Ancient economy

Textiles have always been among the most popular goods of mankind. Considering their significance in the ancient Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East alike as well as their value as key economic assets, textiles hold a significant potential for the understanding of the ancient economy. Making them the subject of more detailed economic analyses in their own right is a central objective of the present volume. As it is neither possible to analyze distributional patterns and distribution channels for ancient textile material on the basis of written sources nor on the basis of archaeological findings alone, this volume brings together different source material, disciplines and methodological approaches, including modern Economics, to analyze textile material traded, trade-routes, sales and buying markets, and the forming and operating of institutions that ensured a smooth running of textile exchange processes.

This volume presents fourteen papers by Roman archaeologists and historians discussing approaches to the economic history of Pompeii, and the role of the Pompeian evidence in debates about the Roman economy.  Four themes are discussed. The first of these is the position of Pompeii and its agricultural environment, discussing the productivity and specialization of agriculture in the Vesuvian region, and the degree to which we can explain Pompeii’s size and wealth on the basis of the city’s economic hinterland. A second issue discussed is what Pompeians got out of their economy: how well-off were people in Pompeii?  This involves discussing the consumption of everyday consumer goods, analyzing archaeobotanical remains to highlight the quality of Pompeian diets, and discussing what bone remains reveal about the health of the inhabitants of Pompeii. A third theme is economic life in the city: how are we to understand the evidence for crafts and manufacturing? How are we to assess Pompeii’s commercial topography? Who were the people who actually invested in constructing shops and workshops? In which economic contexts were Pompeian paintings produced? Finally, the volume discusses money and business: how integrated was Pompeii into the wider world of commerce and exchange, and what can the many coins found at Pompeii tell us about this? What do the wax tablets found near Pompeii tell us about trade in the Bay of Naples in the first century AD? Together, the chapters of this volume highlight how Pompeii became a very rich community, and how it profited from its position in the centre of the Roman world.

Vaisselle précieuse, bijoux en or et pierres gravées, décor des demeures, vins et produits gastronomiques recherchés, parure monumentale des villes et mobilier luxueux des tombes, toutes ces manifestations du luxe se caractérisent par des matériaux coûteux, rares, travaillés par des artisans de talent. Leur possession relève de l’ostentation et du superflu. Pourtant, le seuil à partir duquel un artefact entre dans la catégorie du luxe n’est pas toujours clair : il change selon l’époque, le lieu, l’échelle. Le luxe de la parure individuelle, de la maison privée, de groupes professionnels, du prince ou de la cité ne s’expriment pas de la même manière et n’ont pas la même vocation.
Cet ouvrage rassemble 14 communications d’un colloque qui s’est tenu au musée de l’Arles antique en 2017, autour de l’exposition sur le Luxe antique et le trésor de Berthouville. En se fondant sur des découvertes et des travaux récents, il interroge cette notion complexe du luxe à travers l’étude de grands trésors, des pratiques funéraires, des monuments, de la circulation des richesses et de leur thésaurisation.

This paper examines the political economy of the terminal phase (2600 ¬– 2000 BCE) of the southern Levantine Early Bronze Age through a study of characteristic bar-shaped ingots. The focus of the analysis is at the site Khirbat Hamra Ifdan (KHI), which is the best-preserved metal production facility dating to the Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant (Levy et al. 2002). KHI offers a detailed picture of the organization of ingot production during the Early Bronze Age and is used to contextualize bar-shaped ingots found in other locations. Comparing the metrology of the ingots from KHI to ingots found at sites in the Negev Highlands offers important details on the copper trade network. In conjunction, the two datasets highlight a non-centralized political economy that nevertheless was able to develop a long-distance exchange network marketing copper as a commodity intensively for the first time in the region. The analysis highlights that the ingots share a consistent design, but lack metrological consistency associated with currency.

The book brings together Classicists and scholars of early Christianity to examine economic issues germane to the study of the letters of Paul of Tarsus. It surveys recent research and breaks new ground by placing Pauline communities within the context of the larger Roman economy and surveying topics including slavery, food and drink, urban poverty, architecture, economic stratification, commensality, gift exchange, inter-city travel, the collection for Jerusalem,  and Marxism and capitalism in Pauline studies, among other topics. The volume will be of utility to researchers, to students, and as a course textbook.

Auch wenn physische Gewalt ein ständig wachsendes Forschungsfeld innerhalb der Altertumswissenschaften ist, mangelt es bisher an einschlägigen Arbeiten zum Verhältnis zwischen Gewalt und Wirtschaft in antiken Gesellschaften. Die Beiträge in diesem Sammelband möchten in diese Lücke vorstoßen und so neue Perspektiven auf die Strukturen der antiken Wirtschaft eröffnen. Die Begrenztheit der antiken Quellen ermöglicht dabei zwar nur selten, die Ausmaße der Gewalt in der Wirtschaft zu erfassen. Die Fallstudien können allerdings zeigen, dass Gewalt zu ökonomischen Zwecken stets eine wichtige Handlungsoption war, ihre tatsächliche Anwendung aber stark von den jeweiligen Kontexten abhing.

An imposing amount of studies and researches in the second half of the twentieth century has focused on the productivity in Roman Africa of a variety of consumer products, along with the analysis of regions, cities and their economies. The success of  African goods during the Caesarian-Augustan age and up to the late antiquity, recorded in the written tradition and confirmed by the stratigraphy of many sites in the Mediterranean, has been the subject of a substantial amount of contributions that have accompanied for more than sixty years the study of material culture of the Roman imperial age. This session, which can not consider every product of the Maghreb, will focus mainly on the ceramic, not only on account of its large diffusion, the fossil marker for dating contexts all around the Mediterranean and well inside Europe for several centuries, but also because the evidence is more consistent than that found for other types of sources, and reflects the ability of African regions to develop a high yield agriculture, and manufacturing activities related to fisheries, as shown by transport amphorae (carrying oil, olives, wine, fish sauces), as well as crafts tied to the production of more or less valuable objects, aimed - at various levels - at regional, inter-regional and inter-provincial markets.
If during a  more or less recent past most studies were mainly focused on data collected at the sites of consumption (and thus on the indestructible ceramic), centered on the type and histories of each production (fine table ware, lamps,  kitchenware and coarse ware), recent studies have been, on one hand, directed towards a review of the known types and towards a more thoughtful analysis of the contexts of discovery, perfecting the production framework and anchoring to a trustworthy time frame certain types and classes in circulation; on the other hand they have focused on the production centers in order to get a better geographic characterization of those same types and classes, applying a wealth of suitable methodologies, surveys of large tracts of land, surveys and excavations of old and new workshops, laboratory analysis. The results draw a scenery in which a great variety of productive facies and distribution models reflect the complexity of the cultural, social and economic contexts, both micro- and macro-regional, both at the provincial and inter-provincial levels. This session aims to describe these lines of research, focusing on the organization of production and commerce in the region, their similarities and differences, and on a list of questions still unsolved, the solution of which will call for a further revision of published data, and for brand new information.