ACTION IN THE TRENCHES: A CALL FOR A MORE DYNAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF EARLY BYZANTIUM Marlia Mango St Johns College, University

of Oxford, UK

1. West versus East The lecture considers the fragmented state of the archaeology of the late antique Eastern Empire. Evidence takes the form of several pictures. The first appears in Bryan Ward-Perkins recently published The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization which includes a discussion of finds made at the royal ship burial of ca. 626 excavated at Sutton Hoo in this country.1 His photograph and discussion focuses on the natively made gold inlaid jewellery which represents artistic production at the highest levels of Anglo-Saxon society where at lower levels craftsmanship has plummeted in technical and aesthetic terms. This general lowering of standards is one of the diagnostic features used in the analysis of Civilizations End which argues for a true decline, not for multi-culturally acceptable change or transformation.2 But this snapshot of Sutton Hoo and its society has been trimmed. The entire wide-angle picture would take in objects of Byzantine production found in the same burial which are mentioned but not discussed in the Ward-Perkins book,3 namely a large silver plate with stamps of Anastasius, a set of silver bowls, unstamped but similar to a set stamped in the early seventh century found as part of the Lampsacus treasure of Asia Minor,4 silver spoons, a bronze basin likewise manufactured in the Empire. Much can be said about the changing cultural contexts of Byzantine silver and bronze or other material found outside the empire: how it reached such destinations and how it was regarded and used locally.5 But the point I wish to make here is that these objects were made in the empire, circulated abroad, yet do not feature in the cited analysis of the end of the (western) Roman Empire, because they belong to another story, namely that of the eastern Empire. The Ward-Perkins examination concentrates on the realities of a fallen western Empire because, as he states, the concept of a transformed Late Antiquity (see below) is based on recent work describing the prosperity of the eastern Empire.6 In the past the opposite occurred: the eastern Empire was thought to have declined with the West. Given the scholarly confusion that he clearly explains and disentangles vis--vis the West, it would be helpful now to reconsider the East on its own, to assess the degree of its prosperity and/or transformation. This should be done on the basis of an archaeological synthesis carried out by archaeologists. Archaeological data from West and East has recently been well used by a number of scholars. The historians Wolf Liebescheutz, Michael McCormack and Chris Wickham have all in the past five years done so in their extensive and authoritative studies concentrating on social and/or economic questions.7 This makes for a happy change from the mostly
1 2

(Oxford 2005), 116, fig. 5.10 above. Ibid., 1-10, 169-83. 3 Silver and copper dishes from the eastern Mediterranean, ibid., 117. 4 O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of Early Christian Antiquities and Objects from the Christian East in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography of the British Museum (London 1901), nos. 378-9. 5 M. Mundell Mango, The archaological context of finds of silver in and beyond the Eastern Empire, in Acta XIII Congressus Internationalis Archaeologiae Christianae, eds. N. Cambi and E. Marin (Vatican and Split 1998), 207-52. 6 The Fall, 170-2. 7 W. Liebeschuetz, The Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford, 2001); M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: communications and commerce AD 300-900 (Cambridge 2001); C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800 (Oxford 2005).

archaeology-free although massive study of A. H. M. Jones.8 The series of monographs, the Transformation of the Roman World AD 300-800, supported by the European Science Foundation, covers a range of subjects in both the western and eastern empires, but as WardPerkins points out, the emphasis in most volumes is on northwest (Germanic) Europe, reflecting the pre-2004 span of the European Union rather than the Mediterranean Europe of the Roman Empire.9 Elsewhere, sets of papers by archaeologists on late antique subjects have appeared, for example Urban Centers and Rural Contexts in Late Antiquity10 and the Late Antique Archaeology series,11 but these can be as much western as eastern in scope. Nor can they be described as works of synthesis. No publication, to my knowledge, tackles the comprehensive study of the archaeology of the late antique eastern Empire. 2. The Eastern Empire The eastern Empire deserves individual study firstly because it had a distinctive culture going back to at least the Hellenistic period and secondly because it lasted longer, as an individual state. I would disagree with a recent statement that in the Roman Empire the barrier between East and West is an artificial construct.12 Certainly the divergence between East and West in Late Antiquity expresses itself not just in the nature of the material (see above), but in the framework of the archaeology used to study it: the West tends to be investigated more locally and, as noted earlier by J.-P. Sodini, the East is often approached externally.13 The logistical problems of study and interpretation thus arising should be compensated for by dedicated study of the East. B. Ward-Perkins suggests that the new trend in late antique studies to privilege the East provides a healthy corrective of perspective to specialists of the West.14 Rather than being assessed in itself, the late antique eastern Empire has, instead, been treated in conjunction or comparison with study of other areas the West, as mentioned above, or with the subsequent Islamic state. But since as it will be argued below there is no clear consensus on the late antique East, its premature interpretation in comparison or contrast with these other entities is partial or can be, unsurprisingly, distorted. If, as several scholars have stated recently, the late antique city needs clearer definition, how can it be usefully compared with the Umayyad or other early medieval city? Instead, a pseudo-synthesis of evidence is imposed that can be subsequently endlessly repeated (see below). More surprising is the de facto divorce within the eastern Empire of Late Antiquity from medieval Byzantium. The recent 3-volume Economic History of Byzantium,15 which admirably draws on archaeology, commences in the seventh century, following a survey of the sixth.16 This is unfortunate. The linkage between the two periods should archaeologically take place as a matter of course within the work of a single excavated site or area surveyed. Yet if no consensus or comprehensive grasp of what happened in the earlier period exists, it is difficult to relate it in
8

