Hierapolis

This volume presents the results of the Marmora Phrygiae Project, financed by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR – Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca) as part of the “Futuro in Ricerca” programme (FIRB 2012). In the period 2013-2016, following a multidisciplinary approach, the project sought to reconstruct the building stone procurement strategies adopted in the city of Hierapolis in Phrygia (Turkey), across a broad chronological time span from the Hellenistic epoch to the Byzantine period. Extensive knowledge of the territory surrounding the city and detailed research into its monuments provided the basis for a painstaking historical reconstruction. The volume describes the economic, social, technological and legal aspects of the use of marble and presents the results of the archaeometric investigations that were conducted in order to characterise the building stones, determine their provenance and assess the state of conservation of the monuments. In addition, the volume illustrates recent research conducted by teams of various nationalities into the marble quarrying districts and monumental complexes of the main settlements of south-western Asia Minor in the Imperial and Byzantine epochs.

This interdisciplinary volume presents sixteen papers by Roman historians and archaeologists, discussing approaches to the economic history of urban craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, with a particular emphasis on the imperial period.
After an introduction by the editors, which discusses recent developments in the study of Roman craftsmen and traders and their changing place in Roman economic history, the remainder of the volume is divided into four sections. The first three chapters discuss the scholarly history of Roman crafts and trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, identifying different national traditions in the scholarship and showing how they influenced the development of thinking in very different ways in different regions, something which this book aims to overcome by promoting a greater interchange of ideas and perspectives between traditions.

A chapter by Flohr and Wilson discusses the development of academic debate in Germany and the Anglo-Saxon world, highlighting the role of new sets of evidence and changing scholarly ideologies in pushing forward scholarly discourse. This broad chapter sets the stage for the two following chapters. Carla Salvaterra and Alessandro Cristofori sketch the development of debates on craftsmen and traders in twentieth century Italy, with particular emphasis on the fascist era and the marxist fashion in the 1970s. Jean-Pierre Brun discusses the historical development of debate among francophone scholars in the light of recent French approaches to the archaeology of crafts in Roman Italy.

The second section highlights the economic strategies of craftsmen and traders. The first two chapters discuss this issue in general terms. Candace Rice discusses strategies to overcome information deficiencies by people involved in maritime trade over longer distances. Kai Ruffing analyzes the phenomenon of specialization among urban craftsmen and retailers, with a particular emphasis on epigraphic and papyrological evidence from Asia Minor and Egypt. The other two chapters focus on specific trades: Carol van Driel-Murray investigates the marketing strategies of shoemakers in the Northern provinces based on preserved shoeware, while Nicolas Monteix discusses strategies by how bakers to aimed to enhance the efficiency of their workshops, based on archaeological evidence from Pompeii.

Subsequently, there are five chapters highlighting the human factor in urban crafts and trade, with particular reference to labour organisation. A chapter by Christel Freu discusses the phenomenon of apprenticeship. This is followed by a chapter by Lena Larsson Lovén on women’s work. Wim Broekaert analyzes the role of freedmen and their former owners in urban economic life. Nicolas Tran and Ilias Arnaoutoglou discuss the role of professional associations – the former in the port city of Arles, and the latter in Hierapolis in Asia Minor.

The final section discusses the position of crafts in urban space. It starts with two complementary chapters by Penelope Goodman and Kerstin Dross-Krüpe discussing the phenomenon of artisanal clustering from, respectively, an archaeological and papyrological perspective. The other two chapters present case studies of the commercial landscape of two cities: Orsolya Lang sketches the historical development of the civilian town of Aquincum, while Jeroen Poblome focuses on the urban context of the Potters’ Quarter at Sagalassos.

Together, the papers present a range of possible approaches to studying aspects of the socioeconomic lives of craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, on the basis of widely different sources of written and material evidence.