Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Enrico Zanini
Abstract
Introduction
The ‘stratigraphic revolution’ that for the past 15 years has charac-
terised the archaeological study of the eastern Mediterranean, and in
particular the archaeology of the Early Byzantine world, has been
responsible for numerous positive transformations in the discipline.
Perhaps the most significant change is that researchers now feel capa-
ble of asking the archaeological evidence a range of questions that
only two decades ago would have seemed futile and hopeless.1 The
era in which archaeology was only considered fit to study the great
public monuments of the past is long gone, and our research into the
archaeology of the Early Byzantine world now incorporates questions
regarding its residential, productive, and commercial structures. Whilst
we still lack a full understanding of these structures, a series of key
excavations has shown that when stratigraphic analysis is applied to
1
Ward-Perkins (1996a).
W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, and C. Machado (edd.) Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity
(Late Antique Archaeology 3.1 – 2005) (Leiden 2006), pp. 373–411
2
Sodini (2003).
3
Kaplan (2001).
4
Effective syntheses are Sodini (1979); Morrison (1989); Ward-Perkins (2000) and
(2001); Dagron (2002); and Morrison and Sodini (2002); all of which include ref-
erences to the extensive earlier bibliography.
5
Mannoni, Cabona, and Ferrando (1988).
6
Mannoni (1994) and (1997).
7
Garnsey and Saller (2003) 129–52.
8
Sodini (2003) 42–45.
9
Antiochikos 11.251–55; Festugière (1959) 33–34; Petit (1955).
10
Antiochikos 11.230–32; Festugière (1959) 29–30.
11
Koder (1991).
12
Thomov and Ilieva (1998); Mundell Mango (2000).
Fig. 1 A workshop depicted in a floor mosaic in the Yakto Complex at Daphne, near Antioch (5th c.) (after Levi 1947).
and following the model of the great caravan cities of the ancient east-
ern Mediterranean.13 Shops that sold somewhat less exclusive (though
still highly valued) merchandise, occupied an intermediate location,
most usually along the colonnaded streets that depart perpendicular
to the main road. Finally, the workshops that produced the cheapest
goods, and the shops that sold them, were not considered to enhance
the dignity of the city, and indeed detracted from it, due to their
being sources of danger, noise, and malevolent odours. As such, they
were to be located on the city’s periphery or even in its extra-urban
areas. The single exception to this rule were the retailers of domestic
goods (saldamarioi ), whose function was to provide immediate satisfac-
tion to the needs of daily life, a fact that explains their capillary dis-
tribution throughout all quarters.
When one turns, however, to more minor or vernacular sources,
such as chronicles, hagiographies, private epigraphy, and archival
sources, one gains an alternate perspective. Although this corpus has
not yet been the subject of a systematic search for information relat-
ing to commercial activities, and the evidence itself is dispersed and
fragmentary, a handful of examples illustrate how such material, per-
haps in itself more closely related to daily life than more official
written sources, might create a richer and more precisely articulated
image of the role of commerce, and of the social status of artisans
and small traders. Hagiographies offer a particularly interesting insight
in this sense, allowing us to gain a more precise idea of the articu-
lation of the social groups that formed the majority of the population
of small and medium urban centres.14 This social make-up can also
be glimpsed and understood with a similar clarity in the corpus of
private epigraphy,15 both of funerary (as shown in particular by the
collection of inscriptions from Korykos in Cilicia),16 and non-funerary
character.
The most important of the non-funerary inscriptions are proba-
bly the many references to the activities of architects, engineers, and
master masons that have been preserved in epigraphy from the vil-
lages of the limestone massif in northern Syria.17 These inscriptions
13
Mundell Mango (2001).
14
Mangoulias (1976).
15
Trombley (2004).
16
Patlagean (1977) 158–70; Trombley (1987).
17
Tate (1991).
18
Van Minnen (1987); Fikhman (1994).
19
Analysis and commentary in Cracco Ruggini (1980) 57.
20
Guidobaldi (1999).
21
We might compare information about the presence of Isaurian stone-cutters
active in Antioch and maybe even in Constantinople, or those Egyptian workers
who were employed in the reconstruction of Jerusalem after the Persian sack of
614: Sodini (1979) 76.