A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: a social, economic and administrative survey (Oxford 1964). 9 The Fall, 170, 174-5; see also idem and G.P. Brogiolo, Introduction in The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Leiden 2004), xiii-xvi. 10 T. S. Burns and J. W. Eadie, eds. (East Lansing 2001). 11 Edited by L. Lavan. 12 M. C. Sturgeon, East meets West: toward a global perspective on the Roman empire, JRA 13 (2000), 663, discussing a chapter by M. Millett in S.E. Alcock, ed., The Early Roman Empire in the East (Oxford 1997). 13 See note 23 below. 14 Ward-Perkins, The Fall, 170. 15 The editor explains that economic and fiscal structures changed very significantly by the seventh century and that Jones had already dealt with the earlier period; Economic History of Byzantium, A. Laiou, ed., (Washington, DC 2002), 8. 16 By C. Morrisson and J.-P. Sodini, The Sixth-Century Economy, in ibid., 171-220.

broader terms to the later: where does one begin to interpret the medieval period? The Amorium excavations offer a good opportunity to register diachronic changes: the bath-house in the enclosure continued to function until the mid-ninth century but the ninth-century north-south street there was unpaved.17 It is in the interests of the medievalist to encourage late antique archaeology. It can also easily be argued that, within the eastern Empire, the archaeological material available from the late antique period is far more abundant than that now known from the medieval. The eastern Empire was far more extensive before 640 and, in some areas such as the Levant, excavation has increased enormously in the past thirty years. Most excavation of urban sites continues from the better interpreted earlier Roman period, with which the late antique can, in theory, be immediately compared to establish local diachronic development. Other archaeological advantages offered by Late Antiquity within the eastern Empire include spectacular village evidence from the countryside, unparalleled in the Roman world. Study of both city and countryside can be aided by reference to the documents preserved in Egypt and a few other places. Although these are mined for the study of bureaucracy, worthy in itself, more use could be made of them in interpreting archaeological material. Furthermore, some specialist studies, for example of amphorae, are highly developed for the Roman and late antique periods and can serve as a basis for the medieval. All the strands of late antique archaeology set the stage for medieval Byzantine archaeology. 3. Late Antiquity During the past fifteen years, the study of Late Antiquity as an historical period has increased (although the concept of Sptantike had appeared already in Germany in the nineteenth century),18 as exemplified by the establishment (in 1993) of the journal Antiquit Tardive and by the fact that the new edition of the Cambridge Ancient History added three centuries to antiquity (A.D. 337-600; volumes XIII-XIV).19 The character of Late Antiquity has shifted according to the 1999 Late Antiquity: a guide to the post-classical world,20 both chronologically (with coverage up to A.D. 800) and geographically (with a new welcome emphasis on the eastern Empire.21 As stated above, some new studies of Late Antiquity (particularly their American version) are seen by critics as replacing the concept of Decline22 with that of Transformation or Change: nothing got worse it just got different.23 I think we would all agree that (eventually) it got different, the main question is when. 4. Recent archaeology in the late antique Eastern Empire A major source of information needed to answer this question concerning Late Antiquity in the eastern Empire comes from the third part of the subject discussed here, namely archaeology. As the study of Late Antiquity has in recent years assumed a higher profile, so during the period the archaeology of the eastern Empire has expanded in many areas. From the fifteen years since J.-P. Sodini delivered his comprehensive lecture (in 1991) on La contribution de larchologie la connaissance du monde byzantin (IVe-VIIe sicles)24 giving an account covering the previous fiftey years, new work can be cited. In Israel and Jordan, dozens of sites of late antique date or
17 18

See www.amoriumexcavations.org. N. Duval, review of B. Lanon, LAntiquit tardive (Paris 1997) in Antiquit Tardive 10 (2002), 502. 19 A. Cameron and P. Garnsey, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd edn.), vol. XIII. The Late Empire, A.D. 337-425 (Cambridge 1998); A. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, M. Whitby, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. XIV. Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600 (Cambridge 2000). 20 G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown, O. Grabar, eds., (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1999). 21 See Ward-Perkins, The Fall, 4, 170-1. 22 Recently upheld in both ibid. and Liebescheutz, The City. 23 See Ward-Perkins, The Fall, 168-83. 24 Published DOP 47 (1993), 139-84.

phases continue to be excavated and/or published, in addition to other work in the Levant.25 For a time, work at Scythopolis was being carried out twelve months a year, uncovering a truly impressive range of dated inscriptions identifying major urban building works of the sixth century.26 In Asia Minor where some large scale urban excavations (Ephesus, Pergamon, Miletos; see below) have gone on for up to a century, hinterlands and other rural regions are now being surveyed, throwing late antique occupation into relief for example in the Konya plain,27 in Paphlagonia,28 in Bithynia,29 and in Isauria30 and providing a rural context for the cities. The relatively new project at Sagalassos, a model of modern archaeology, links by way of a monumental plus environmental approach city and countryside in an exemplary fashion.31 Even in Mesopotamia where hardly a spade was turned in the past, despite interesting surface work dating back to the early twentieth century, a new Turkish-Syrian excavation collaboration is about to be launched along the common border. Likewise in Mesopotamia, the earliest dated standing baptistery, that of 359 at Nisibis, has finally been disengaged from the soil to reveal yet more of its exquisite sculpture.32 The circumstances of the Lebanese civil war provided the occasion to uncover more of the heart of Beirut, a good part of it dating to Late Antiquity.33 Similarly, an important, late antique heart of Alexandria is being uncovered and studied.34 Also on projects in Egypt are notably publications relating to pottery.35 On opposite sides of the Balkans relatively recent work at Butrint36 and Nicopolis37 has clarified the character and
25

