiquity.
> T. Putzeys, L. Lavan, Commercial Space in Late Antiquity.
> L. Lavan, Political Space in Late Antiquity.
> L. Lavan, Social Space in Late Antiquity.
> L. Lavan, Religious Space in Late Antiquity.
> Domestic Space:
> T. Putzeys, M. Waelkens, J. Poblome, W. van Neer, B. de
> Cupere, T. van
> Thuyne, N. Kellens, Contextual Analysis in Sagalassos.
> A. Walmsley, Households at Pella, Jordan: Domestic
> Destruction
> Deposits of the Mid-8th century.
> J. Mitchell, Keeping the Demons out of the House: the
> Archaeology of
> Apotropaic Strategy and Practice in Late Antique Butrint
> Vessels in context:
> J. Vroom, The Archaeology of Late Antique Dining Habits in
> the Eastern
> Mediterranean: A Preliminary Study of the Evidence.
> S. Gelichi, The Modena Well-hoards: Rural Domestic Artefact
> Assemblages in Late Antiquity.
> E. Swift, Decorated Vessels: The Function of Decoration in
> Late
> Antiquity. Shops and Workshops.
> J. Baird, Shopping, Eating and Drinking in Dura Europos:
> Reconstructing =
> Context.
> E. Khamis, The Shops of Skythopolis in Context.
> A.-M. Mani=E8re L=E9v=EAque, An Unusual Structure on the
> Lycian =
> Acropolis at Xanthos.
> Dress:
> M. Parani, Defining Personal Space: Dress and Accessories
> in Late =
> Antiquity.
> M. Harlow, The Impossible Art of Dressing to Please: Jerome
> and the
> Rhetoric of the Dress.
> Religious Space:
> B. Caseau, Objects in Churches: The Testimony of
> Inventories.
> V. Michel, Furniture, Fixtures, and Fittings in Churches:
> Archaeological Evidence from Palestine (4th-8th c.) and the
> Role of
> the Diakonikon.
> Z. Fiema, Storing in the Church: Artefacts in Room I of
> Petra Church.
> B. Caseau, Ordinary Objects in Christian Healing
> Sanctuaries.
> Military Space:
> A. Gardner, Soldiers and Spaces: Daily Life in Late Roman
> Forts.
> A. Poulter, Interpreting Finds in Contexts: Nicopolis and
> Dichin =
> Revisited.
> P. Grinter, Grappling with the Granary: Context issues at
> Dichin.
>
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