22
For a comprehensive re-reading of the interpretative problems of this inscrip-
tion see, most recently, Di Branco (2000), with synthesis and commentary of the
vast preceding bibliography.
23
See Cod. Theod. 15.1.1–53; Cod. Iust. 8.10.1–14; 8.11.1–22; Janvier (1969); Saliou
(1994).
24
See Nov. 122, datable to 544.
25
Cracco Ruggini (1971).
26
Cheynet, Malamud and Morrison (1991); Dagron (1991).
27
Foss and Scott (2002).
28
Crawford (1990).
29
Russell (2002).
30
Russell (1982) and (1986).
31
Bavant, Kondić and Spieser (1990).
Fig. 3 The shops at Sardis during the excavation in 1960’ (after Crawford 1990).
The value of these new excavations has not been restricted to the
provision of data useful for the reconstruction of the economic fabric
of the Early Byzantine city. They also constitute an important oppor-
32
Popović (1990).
33
Waelkens et al. (1997).
34
Tsafrir and Foerster (1997).
35
Patrich (1999).
36
Arthur (2002a); D’Andria (2003).
37
Potter (1995).
38
Perring (1997–98).
39
Kazanski and Soupault (2000).
40
Ramallo Asensio (2000).
41
Di Vita (1987); Zanini and Giorgi (2002) and (2003); Zanini (2004).
42
See Laiou (2002) 6.
Shopkeepers
In theory at least, shopkeepers should be relatively visible in the
archaeological stratigraphy of the Early Byzantine city, not least be-
cause those buildings of a commercial character are often closely
associated with the grand monumental nuclei of any city, or at least
lie in their vicinity. This urban core has often been the principal re-
search focus of programmes of archaeological excavation (at least in
the formative years of the discipline), and so we might expect such
work would naturally reveal concomitant commercial premises along-
side a city’s monumental heart. In the case of Sardis, it is clear that
this, the most significant example of commercial property uncovered
from the Early Byzantine world, was discovered largely through the
aegis of blind chance, rather than a directed programme of research
into the nature of the city’s mercantile fabric, as it was discovered
via an exploration of the monumental complex to which the work-
shops were attached. Analogous cases might be cited from Hierapolis,
Gortyn, Scythopolis, and from Caesarea Palestina, where the explora-
tion of the commercial space of the Early Byzantine city originated
in excavations of the monumental complexes of the earlier imperial
Roman period.
In contrast to these instances of topographic serendipity, one might
also cite the inevitable archaeological near-invisibility of any human
activity that occurs principally at a small scale. Local commerce is
a clear example of one such micro-social activity. Similarly, it is self-
evident that commercial spaces tend to be difficult to identify as a
category, and it is also hard to differentiate typologically between
their many varied manifestations. As with all areas and structures that
are of an exclusively functional purpose, shops and workshops were
the subject of a strong structural traditionalism and a marked absence
of typological differentiation. At Constantinople, as in the provinces—
and as in ancient, medieval, and modern Rome—the buildings and
43
In this context, another such site of extraordinary preservation is the exedra
of the Crypta Balbi in Rome. Here, excavations revealed an accumulation of mate-
rial that evidently derived from the demolition of a multi-function workshop; this
workshop was clearly situated in the immediate vicinity of the monument, although
its exact location has yet to be identified. Despite the fragmentary nature of the
material from the exedra, and its secondary-depositional state, its recovery has never-
theless provided a much better picture of the nature of workshops in Rome during
the period: Saguì and Manacorda (1995); Saguì (1998); Arena et al. (2001).
Fig. 4 A schematic section of archaeological deposits from the shops of Sardis, with evidence of a two-storey structure
(after Crawford 1990).
387
one might easily affirm that the visibility of commerce is closely linked
to the movement of the objects in question: that is to say, it only
becomes possible to infer the existence of a commercial mechanism
when objects evidently move through space. Although this appears
a rather banal observation, it has some serious implications for our
ability to construct a ‘social archaeology’ of commerce in the Early
Byzantine urban landscape, because the archaeological record allows
us to see only a restricted portion of a vast and complex world of
merchants.