K. Holum, The classical city in the sixth century: survival and transformation, The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, ed. M. Maas (Cambridge 2005); A. Raban and K. Holum, Caesarea Maritima: a retrospective after two millennia (Leiden 1996); Y. Hirschfeld, The Roman Baths of Hammat Gadar (Jerusalem 1997); Y. Israel, Ashqelon, Excavation and Survey in Israel 13 (1995), 100-5; Z. T. Fiema, C. Kanellopoulos, T. Waliszewski, R. Schick, The Petra Church (Amman 2001). Also on Petra, Sepphoris and other sites see The Roman and Byzantine Near East, vol. 3, ed. J. H. Humphrey (Portsmouth 2002); C. Strube, Die Baudekoration im nordsyrischen Kalksteinmassiv, vol. 2 (Mainz 2003); M. Konrad, Der sptrmische Limes in Syrien (Resafa 5; (Mainz 2001); G. Brands, Die Bauornamentik von ResafaSergiupolis (Mainz 2002). See also note 60 below. 26 Y. Tsafrir and G. Foerster, Urbanism at Scythopolis-Bet Shean in the fourth to seventh centuries, DOP 51 (1997), 85-146. 27 D. Baird, Settlement expansion on the Konya Plain, Anatolia, 5th-7th centuries A.D., in Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside, eds. W. Bowden, L. Lavan, C. Machado (Leiden 2004), 21946. 28 R. Matthews, Project Paphlagonia 2001, Anatolian Archaeology 7 (2001), 20-1. 29 B. Geyer and J. Lefort, eds., La Bithynie au Moyen Age (Paris 2003); includes pre-medieval coverage. 30 H. Elton, Gksu Archaeological Project, Anatolian Archaeology 10 (2004), 26-28. 31 M. Waelkens and L. Loots, eds., Sagalassos. V. Report on the Survey and Excavations Campaigns of 1996 and 1997 (Leuven 2000). 32 F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Archologische Reise in Euphrat-und-Tigris Gebiet (Berlin 1911-20), 336-46, figs. 314-7; IV, pls. CXXXVIII-CXXXIX. 33 K. Butcher and R. Thorpe, `A note on excavations in central Beirut 1994-96, JRA 10 (1997), 291-306. 34 M. Rodziewicz, Les habitations romaines tardives d'Alexandrie la lumire des fouilles polonaises Km el-Dikka: Alexandrie. III (Warsaw, 1984); J.-Y. Empereur, Commerce et artisanat dans lAlexandrie hllenistique et romaine (Paris 1998); M. Rodziewicz, Classification of wineries from Mariotis, in ibid., 23-36, 245-60; idem, Philoxenit pilgrimage harbour of Abu Mena, Bulletin de la Societ archologique dAlexandrie 47 (2003), 27-47; E. Rodziewicz, Ivory, bone and other production at Alexandria, 5th-9th century, in M. Mundell Mango, ed., Byzantine Trade (4th-12th centuries): recent archaeological work (Aldershot in press). 35 D. M. Bailey, Excavations at El-Ashmunein vol. 5. Pottery, Lamps and Glass of the Late Roman and Early Arab Periods (London 1998); J. Faiers, Late Roman pottery at Amarna and related studies (London 2005). 36 R. Hodges, W. Bowden, K. Lako, Byzantine Butrint: excavations and survey 1994-99 (Oxford 2004); W. Bowden, R. Hodges and K. Lako, Roman and late-antique Butrint excavation and survey 2000-2001, JRA 15 (2002), 199-230. 37 A. Poulter, Nicopolis ad Istrum: a Roman, Late Roman and Early Byzantine City. Excavations 19851992 (London 1995).

chronology of urban and surrounding settlement, while multi-period surveys in Greece and elsewhere provide material for a multi-volume publication assessing survey methodology (pottery collection, etc)38 which is thought to run the risk of over emphasis on techniques at the expense of other goals.39 Shipwrecks continue to be located and investigated, with the area of late antique and medieval Byzantine finds extending now into the Black Sea and back into the ninth century;40 even to Constantinople itself. Indeed, it is perhaps at Istanbul, where the important survey by Jim Crow of the Long Wall and major aqueduct was recently completed,41 that the most dramatic work has started, with early results pertaining to all periods. I am referring to the excavations occasioned by the simultaneous building of a metro system and a train tunnel under the Bosphoros. Work at and near the sites of the Theodosian harbour, the Strategion and the Bosphorion harbour, and elsewhere, is producing exciting results which will rewrite some chapters of Constantinople's urban history.42 One hopes for, if not an exhibition, at least a catalogue of the type published following comparable excavation at Athens.43 With these current excavations in the city, one senses a re-invigorated purpose given to local archaeology with the Department of Antiquities re-establishing the primacy of serious work over the municipality-linked and private commercial work that has in the past twenty years or so converted cisterns into restaurants or shops and carried out the illfated improvements to the Land Walls.44 5. A synthesis: the need While the publications of the archaeological projects listed above provide new material evidence, the historical and economic studies published in the same period have raised issues that need to be addressed. It has been pointed out that we do not yet know enough about the rural archaeology of Turkey and Greece.45 This is a large deficiency given that these areas constitute the heartland of the medieval Empire. One historian states that what is needed is more excavation and survey as well as a corpus of urban archaeology that could provide the facts needed to interpret the period more faithfully.46 In addition to the need for further fieldwork, clearly a synthesis of archaeological work in the eastern Empire should be undertaken, both to interpret past work and to help set agendas for the future. A few examples of unresolved problems will suffice to support this suggestion. The capital of the East, Antioch, remains unfinished business: thanks to the interruptions caused by World War II, Downey was never reconciled with Lassus and no proper account has been taken of what Evagrius wrote about the city at the end of the sixth century.47 Thus there is a lingering impression in many peoples minds that Antioch faded in importance after 540, an impression
38

