Description
The Roman period witnessed massive changes in the human-material environment, from monumentalised cityscapes to standardised low-value artefacts like pottery. This book explores new perspectives to understand this Roman 'object boom' and its impact on Roman history. In particular, the book's international contributors question the traditional dominance of 'representation' in Roman archaeology, whereby objects have come to stand for social phenomena such as status, facets of group identity, or notions like Romanisation and economic growth. Drawing upon the recent material turn in anthropology and related disciplines, the essays in this volume examine what it means to materialise Roman history, focusing on the question of what objects do in history, rather than what they represent. In challenging the dominance of representation, and exploring themes such as the impact of standardisation and the role of material agency, Materialising Roman History is essential reading for anyone studying material culture from the Roman world (and beyond).
About the Author
Astrid Van Oyen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at Cornell University. Specializing in theoretical and empirical approaches to material culture in Roman archaeology, she has worked on material sources as varied as terra sigillata pottery in France, grain silos in Spain, and Vesuvian houses in Italy, and has written about questions of postcolonial archaeology, material agency, typology, and morality. She is author of How Things Make History: The Roman Empire and its Terra Sigillata Pottery. Martin Pitts is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter. To date his research concerns quantitative approaches to material culture and consumption in Iron Age to Roman northwest Europe, and the application of globalization concepts to the Roman world. He is co-author, with Miguel John Versluys, of Globalisation and the Roman world: World history, Connectivity and Material Culture, and with Dominic Perring, of Alien Cities: Consumption and the Origins of Urbanism in Roman Britain.
Reviews
...the book has a coherence that one rarely finds in volumes resulting from seminars. * Antiquity *
In summation, all the contributors to this volume provide a range of thought-provoking perspectives and insights into the wider issues raised by the concept of materiality. Those with an interest in theoretical archaeology, and also in Roman social and economic history, will find this book of value. * Ancient West & East *
At its heart, this is a digestible academic book that shows how peopl and objects were closely connected in the Roman world, and is vital reading for archaeology students and anyone interested in wider material culture studies. * Current World Archaeology *
Book Information
ISBN 9781785706769
Author Astrid van Oyen
Format Paperback
Page Count 232
Imprint Oxbow Books
Publisher Oxbow Books
About the Author
Astrid Van Oyen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at Cornell University. Specializing in theoretical and empirical approaches to material culture in Roman archaeology, she has worked on material sources as varied as terra sigillata pottery in France, grain silos in Spain, and Vesuvian houses in Italy, and has written about questions of postcolonial archaeology, material agency, typology, and morality. She is author of How Things Make History: The Roman Empire and its Terra Sigillata Pottery. Martin Pitts is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter. To date his research concerns quantitative approaches to material culture and consumption in Iron Age to Roman northwest Europe, and the application of globalization concepts to the Roman world. He is co-author, with Miguel John Versluys, of Globalisation and the Roman world: World history, Connectivity and Material Culture, and with Dominic Perring, of Alien Cities: Consumption and the Origins of Urbanism in Roman Britain.
Reviews
...the book has a coherence that one rarely finds in volumes resulting from seminars. * Antiquity *
In summation, all the contributors to this volume provide a range of thought-provoking perspectives and insights into the wider issues raised by the concept of materiality. Those with an interest in theoretical archaeology, and also in Roman social and economic history, will find this book of value. * Ancient West & East *
At its heart, this is a digestible academic book that shows how peopl and objects were closely connected in the Roman world, and is vital reading for archaeology students and anyone interested in wider material culture studies. * Current World Archaeology *
Book Information
ISBN 9781785706769
Author Astrid van Oyen
Format Paperback
Page Count 232
Imprint Oxbow Books
Publisher Oxbow Books