The evidence of traded objects allows us to see and identify those
who moved large quantities of goods of limited value over large dis-
tances (such as those who traded fine African table ware or amphorae
containing Syrian/Palestinian wine throughout the Mediterranean)
(fig. 5),44 or those who transported precious goods over long and
short distances (such as might be evident in the complex mechanism
of fairs and other exchange systems that moved goods toward the
frontier regions)45 (fig. 6). However, it rarely allows us to identify or
appreciate those who sold goods of local production that were everyday
urban necessities, and who doubtlessly represented the overwhelming
numerical majority of all of those involved in trade transactions. If
we only approach trade and commerce through the evidential medium
of objects that can be identified as moving through space, then this
group of people—central to any assessment of trade and traders in
the Early Byzantine world—is rendered almost wholly invisible in
the archaeological record.
This is the problem that faces us, and it has become vital to develop
a methodology with which we can confront it. Firstly, we must adopt
a new and more holistic approach in our assessments of what con-
stitutes archaeological indicators of commercial activity. This means
that at the level of artefact analysis, great attention must be paid to
the specific context in which manufactured articles are found; at a
wider level, this means that some of the more traditional categorisa-
tions of individual objects (typological microvariation, chronological
seriation, frequency percentages) might be eschewed in favour of an
overall assessment of artefacts as indicators of human activity, from
production, to distribution, to abandonment.46
44
Lopez (1959); Durliat (1990).
45
For a southern Italy example, see Arthur (2002b) 140.
46
Ikäheimo (2003).
Fig. 5 African Red Slip from the 7th c. deposit of the Crypta Balbi, in Rome (after Arena et al. 2001).
Fig. 6 The distribution map of ‘Lupu Biba’ type fibulae reveals the existence of a fair system throughout the Lombard-Byzantine
frontier in southern Italy (after Arthur 2002b).
47
Potter (1995) 32–61.
48
Al-As"ad and Stepniowski (1989). For a theoretical model (albeit disputed) of
the functional continuity between the late antique porticoed street and the Arab
souk in the Syrian cities of the 7th–8th centuries see Sauvaget (1934) 99–102; Bejor
(1999) 106–110.
Fig. 8 The change from colonnaded street to souk in a schematic model by Sauvaget (after Sauvaget 1934).
the case throughout the Medieval period and into today’s contem-
porary Mediterranean society, much of the material fabric of com-
mercial activity in the Early Byzantine city was of a temporary nature,
as business was conducted in the form of an open-air market. These
impermanent stalls, varying their locations over time, leave little
recoverable trace in the archaeological record. Perhaps it might
become possible in this instance to talk of ‘inverse archaeological
evidence’ because, paradoxically, it appears that the absence of archae-
ological data might constitute the best archaeological proof for a
continuity of function in those areas of the Early Byzantine city that
had traditionally been given over to commercial life: fora and por-
ticoes. In other words, the reconstruction, restoration, and even the
maintenance and upkeep of these areas that kept them free of detri-
tus (activities that are also often attested by written sources) could
constitute secure archaeological evidence for the continuity of com-
mercial activities in the cities of the Early Byzantine Mediterranean.49
In this case, one cleans and maintains in order that a utilised space
remains both functionally and conceptually associated with a specific
activity in the round of daily life. Thus, the structural and functional
conservation of open areas and grand porticoes, something that is
archaeologically demonstrable as one of the characteristic traits of
Early Byzantine urbanism in the Mediterranean until at least the
end of the 6th c.,50 assumes a new significance: it should not be
treated merely as an abstract celebration of either imperial or local
euergetism, but instead as a concrete indication of a continuously func-
tioning commercial urban society (fig. 9).
In this sense, and to cite only two of many possible examples, dis-
tinctive archaeological indications such as the reorganisation of the
colonnaded street at Apamea in the aftermath of earthquakes in 526
and 528 which recreated a kind of great ‘pedestrian island’ in the heart
of the city,51 or the simple inscription related to the cleaning of the
forum at Terracina in the middle of the 7th c.,52 appear united by a
49
Ward-Perkins (1996b).