G. Barker and D. Mattingly, eds., The Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes, vols. 1-5 (Oxford 1999-2000). 39 J.F. Cherry, Vox POPULI: Llandscape archaeology in Mediterranean Europe, JRA 15 (2002), 569-73. 40 S. Kingsley, Barbarian Seas: Late Rome to Islam (London 2004). 41 J. Crow and R. Bayliss, Water for the Queen of Cities: a review of recent research in the Byzantine and early Ottoman water supply of Constantinople, Basilissa 1 (2004), 28-49; J. Crow, The Anastasian Wall and the Lower Danube frontier in the sixth century, in L. Vagalinski, ed., The Lower Danube in Antiquity (Sofia forthcoming). 42 C. Mango, Le Dveloppement urbain de Constantinople (IVe-VIIe sicles), 3rd ed. (Paris 2004). 43 N. C. Stampolides and L. Parlama, eds., The City beneath the City: finds from excavations for the Metropolitan Railway of Athens (Athens 2000). 44 A notable exception is M. Ahunbay and Z. Ahunbay, Recent work on the Land Walls of Istanbul, DOP 54 (2000), 227-239; J. Crow, The infrastructures of a great city: earth, walls and water in late Antique Constantinople, in E. Zanini, ed., Technology in Transition, Late Antique Archaeology 5 (forthcoming). 45 Wickham, Framing, 632. But see now J. Lefort, C. Morrisson, J.-P. Sodini, eds., Les villages dans lEmpire byzantin, IVe-XVe siecle (Paris 2005). 46 Liebescheutz, The City, 30, 54. 47 G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria (Princeton 1961); J. Lassus, Antioch-on-the-Orontes. V. Les portiques d'Antioche (Princeton 1977).

that has helped to feed a theory of diminished vitality in the north of Syria and gradual coastal decay.48 This theory has been paired with that of a comparatively increased vitality in the south of Syria before and after the Arab conquest, leading to a perceived arabization of the Levant49 which may, in fact, be premature. In this case and others, chronology is the most important issue and must be established by details, not impressions. Another problem of chronology concerns the new re-dating of the shortened circuit walls of Ephesus, Miletos and Pergamon back from the seventh century as proposed by Clive Foss50 to the mid-sixth,51 radically reorienting Asia Minor history.52 In view of the lack of evidence from rural Asia Minor in this period (mentioned above), urban history is of major importance.53 A closely related issue that reappears regularly in discussion is that of the late antique city whose classical character seems to be generally misunderstood. A scholarly dichotomy is posited between monumentality and commerce: all those booths being set up in the porticoed streets were long taken as the first signs of urban decay. Although it is now recognized that booths mean urban (commercial) vitality, their presence is still taken as the End of Monumentality. This concept, in turn, seems bound up with other misconceptions of the classical city: that it was a consumer not a producer.54 Excavation proves otherwise55 and, anyway, urban consumers have to buy somewhere. I suggest that reading of two classical sources can act as a corrective: Vitruvius (V.1.1-10) on attaining the correct balance of people and space in planning a forum (where empty space is undesirable) and Libanius (Or. 11) who praises the commerce conducted in the porticoed streets of Antioch (including the makeshift booths). Combined with the above misconception is another about the nature of commerce: no distinction is made concerning type (retail sale, light craft work [repairs, forging], heavy-duty industry) and respective locations.56 In undertaking a late antique synthesis, archaeologists should concentrate on the core territory, but with less Byzantine Italy and more Levant and Egypt since it is thought that these two areas retained both urban and rural vitality longer.57 To return to my second picture of the various Byzantine artefacts recovered at Sutton Hoo: these and other objects, the milieus in which they were produced and then used, and the paths they took in changing hands, are all of vital importance in establishing an accurate picture of late antique material culture, whatever the value that any individual element had for the economy. The Ward Perkins analysis of Romes Fall depended not just on a discussion of economic factors, but on the quality of life that contemporary material culture provided, even though this quality may well have been determined by economic factors.58 The quality and quantity of the material culture itself deserves to be considered on its own merits. This is what needs to be done for the late antique eastern Empire. Was the Age of Spirituality really the Age of
48

