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"Leidwanger, Justin"
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Maritime networks in the ancient Mediterranean world
\"This volume brings together scholars of Mediterranean archaeology, ancient history, and complexity science to advance theoretical approaches and analytical tools for studying maritime connectivity. For the coast-hugging populations of the ancient Mediterranean, mobility and exchange depended on a distinct environment and technological parameters that created diverse challenges and opportunities, making the modeling of maritime interaction a paramount concern for understanding cultural interaction more generally. Network-inspired metaphors have long been employed in discussions of this interaction, but increasing theoretical sophistication and advances in formal network analysis now offer opportunities to refine and test the dominant paradigm of connectivity. Extending from prehistory into the Byzantine period, the case studies here reveal the potential of such network approaches. Collectively they explore the social, economic, religious, and political structures that guided Mediterranean interaction across maritime space\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
From Time Capsules to Networks: New Light on Roman Shipwrecks in the Maritime Economy
This article bridges two divergent traditions in the study of Graeco-Roman shipwrecks: analysis of single well-explored sites and growing databases of more cursorily documented
wrecks. The critical insights and distinct advantages of depth or breadth underscore the complementarity of these approaches for investigations into the ancient economy, yet few
syntheses offer a middle ground that capitalizes on the growing corpus of data without flattening the detail that can be gleaned from closer study of maritime assemblages. The
methodology here offers one potential path forward, combining, on the one hand, insights gained from wreck quantification into the ebb and flow of long-term connections with, on
the other hand, network analysis visualization of cargoes to highlight structural patterns in those connections. With a data set of 54 shipwrecks spanning the second century B.C.E.
through the seventh century C.E., southwest Turkey presents a rich case study through which to examine long-term trends in the maritime economy between the Roman world and late
antiquity. Beyond immediate insights into seaborne exchange in one period and one corner of the ancient Mediterranean, this multifaceted approach aims to increase the interpretive
utility of ongoing underwater survey and the crucial but often uneven primary data it offers for maritime connectivity.
Journal Article
Roman Seas
This book offers an archaeological analysis of maritime economy and connectivity in the Roman east. That seafaring was fundamental to prosperity under Rome is beyond doubt, but a tendency to view the grandest long-distance movements among major cities against a background noise of small-scale, short-haul activity has tended to flatten the finer and varied contours of maritime interaction and coastal life into a featureless blue Mediterranean. Drawing together maritime landscape studies and network analysis, this work takes a bottom-up view of the diverse socioeconomic conditions and seafaring logistics that generated multiple structures and scales of interaction. The material record of shipwrecks and ports along a vital corridor from the southeast Aegean across the northeast Mediterranean provides a case study of regional exchange and communication based on routine sails between simple coastal facilities. Rather than a single well-integrated and persistent Mediterranean network, multiple discrete and evolving regional and interregional systems emerge. This analysis sheds light on the cadence of economic life along the coast, the development of market institutions, and the regional continuities that underpinned integration—despite certain interregional disintegration—into Late Antiquity. Through this model of seaborne interaction, the study advances a new approach to the synthesis of shipwreck and other maritime archaeological and historical economic data, as well as a path through the stark dichotomies that inform most paradigms of Roman connectivity and trade.
eBook
New investigations of the 6th-c. A.D. “church wreck” at Marzamemi, Sicily
The dense maritime material record off SE Sicily offers a vibrant testimony to millennia of cultural interaction between west and east, south and north (fig. 1). Pioneering underwater work by G. Kapitän from the late 1950s onward brought this corner of the Mediterranean Sea to scholarly attention through a series of remarkable shipwreck finds, including several massive stone cargoes at Marzamemi and Isola delle Correnti. Even among these rich finds, one site proved particularly intriguing and would become central to Kapitän's efforts: the “church wreck”, named for its assemblage of partially prefabricated marble and other stone elements intended to decorate the interior of a Christian basilica. First spotted by fishermen and reported to the local authorities, the site was preliminarily surveyed in 1960 by Kapitän in collaboration with P. N. Gargallo. Kapitän's investigations here unfolded intermittently over the following two decades, revealing a striking material assemblage and constructing a broad narrative around the “church wreck”.
Journal Article
Opportunistic Ports and Spaces of Exchange in Late Roman Cyprus
Ports served not only as interfaces between land and sea, but as central gathering spaces for economic and cultural exchange. Drawing on case studies from the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, this paper situates opportunistic ports lacking built facilities within a broader socioeconomic context of diverse maritime communications, expanding rural settlement, and increased agricultural productivity during late antiquity. Though simple, these sites served as active agents in the development of new maritime networks as well as local markets throughout their hinterlands, adding flexibility and dynamism to the economic ties between city, countryside, and the wider late Roman world.
Journal Article
The Energetics of Lost Cargoes
This paper takes an energetics-based approach in re-examining the cargo of the famous Marzamemi 2 shipwreck as evidence for the maritime transport of architectural stone and the logistics of religious building projects during Late Antiquity. Drawing on recent discoveries at the site alongside re-assessment of previous finds, it aims to reconstruct the labor investment represented by the partial pre-fabrication of individual components and cargo as a whole, and to contextualize this within a broad understanding of the later ancient stone trade. First, a new inventory of architectural elements and liturgical furnishings from the site is provided. The traces of carving on these elements are then assessed in order to calculate the labor involved in their production. Comparison of this investment to labor costs visible in earlier Roman and contemporary shipwreck cargoes reveals the Marzamemi assemblage as particularly large and ornate—representing perhaps more than 50,000 person-hours—but otherwise typical for the staging of building shipments during the period. These results highlight the significance of the Marzamemi 2 shipwreck within studies of sixth-century CE architectural patronage and trade in decorative stone, while also demonstrating a new application of architectural energetics methodologies to the logistics of complex building programs.
Journal Article
Between local and long-distance: a Roman shipwreck at Fig Tree Bay off SE Cyprus
At some point probably during the second c. AD, a small merchant vessel with a modest capacity and crew departed from Cilicia or NW Syria on a routine regional voyage. Recent investigations of a shipwreck at Fig Tree Bay off SE Cyprus offer this image of a direct shipment from the nearby coast of Cilicia or NW Syria. The final voyage of this Roman merchant vessel provides a glimpse into the broader mechanisms of exchange by which different regions of the Mediterranean were tied into a larger economic world. [Abridged Publication Abstract]
Journal Article