50
For a list of those sites in which archaeological investigations have demon-
strated the continued functional existence of porticoed streets in the Early Byzantine
period see Claude (1969) 60–62; Crawford (1990); in general on the porticoed streets
of cities in the eastern provinces of the Roman empire, see Segal (1997) 5–53; Bejor
(1999); on the porticoed streets of Constantinople in particular, see Mundell Mango
(2001). See also Lavan (this volume).
51
Balty (1989).
52
Zanini (1998) 186–87.
thin yet robust evidential thread that permits us to imagine both the
principal street of a great Syrian city and the small forum of a forti-
fied city in Byzantine Italy populated by merchants, customers,
andtheir wares (although obviously on a slightly different scale in the
two cases). In fact, this is not wholly removed from the scene at
Antioch two centuries earlier, as described by Libanius in the cele-
brated passages discussed above, or the similar setting that was to
be revealed 13 or 14 centuries later when early photographs recorded
life in the street markets of cities great and small throughout
Mediterranean Europe in the pre-industrial age (fig. 10).
Craftsmen
In the case of craftsmen, the problem of their visibility inside the Early
Byzantine city might be phrased in a different way, and in fact appears
to assume an essentially chronological character. By their very phys-
ical nature, the activities of craftsmen are particularly evident in the
archaeological record, in so far as they leave the solid traces of both
the object itself, and the area in which it was produced or worked. We
might find, for example, highly specific types of structures (in par-
ticular, those for which fire was essential to production), remains of
raw materials, specialised tools, waste and debris from the process of
production, and ultimately the finished products themselves.53 Our as
yet limited knowledge of craft activities in the Early Byzantine city
thus must be attributed to the fact that there are still very few inves-
tigations that are explicitly orientated towards these particular research
issues. To a certain extent, this very issue is exacerbated by the fact
that at least until the middle or the first two thirds of the 6th c.,
this type of activity continued to be relegated to the more periph-
eral quarters of the city, if not wholly exterior to the defined perime-
ter of the urban area. A series of judicial directives and customs that
concerned this issue, which dated back to the late Republican era,
continued to be enforced right until the end of the Justinianic period;
they stipulated that those activities that produced noise, bad odours,
or were otherwise indecorous should be located on the urban periph-
ery.54 On this point both the written sources and the archaeological
data seem to be in accord.
53
Mannoni and Giannichedda (1996).
54
Morel (1987); Papi (2002).
Fig. 10 19th c. street market in a village of the Roman countryside (after Becchetti 1983).
55
Saliou (1996).
56
Saliou (1994) and (2000).
57
Of the numerous widespread examples from all regions of the empire, several
might be cited as significant because they relate to urban centres that differ in size,
history, and political/administrative function: for those documented in the Palestinian
region, see Walmsley (1996) 144–45; for Greece, see Sodini (1984) 370–73; for
Illyricum, see Popović (1982); for Justiniana Prima in particular, see Kondić and
Popovic´ (1977).
58
Laniado (2002).
Fig. 11 7th c. house-workshop walls between the pillars of the 6th c. aqueduct in Gortyn.
59
One example of this is by the so-called ‘Quartiere Bizantino’ at Gortyn, which
from the second half of the 6th c. to sometime in the 8th c. appears to have been
populated by a group of craftsmen who possessed the technical knowledge necessary
to produce (albeit in limited quantities) glass objects and coarseware ceramics that
sported elegant painted decoration, and which were notable for the quality of the fab-
ric, the accuracy of the moulding, and the finesse of the decoration: Di Vita (1987).
60
Bonifay (2003) 124–28.
