Castrorao Barba, Angelo - Castiglia, Gabriele (eds): Perspectives on Byzantine Archaeology. From Justinian to the Abbasid Age (6th–9th Centuries AD). 251 p., 216 x 280 mm, 100 b/w illustrations, 5 col., ISBN: 978-2-503-59684-6, 85,00 € (Brepols, Turnhout 2022)

 
Compte rendu par Louise Blanke, University of Edinburgh
 
Nombre de mots : 2221 mots
Publié en ligne le 2024-09-25
Citation: Histara les comptes rendus (ISSN 2100-0700).
Lien: http://histara.sorbonne.fr/cr.php?cr=4717
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       This edited volume on Perspectives on Byzantine Archaeology comprises 14 chapters including an introduction. The chapters are organised according to the themes of Cities (chapters 2-4), Landscapes (chapter 5-11) and Material Culture (Chapters 12-14). The volume derives from a conference, which was planned for March 2020 in Rome, but cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID-19. It is the second publication in Brepols’ new series on the Archaeology of the Mediterranean World.

       In Chapter 1 (13-19), the editors outline the aim of the book, which is to present new advances and perspectives from the broad field of Byzantine Archaeology over the longue durée from the Mediterranean Basin and beyond. The idea for the book derives from the editors’ own field projects in Sicily and Eritrea, which encouraged them to explore the current state of research within the wider world of Late Antiquity. In the words of the editors, the book presents a ‘series of different observations on the Byzantine world using some well-known contexts and also brand-new areas and perspectives’ (18).  

       The book’s first section on Cities contains three chapters on aspects of Thessaloniki, Rome, and Ravenna. In Chapter 2 (23-42), Raptis summarises Thessaloniki’s development focusing on the period between the 6^th and the 9^th century. Thessaloniki saw the execution of an extensive building programme under the reign of emperor Anastasius I (r. 491-518), while only few buildings can be attributed to the otherwise prolific emperor Justinian (r. 527-565) (see also Hamarneh, chapter 5). The 6^th and 7^th centuries saw several raids carried out by Avars and Slavs and during the 7^th century, Thessaloniki suffered the effects of intense seismic activity with large parts of the city destroyed in the 620s. After this earthquake, Raptis describes a city that has lost much of its monumental feel and where grand ecclesiastical buildings are juxtaposed by thoroughfares with earthen surfaces. 

       Spera (Chapter 3, 43-64) writes on the Christianisation of the defence of Rome through churches built in the 6^th and 7^th centuries along the Aurelian walls. The construction of these churches seems to coincide with the insertion of Christian signa into the wall’s gateways as well as their renaming to be associated with Christian saints. Spera discusses several examples of military saints (such as St Theodore of Amasea and St Michael the Archangel) whose cults were favoured in the new constructions.

       Cirelli (Chapter 4, 65-78) studies the development of Ravenna from the 5^th century into the early 9^th century. Ravenna’s transformation from a small Roman municipium to an imperial capital in the 5^th century included a rapid expansion of the city’s area as well as the construction of new buildings of power (including a fortified city wall and an imperial palace with several related buildings). Ravenna maintained its economic and political influence well into the second half of the 7^th century. However, at this point, the warehouses in Ravenna’s port Classe were refurbished for residential usage and within Ravenna itself, the settlement was centred around the main ecclesiastical buildings.

       The book’s second section on Landscapes explores Byzantine archaeology from the Horn of Africa through the Southern Levant and the Balkans into Italy. In a survey of the Southern Levant (focusing on the provinces of Arabia and Palaestina Tertia) Hamarneh (Chapter 5, 81-92) discusses the emperor Justinian’s (r. 527-565) impact on the built environment. Harmarneh first examines the evidence for negative factors that would have influenced urban development, namely the Samaritan revolts, the climatic downturns, and the plague. The positive evidence for building activity includes mosaic inscriptions, which can show patterns of investment. In the 6^th century, 124 new buildings are documented on both side of the River Jordan. Harmarneh reports a drop between 541 and 550 (541 marking the outbreak of the first cycle of the plague), and an overall trend towards urban investment in the first half of Justinian’s reign, while in the second half, most building activity was focused on rural areas.

       Pappalardo (Chapter 6, 93-106) examines the long history of Umm al-Rasas (Kastron Mefa'a) in modern Jordan through the different stages of its usage (from military castrum through urban settlement to its abandonment in the 9^th or 10^th century) with an aim to ‘investigate how change, conservation, and adaptation are reflected in the topography, the architecture, the settlement choices, and the material culture’ (95). Focusing on urban resilience and the construction and maintenance of an Arab Christian identity, Pappalardo examines first the position of Umm al-Rasas in the hinterland of Madaba and the region’s demographic composition, which is followed by an outline of the author’s usage of resilience theory. For the site of Umm al-Rasas, Pappalardo focuses on a few key points in its development, such as the iconoclastic replacement of figural imagery in church mosaics, which he sees as an important indicator of resilience. Similarly, the installation of a wine press in the atrium of the church of St Paul is described as part of an adaptive cycle, but not much is said about how common it is for churches to be associated with production facilities. The inclusion of some regional comparanda would have been welcome here[1]. Finally, the author links the gradual abandonment of housing compounds with the earthquake of 749 and the subsequent political shift from Umayyad to Abbasid rule and the move of political power towards the east.