Liebescheutz, The City, 56 (Late Roman Antioch is deeply buried); Wickham, Framing, 620-1, 774, 777. 49 Liebescheutz, The City, 54-63; Wickham, Framing, 613, 621-5. 50 C. Foss, History and Archaeology in Byzantine Asia Minor (Aldershot 1990), II, 474, 478, 480 = Archaeology and the Twenty Cities of Byzantine Asia, American Journal of Archaeology 81 (1977). 51 Summarized in Liebescheutz, The City, 46-52. 52 M. Klinkott (Altertmer von Pergamon. XVI.1 Die Stadtmauer [Berlin 2001]) prefers a date of 672-8 for the walls; On the importance of the dating of these walls see W. Brandes, Die Stdte Kleinasiens im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert (Amsterdam 1989), 82-111. 53 In general see Recent Research in Late-Antique Urbanism, ed. L. Lavan (Portsmouth 2001). 54 H. Kennedy, From polis to madina, Past and Present 106 (1985), 3-27; see also Liebescheutz, The City, 29-30, 39-40, 58, 61; Wickham, Framing, 618-20. 55 Among late antique phases, excavations have uncovered production centres within several cities; see J.P. Sodini, Artisanat urbain l'poque palochrtienne (IVe-VIIe s.), Ktema 4 (1979); M. Mundell Mango, The commercial map of Constantinople, DOP 54 (2000), 190-1, 194-8. 56 See ibid., 190-1; eadem, Beyond the amphora: non-ceramic evidence for late antique industry and trade, S. Kingsley and M. Decker, ed., in Economy and Exchange in the East Mediterranean during Late Antiquity (Oxford 2001), 93-5. 57 See e.g. Wickham, Framing, 759-80, 793-4. 58 Ward-Perkins, The Fall, 87-168.

Incompetence as one prominent scholar remarked on first viewing the well known exhibition catalogue59 of that name? A comprehensive assessment of material culture as revealed by archaeological work, supported by written evidence, can then be used as a basis for a historical, social or economic study of the period and region. The problems Why has a general archaeological assessment of Late Antiquity not taken place? One problem is posed by documentation. Excavation and survey results exist mostly in the records kept and their publication. In rescue excavations, where remains may have to be destroyed, this can be literally true. Finds once taken to depots or museums may not be easy to consult in future. There is also the occasionally voiced unhelpful opinion that it is better to leave the past in the ground awaiting the better technology or better funding of the future. The main factors inhibiting the production of broad interpretive studies based on detailed archaeological evidence are time and money. In most countries archaeological funding is severely limited and precious time is spent, often annually, seeking adequate financial support. Where archaeological work is combined with a teaching post, problems of time are multiplied. While the archaeologists are grappling with the year-to-year minutiae of evidence provided by fieldwork, historians are sitting on the sidelines taking lecture notes and preparing their own analysis, for their own purposes which can short-circuit integral archaeological interpretation. The exhausted archaeologist often never gets beyond a final field report in order to produce his/her own broader, personal interpretation. For these and other reasons, the full archaeological picture itself remains out of focus and in fact undeveloped. Instead of a wide-angle view we have again a series of often trimmed snapshots: preliminary reports of excavation or survey, followed eventually in some cases by a book drawing together all studied material from the particular excavated site or surveyed area. I can think of relatively few cases where authors have been able to attempt a presentation of their own results within a broader regional context, say in the Levant,60 western Asia Minor, or the Balkans. Unfortunately, previously published sites encompassed by this context may be outdated in their methodology and therefore offer imperfect comparison with the new site.61 Furthermore, the geographical extent is very often limited (perhaps by political pressure) to the modern country within which the field-work has been carried out.62 This may pose no great problem in a large country like Turkey, but in the fragmented Levant it can. Antioch divorced from publications of Syrian archaeology since the 1940s would be a prime example. A way forward: talking projects Better funding could help the archaeologist to have large enough staff to ensure continuing archive work on field and other records, accelerating the production of reports and final assessment. There are other things that could be done. I would suggest a reorientation of some current and future projects themselves so as to allow a dynamic interchange, that is, to initiate a network of talking projects. The language of communication would, of course, be largely electronic, so that previously more individualized methods of working and recording would be standardized. The IT officer of one project would speak (i.e. convey information) to the IT
59

K. Weitzmann, ed., The Age of Spirituality: late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century (New York 1979). 60 P. Donceel-Vote, Les Pavements des glises byzantines de Syrie et du Liban (Louvain 1988); M. Piccirillo, The Mosaics of Jordan (Amman 1993). 61 For example, among the pottery excavated at Antioch, only the finewares were published; F. O. Waage, Antioch-on-the-Orontes. IV, pt, 1 (Princeton 1948). 62 Noted also by S. B. Downey: the tendency for archaeologists to work principally within modern countries as defined by their modern boundaries may obscure cultural connections; Colonnaded streets in the Greek East, JRA 14 (2001), 642.