environs of the city (which they could reach every day, or otherwise
reside there in temporary accommodation). For the remainder of the
time they would be occupied in small-scale artisanal activities that
were aimed at the creation of monetary surplus. In this hypothesis
these ‘new’ urban artisans would, therefore, be concrete evidence of
the urbanisation of the productive classes who had traditionally been
extra-urban, and who brought a varied material culture into the city
while participating in both agricultural and artisanal activities.61
The force driving this significant mass of population to a progressive
urbanisation remains difficult to identify. In the peripheral regions
of the empire a considerable role was doubtless played by increasing
levels of insecurity stemming from the state of permanent conflict that
characterised the immediate aftermath of the Justinianic era but, as
has been indicated above, such an explanatory model is unsuitable
for other regions that also display this urban characteristic and were
sheltered from such conflict. An explanation must therefore be sought
in other, more general, spheres of life and most likely in more struc-
tural aspects of economic transformation. Although on the whole
these structural changes still largely escape us, some preliminary con-
siderations in this direction can be offered. The artisanal production
of high quality goods suggests that this was still a lively economic
context: glass vessels and lamps, finely decorated pottery, and dress
ornaments in bronze or precious metals (merely some of the principal
products that came out of these small workshops) are evidently not
products of basic necessity. They are not direct sources of sustenance
in the manner of agricultural products, they are not tools that are
indispensable for life and for subsistence work, and neither might
they be used as a means for paying tax directly. Once produced,
their destiny must lay in commerce, as they can be sold to obtain
currency that might be deployed to purchase other more basic goods
or to pay taxes.
From this point of view, the presence of such artisanal activity in
the Early Byzantine city, and the very form that it takes in this
instance, appears to constitute an effective testimony for the contin-
uation of a monetary economy, or perhaps even the ‘renewed mon-
etisation’ of the urban economy. Of note in this context is the evident
61
Mazzarino (2002) 153.
62
Morisson (1989).
them, and the sources that are used to construct them. In this sense, it
is more crucial than ever before that archaeologists, historians, econ-
omists, philologists, epigraphers, and art historians must strive to raise
their eyes from their specialisations and experiment with the practice
(and also the pleasure) of dynamic collaboration with specialists from
apparently distant disciplines, the goals of whom overlap their own.
Secondly, it is necessary to further improve the quality of excavation,
of documentation, and of publication. The stratigraphic revolution that
has been applied to Middle Eastern archaeology has created a set
of methodological conditions in which a range of interdisciplinary
questions might be asked, and has therefore shown the vast informative
potential of archaeological investigation when it equips itself with
adequate tools, strategies, and objectives. The next step must be to
extend these practices, honed in the complex archaeology of urban
centres in northern and western Europe, and use them to investigate
the archaeology of the Mediterranean in order to recognise, document,
and interpret its own complicated networks of micro-evidence, includ-
ing (in this instance) issues such as the commercial and economic
systems of the Early Byzantine city.63 Thirdly, it is necessary that we
continue to develop a reflexive methodology that recognises our own
interpretative capacity, including its limits and its potential. It is vital
that we try to examine the archaeological evidence before us with
new eyes, and are able to understand the significance of absence as
well as presence and not be afraid to include new sources of evidence
in our efforts to reconstruct the past.
The following closing interpretative conclusions are offered as pro-
visional, and should be seen as suggesting future directions for research
questions, rather than a set of specific answers. One initial point is
that of the nature of the (apparently new) roles played by the pro-
ductive and commercial middle classes in the Early Byzantine city.
Artisans and small traders would doubtlessly have played a precise
role within an economic system that appears to remain strong, and
which was based on varied production, on organised exchange, and
on monetary circulation. In the Early Byzantine city—even until the
end of the 7th c.—goods intended for both mass consumption and
for luxury use continued to be produced and traded, and raw materials
63
An example of this might be the current urban archaeological project in Beirut,
where the vast areas of post-war reconstruction in the modern city are transforming
our knowledge of its ancient and Byzantine forebears (cfr. Perring (1997–98) and (2003).
64
Hodges (1998).
65
It is worth noting that during the exact same span of time an Arab society
was developing, in which the figure of the merchant was to assume a hitherto
unknown social prominence (cf. Kennedy (1985) 23–25; Carver (1996)).
66
A celebrated passage of the Chronicon Paschale (1.713) appears to allude to this
new role of the productive and commercial middle class within the urban social
hierarchy: it relates to the presence of representatives of the capital’s artisan com-
munity in the procession of honour that was provided by Heraclius to accompany
the Avar Khan to the city’s gates (cfr. Dagron (2002) 407; Sodini (1979) 117–18
attributes little significance to the episode). There are similar, and more frequent,
attestations of public offices filled by members of this class within municipal and
provincial councils (for an Italian case, cfr. Cosentino (1999)).
Acknowledgements
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List of Figures