       In Chapter 7 (197-122), Ralli explores the towns and villages in the late antique Peloponnese. Ralli employs the concept of a third space, as defined by Myrto Veikou, and argues for the interconnectedness of city and countryside and the importance of avoiding traditional dichotomies between the two. In Chapter 8 (122-130), Gargano examines the city of Aquae in Dacia Ripensis through Procopius’ De Aedificiis and the Novellae Iustiniani in order to explore whether there was an administrative change to the provinces of the Lower Danube in the 6^th century. Gargano emphasises several inconsistencies in De Aedificiis, for example in relation to the location of cities, and argues that the Novellae Iustiniani is a more trustworthy source. While Gargano’s discussion is interesting, it relies entirely on textual sources and the reasoning for its inclusion in a book on Byzantine Archaeology is unclear.   

       Moving west to Italy, Arthur (Chapter 9, 131-140) asks ‘what effects did half a millennium of Byzantine rule have on medieval and modern Italy and the Italians?’ (132). Arthur does not answer the question but outlines instead the current state of research and presents some key trajectories for future studies including the transition from farmsteads to villages, where excavation in modern villages is needed to better understand settlement chronology and foundation date. Similarly, he argues that the excavation of cemeteries should include anthropological analysis and states that no individual to date has been examined for genetics or stable isotope information. Finally, Arthur laments the lack of proper post-excavation publication (136-7) and argues for the publication of unpublished excavations once a sufficient time has passed for it to be reasonably unlikely that the original director will publish them.

       In Chapter 10 (141-163), Cacciaguerra and Castrorao Barba summarise settlement patterns in the Sicilian countryside from the 6^th to the 9^th century. The authors state that limited archaeological research means that it is not possible to form an overview of the countryside’s development. Nonetheless, they paint an elaborate picture of our current understanding of the sites in use in this period and the transitions into the better studied 10^th century Islamic period. Similarly to Arthur, they call for further intra-site archaeological investigations to examine the afterlife of villas and their transition into agricultural centres.

       In the section’s final chapter (Chapter 11, 165-181), Castiglia and Pergola present an overview of the rise of Christianity in the Kingdom of Aksum. The traditional account relies on hagiographic literature, which states that the royal court was converted in the 4^th century and from here, Christianity spread to the rest of the kingdom. While archaeological data are still limited to church architecture, the author argues that the discovery of a 4^th century church at the site of Beta Samati suggests an alternative to the top-down dissemination of the new faith.

       The book’s final section on Material Culture contains three chapters discussing coin circulation, church architecture, and the production and distribution of pottery.

       Marani (Chapter 12, 185-207) discusses coin production and circulation in Rome, Naples and their territories in the 6^th to the mid-8^th century. Marani demonstrates a persistence in the monetary economy into the 7^th or 8^th century despite the disruption caused by the Lombard occupation. The author emphasises the importance of Rome’s continuation of its long tradition of minting, which nuances the image commonly produced in scholarship of a city in decline.

       In Chapter 13 (209-220), Utrero Agudo discusses Byzantine architectural influence on church architecture in Hispania on the Iberian Peninsula from the 6^th to the 10^th century. The author argues that the Byzantine architectural styles we see in church ornamentation do not result from direct Byzantine influence, but instead from the arrival of skilled workers bringing new technology following the Umayyad conquest in 711.

       In the book’s final chapter (Chapter 14, 221-250), Vroom examines the Byzantine exchange system in the wake of the Arab conquest through the production and distribution of pottery. Vroom’s focus is on glazed wares, which were produced in Constantinople, and on the production of amphora at several coastal centres across the Aegean, especially type LRA 2/13. The standardisation of LRA 2/13 across several different production centres from the mid-7^th century suggests to Vroom a continuous economic control by the Byzantine state over trade networks despite the empire’s shrinking power. Similarly, the location of the production centres of LRA 2/13 on the coast suggests to Vroom the continuous presence of a strong fleet.  

       Altogether, this edited volume contains some very useful overviews of the current state of research. However, the book’s unifying factor (aspects of Byzantine archaeology) is too vaguely defined to be meaningful. The section on cities, for example, contains good overviews as well as detailed new research, but offer little in terms of consistency. Raptis (Thessalonika) and Cirelli (Ravenna) present broad overviews of the cities’ developments, while Spera (Rome) offers a detailed study on one aspect of Rome’s fortifications. It is not explained by the editors why these specific case studies were chosen over, for example, new research into less well-known centres. Similarly, the section on Material Culture offers only limited insights into the broad range of current research (to no fault of the authors!) with, for example, no coverage of the many innovative studies currently carried out in zoo- and bioarchaeology. Of the three sections, Landscapes is the most successful in outlining the state of the field across broad geographical areas and defining key research questions for entire regions.

       To be fair, the editors state in Chapter 1 an awareness of the mixed applicability of the term Byzantine, however, an edited volume should strive towards being more than the sum of its parts, which unfortunately, this book is not. Instead, its value is found in the individual chapters, which will provide good reference points to advanced students and researchers looking to form an overview of one of the book’s topics or areas. Of particular value is the extensive footnotes and bibliographies provided by most chapters, which enables the reader to pursue specialist studies.

Éditeurs : Lorenz E. Baumer, Université de Genève ; Jan Blanc, Université de Genève ; Christian Heck, Université Lille III ; François Queyrel, École pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
Site conçu par Lorenz Baumer et François Queyrel et réalisé par Lorenz Baumer, 2006/7