The results of recent archaeological excavation, systematic rural survey and detailed studies of pottery distributions have revealed the extent and complexities of the economy in the eastern empire. The eight papers in this volume demonstrate this complexity and prosperity, examining several types of product and how the economy evolved over time. Contents: New Rome, new theories on Inter-regional exchange: East Mediterranean economy in Late Antiquity ( Sean Kingsley and Michael Decker ); Urban Economies of Late Antique Cyrenaica ( Andrew Wilson ); The economic impact of the Palestinian wine trade in Late Antiquity ( Sean Kingsley ); Food for an empire: wine and oil production in North Syria ( Michael Decker ); Beyond the amphora: non-ceramic evidence for Late Antique industry and trade ( Marlia Mundell Mango ); The economy of Late Antique Cyprus ( Tassos Papacostas ); LR2: a container for the military annona on the Danubian border? ( Olga Karagiorgou ); Specialization, trade and prosperity: an overview of the economy of the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean ( Bryan Ward-Perkins ).
The results of recent archaeological excavation, systematic rural survey and detailed studies of pottery distributions have revealed the extent and complexities of the economy in the eastern empire. The eight papers in this volume demonstrate this complexity and prosperity, examining several types of product and how the economy evolved over time. Contents: New Rome, new theories on Inter-regional exchange: East Mediterranean economy in Late Antiquity ( Sean Kingsley and Michael Decker ); Urban Economies of Late Antique Cyrenaica ( Andrew Wilson ); The economic impact of the Palestinian wine trade in Late Antiquity ( Sean Kingsley ); Food for an empire: wine and oil production in North Syria ( Michael Decker ); Beyond the amphora: non-ceramic evidence for Late Antique industry and trade ( Marlia Mundell Mango ); The economy of Late Antique Cyprus ( Tassos Papacostas ); LR2: a container for the military annona on the Danubian border? ( Olga Karagiorgou ); Specialization, trade and prosperity: an overview of the economy of the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean ( Bryan Ward-Perkins ).
In a critique of Max Weber's influential ideas about the Mediterranean region in late antiquity, Jairus Banaji shows that the fourth to seventh centuries were in fact a period of major social and economic change, bound up with an expanding circulation of gold.
In this, the first comprehensive survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. They reflect a new interest in economic growth in antiquity and develop new methods for measuring economic development, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately.
The Roman economy was operated significantly above subsistence level, with production being stimulated by both taxation and trade. Some regions became wealthy on the basis of exporting low-value agricultural products across the Mediterranean. In contrast, it has usually been assumed that the high costs of land transport kept inland regions relatively poor. This volume challenges these assumptions by presenting new research on production and exchange within inland regions. The papers, supported by detailed bibliographic essays, range from Britain to Jordan. They reveal robust agricultural economies in many interior regions. Here, some wealth did come from high value products, which could defy transport costs. However, ceramics also indicate local exchange systems, capable of generating wealth without being integrated into inter-regional trading networks. The role of the State in generating production and exchange is visible, but often co-existed with local market systems. Contributors are Alyssa A. Bandow, Fanny Bessard, Michel Bonifay, Kim Bowes, Stefano Costa, Jeremy Evans, Elizabeth Fentress, Piroska Hárshegyi, Adam Izdebski, Luke Lavan, Tamara Lewit, Phil Mills, Katalin Ottományi, Peter Sarris, Emanuele Vaccaro, Agnès Vokaer, Mark Whittow and Andrea Zerbini.
Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean brings together diverse scholarship to explore the socioeconomic dynamics of ancient Mediterranean pilgrimage from archaic Greece to Late Antiquity, the Greek mainland to Egypt and the Near East.