officers of other projects. Today, communication between projects is delayed: it now takes place in the form of preliminary and final publication of the results of each project and by way of conferences etc, where results, ongoing or cumulative, are revealed. What I am suggesting would accelerate this process so that aims and methods of various projects would be directly coordinated at the planning stage and communication of results would be continuous. The basic necessity is commitment to funding long-term IT staff. The purpose of my proposed network, or networks, of communicating projects would be to provide a basis for a comprehensive assessment of the archaeological evidence of the late antique eastern Empire, as a unit. Earlier work, of course, would also be assessed in the process, but the new network could set an agenda of study in advance: important questions to answer, types of evidence to prioritize, a programme of interconnected scientific work, coordinated study of artefacts, a sharing of data. The British Academy Board for Academy-sponsored Institutions and Societies (BASIS) has recently initiated a British programme of collaborative research (on ceramic petrology; to integrate survey data) among its archaeological institutions around the Mediterranean. Coordinated pottery study, for example, would anticipate consultation or collaborative work now left to subsequent conferences. My proposed network would target Late Antiquity within the multi-period spread of occupation documented within a given excavation site or survey region. While contextualizing that particular period within the set of periods recovered by the individual project, the communicating network would also excerpt the period in order to link it to others of late antiquity. By its identification of a specific period to study, the communicating network would function differently from the multiculturalism of the multi-period regional survey where everything is given equal weight. 6. New research agendas: towards a dynamic archaeology To start with the most important. The momentum of the new work in Istanbul must be maintained and, ideally, the scope of excavation enlarged. An agenda should be set for the near future so that specific areas can be investigated. The Crow and metro projects have revealed or recorded important, essential infrastructure of the city (walls, water supply, harbours); these can be extended. Beyond that there are other desiderata. In the past, individual buildings rather than the public spaces of Constantinople have been excavated. In future, the monumental, ceremonial aspects of the city should be investigated by soundings and excavation, in order: to locate the Strategion and the Forum of Leo;63 to explore the Forum of Constantine;64 to pursue previously encountered vestiges of the Augustaion;65 and to reopen the excavations at the Golden Gate.66 All but the last relate in the first instance to late antique Constantinople. Constantinople was, of course, a creation of late antiquity: it provides us with a prime model of what was considered necessary for a city in that period and what was still possible to create for a very large and important city in order to impress. Constantinople is, therefore, the most important element of late antique archaeology. Its dynamic investigation deserves the commitment already voiced as a resolution at the International Byzantine Congress at Sofia in 1934: un projet de travaux durbanisme grande chelle.67
63

C. Mango, Dveloppement, 19, 43, 71, 78; idem, The Triumphal Way of Constantinople and the Golden Gate, DOP 54 (2000), 187-8. 64 Idem, Constantines Column, in Studies on Constantinople (Aldershot 1993), III, 1-6; idem, Constantines Porphyry Column and the Chapel of St Constantine, in ibid., IV, 103-10. 65 Idem, The Brazen House: a study of the vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (Copenhagen 1959); F. Dirimtekin, Augusteum, Ayasofya Mzesi Yiligi 8 (1969), 32-9; R. H. W. Stichel, Sechs kolossale Saulen nahe der Hagia Sophia und die Curia Justinians am Augusteion in Konstantinopel, Architectura. Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der Baukunst (2000), 1-25. 66 S. Casson and T. Macridy, Excavations at the Golden Gate, Constantinople, Archaeologia 81 (1931), 63-84; Mango, Triumphal Way, 173-88. 67 Proposed by N. Okunev and supported by Jerphanion; Actes du IVe Congrs international des etudes

Other subjects lend themselves to a dynamic investigation based on networks of material, that is, on archaeological connectivity, to borrow a term.68 For example, to sharpen our picture of the settings of late antique life, a better definition of the realities of its public architecture is needed. An expanded study of urban layout, of the design and use of the porticoed street as an encompassing feature,69 and of its formal character (design, proportions, mouldings), would help to move away from a scholarly concentration on single monuments, in particular on churches. As an antidote to churches, I suggest the late antique bath building be more systematically studied as an architectural type of the period70 and as a vestige of the earlier Roman city with a future in the Islamic world. The urban, social role of the bath parallels that of the church, with an imperial bath the mirror of the cathedral and with neighbourhood baths scattered across the city like so many lesser churches. Other types of buildings could be studied for their networking character, so that churches are not viewed as individual buildings but as part of a functioning system: a multiplicity within a given city, a given village or a given region, with cityvillage links being analysed their number, site distribution/concentration, patron saints, paying patrons, their architectural types and varieties of decoration indicating the range of the local work force. All of this information is available from the archaeological evidence, including inscriptions. Pilgrimage churches71 in particular, being part of a sacred landscape and positioned on travelled routes, lend themselves to network study, not just as buildings but as centres of cult practices. Here the fundamental archaeological evidence of the building is supplemented by ex-voto and other material as well as local texts such as Lives and Miracles. Possibly the most dynamic element in any society was trade, the movement of goods. Following the practice of Roman historians, this subject is often dismissed as non-existent in any significant form in late antiquity, that circulation of important goods was conducted by the state and therefore not commercial, and what may have been commercial was of such minor status as to be uninteresting.72 Only pottery has been thoroughly classified and its circulation extensively plotted, because of its essential utility in archaeological dating and because of its importance to economic studies as a tracer element to the circulation of bulk agricultural commodities.73 The picture that still needs to be developed is that of the concrete realities of trade on the ground or in the sea, including shops, harbours, ships, routes taken.74 There is still no general picture of the production and circulation of non-ceramic manufactured goods such as textiles (as delineated by David Jacoby for the medieval period),75 ordinary metal and glass ware,76 while high value goods are, like commercial trade in general, dismissed as minor and therefore irrelevant to the
byzantines, Sofia, Sept. 1934 = Bulletin de lInstitut archologique belge 9 (1935) and 10 (1936). 68 From P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: a study of Mediterranean history (Oxford 2000), passim. 69 See A. Segal, From Function to Monument: urban landscapes of Roman Palestine, Syria and Provincia Arabia (Oxford 1997), 5-53; G. Bejor, Vie colonnate: paesaggi urbani del mondo antico (Rome 1999); M. Mundell Mango, Map, 191-2. 194-7; eadem, The porticoed street at Constantinople, in N. Necipoglu, ed., Byzantine Constantinople: monuments, topography and everyday life, ed. (Leiden 2001), 29-51. 70 Baths remained in use for long periods of time, were frequently remodelled, and consequently phases (e.g. late antique) may be difficult to date. For discussions of some late antique baths see F. Yegl, Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge MA 1995), 329-339; G. Charpentier, "Les bains de Sergilla, Syria 71 (1994), 113-142; M. Mundell Mango, Building and architecture in CAH, XIV (see note 18 above), 934-40. 71 E.g. those of the Elder Symeon, the Younger Symeon, Menas, Sergius, the Evangelist John, Demetrius. 72 Summarized by Wickham, Framing, 694-700. 73 Ibid., 702-6. 74 See M. Mundell Mango, Introduction, Byzantine Trade (as in note 33). 75 D. Jacoby, Commercial exchange across the Mediterranean: Byzantium, the Crusader Levant, Egypt and Italy (Aldershot 2005). 76 Including the Byzantine copper-alloy vessels at Sutton Hoo; see note 3 above and Mundell Mango, Beyond the amphora.

economy, the only index of worth.77 Other areas of late antique (and medieval) archaeology need to be strengthened, in particular our understanding of Byzantine technology. Near the top of my list are mines and metalworking, not just the precious metals of coinage but the baser metals such as iron used for weapons and other fundamental equipment. A recent article on the production of Roman armour, first-third centuries, calculated that 12-16 million metal plates (a combination of iron and bronze) for the cuirasses alone were needed for the 300,000-400,000 men serving in the army.78 For the 911 Cretan expedition, a total of 800,000 arrows and 13,000 heavy infantry spears (menaulia) were required.79 Provisioning on these scales required dependable metal sources. Where were they in the eastern Empire? It is outside the medieval Empire, in the Slavic worlds, that archaeology has produced concrete evidence of iron metalworking on any scale.80 Systematic work is needed within the Empire to assess total resources and production. Twenty years ago at a Dumbarton Oaks symposium, the Bronze Age archaeologist Aslihan Yener described her field work on the polymetallic mines of the Taurus Mountains which were exploited in the late antique and medieval Byzantine periods.81 Since then, lead isotope analysis has identified the ore sources there and south of the Black Sea for two-dozen sampled silver coins and objects (most dated by control stamps) of the sixth-seventh centuries.82 However, no Byzantine archaeologist has pursued on the ground for our period remains in the Taurus. The first book on the technicalities of late antique agriculture in the eastern Empire, written by Michael Decker is about to appear.83 Similar subjects should be tackled at book-length and in detail. Archaeological examination of technology could be supported by literary study tracking later copies and translations of classical works of technology, much as was recently done in a comprehensive handbook on ancient texts describing Roman technology,84 where incidentally Agathias description of the vaulting of St Sophia was a refreshing discovery for one reviewer.85 In addition to these subjects public (secular) architecture, baths, the social profile of churches, the linking of cult centres, trade, and technology which would lend themselves well to communicating projects, two other examples will illustrate here in more detail my proposal for networks of communicating projects, namely a regional project and a Great Cities project. A regional project The starting point of one regional project could be the site of Androna in north central Syria, since 1997 the subject of excavation and survey.86 The constructions now excavated in this
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Summarized by Wickham, Framing, 696-7. M. Fulford, D. Sim, A. Doig, The production of Roman ferrous armour: a metallographic survey of material from Britain, Denmark, and Germany and its implications, JRA 17 (2004), 197-220. 79 J.F. Haldon, Theory and practice in tenth-century administration. Chapters II, 44 and 45 of the Book of Ceremonies, Travaux et Mmoires, 13 (2000), 208, 285 note 165. 80. Medieval iron production is cited at Sardis, Pergamon and, in large quantities, Turnovo in Laiou, ed., Economic History, 620, 627, 675. 81 K.A. Yener, Byzantine silver mines: an archaeometallurgy project in Turkey (with a contribution on the pottery finds by A. Toydemir), in S. A. Boyd and M. Mundell Mango, eds., Ecclesiastical Silver Plate in Sixth-Century Byzantium (Washington, DC 1992), 155-67. 82 Reports are in preparation by E. Sayre, K. A. Yener and the present author. 83 M. Decker, Tilling the Hateful Earth: agrarian life and economy in the late antique Levant (Oxford forthcoming). 84 J. W. Humphrey, J. P. Oleson, A. N. Sherwood, Greek and Roman Technology: a sourcebook. Annotated Translations of Greek and Latin Texts and Documents (London and New York 1998). 85 G. W. Houston, Written sources for Greek and Roman technology', JRA 13 (2000), 481. 86 M. Mundell Mango, Excavations and survey at Androna, Syria: the Oxford Team 1999, DOP 56 (2002), 303-10; eadem, Excavations and survey at Androna, Syria: the Oxford Team 2000, DOP 57 (2003), 293-7; C. Strube, Androna/al Andarin. Vorbericht ber die Grabungskampagnen in den Jahren 1997-2001, mit Beitrgen von U. Hess, C.P. Haase, P. Kntzele, C. Meyer, Deutsches Archologisches Institut Archologischer Anzeiger (2003), 25-115.

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densely settled large village (kome) of 256 ha (which has 11 standing churches) a military-style kastron dated 558, a bath dated ca 560, an Umayyad bath, at least one of two houses (583/4), and water installations were expensively decorated with marbles, wall and floor mosaics, frescoes, elaborate sculpture (all reflecting local prosperity)87 and were built after 542, the date of the plague which is thought by many to mark the economic downturn of the Empire.88 Excavated finds include imports (marbles, fine-wares and amphorae from Asia Minor and Egypt)89 and local products (wood and olive pits used as fuel, bread and durum wheat, barley), a range of fish (mullet, bream) and animal bones (including pig); its wine was famous.90 From work around the site, including a landscape study started in 2004, it appears that Androna which stood in a semiarid region was deliberately expanded, possibly in the sixth century, by large-scale irrigation in order to engage in surplus production.91 The land around Androna encompasses different terrains, once exploited in a variety of ways (cultivated fields, terraced vineyards, olive plantations, pasturage, and apparently fish breeding).92 A future step for the Androna project could link it to its wider region. Looking north and east, a plausible market for its produce could have been the army on the Euphrates.93 Looking northwest/south-east, we note that by the third century, Androna was a mansio on the Palmyra-Chalcis road, according to the Antonine Itinerary.94 Looking 40 km west, we may trace other potential arteries of communication via Taroutia Emporon, i.e. Taroutia of the Merchants another large site about a mile across,95 from which survives a collection of church silver dedicated to various churches there.96 Its strategic position linking the Limestone Massif with east Syria, and vice versa, clearly accounts for its market status and two imperial domains are epigraphically attested (in 509, 556/7), there and at about 30 km to the south.97 Forty km directly west from Taroutia lies another large village, Kapropera (of 60 ha) in the Limestone Massif which may have provided a commercial link to the East.98 Kapropera is viewed as a production centre of oil and wine as well as an entrepot between the Limestone Massif and the Orontes, being on a postulated route to the city of Seleucia ad Belum upriver from Antioch.99. How could coordinated/communicating fieldwork be achieved within this scheme? In fact, projects already exist at most of the named sites. Polish archaeologists are working at Palmyra, Americans at Islamic Chalcis (Qinneshrin), and French archaeologists at Kapropera (el Bara). The church silver recently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum could stimulate new archaeological interest in the vast site of Taroutia (Kerratin). The scheme outlined here would actively draw together three large villages: Androna, Taroutia and Kapropera, link Androna with Palmyra and Chalcis of the Antonine Itinerary, and an exploration of the Orontes valley between Kapropera and Antioch would focus on questions relating to the mechanics of export of olive oil and/or wine out of the Limestone Massif. The re-opening of excavations at Antioch, currently
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Mundell Mango, Androna 1999, 309-12, 314, Figs. 3-18; eadem, Androna 2000, 293-6, Figs. 1-17. See Kennedy, Polis, 3-27; Liebeschuetz, The City, 52-4, 392, 409-10; cf. Wickham, Framing, 548-9. 89 Mundell Mango, Androna 1999; eadem, Androna 2000. 90 Mouterde and Poidebard, Limes, 15 note 1; E. Honigmann, Syria in RE, col. 1562.5. 91 M. Mundell Mango, Androna and other large villages of Oriens: the town between village and city? (forthcoming). 92 See M. Mundell Mango, Fishing in the desert, in P. Schreiner and O. Strakhov eds., Golden Gate, Festschrift for Ihor Sevcenko = Palaeoslavica 10 (2002), 309-16. 93 Mundell Mango, The town. 94 R. Mouterde and A. Poidebard, Le limes de Chalcis (Paris 1945), 61-63, 174. On the date of the Antonine Itinerary see ibid., 17 note 3. 95 H. C. Butler et al., Architecture, Section B, Northern Syria. Syria, Publications of the PUAES in 19041905 and 1909, II, B (Leiden 1930), 71-83; Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, nos. 1613-47. 96 M. E. Frazer and H. C. Evans in Mirror of the Medieval World, ed. W. D. Wixom (New York 1999), no. 46. 97 IGLS, nos. 1630-1, 1875, 1905, 1907. 98 Mundell Mango, The town. 99 G. Tchalenko, Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord, (Paris 1953-58) I, 388-90; II, pl. CXXXVII.

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being informally discussed by several archaeologists, would provide the ultimate destination of the journey from Androna to the Mediterranean where the harbour at Seleucia Pieria may finally be excavated. A Great Cities project The regional Syrian project just outlined could be ultimately linked to the second project, that of Great Cities. This would draw together the three principal cities of the eastern Meditteranean, based on re-opened excavations at Antioch, the ongoing excavations at Alexandria (see above) and the extended excavations of Constantinople proposed here. Eventually, other cities (such as Beirut, Scythopolis, Caesarea, Sagalassos, Butrint) with recent or new excavations, could be fed into this project and all eventually co-ordinated with older excavations like Ephesus, Aphrodisias and Corinth. Such a project could ultimately provide what W. Liebescheutz said was needed: `to assemble the evidence city by city, region by region .... [which] would help map the spreading of different kinds of change, religious, cultural and economic over a vast area'.100 7. Implementation What is suggested above would largely make use of existing or intended projects, adding only two new features. One is strong and long-term IT personnel. This would be an added expense but would ultimately save time and facilitate publication. It would also allow the introduction of the second feature: joint planning and consultation (talking) between projects thus creating a more dynamic approach to late antique archaeology. What is needed is a sponsoring institution that can help to link, not directly fund, the individual projects.

100

The City, 30.

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