Archaeological approaches

Like all academic disciplines the study of archaeology has been transformed over the

past three decades by new theoretical perspectives often drawn from literary theory

and social anthropology (see Greene 2002 for a clear introduction to archaeological

method and theory). Any study of archaeology may be divided into a number of

categories depending on the types of sites and monuments, the techniques which

have been used for their investigation, the range of differing artefacts and other

material which is recovered from survey or excavation. Furthermore we need to

consider the various approaches to the physical evidence and the differing understandings

and interpretations which can be derived therefrom. The archaeology of

the Byzantine world is a historical archaeology, set in a chronological framework,

Informed by texts. A simple way of using this evidence is to allow the archaeology

to illustrate the historical narrative derived from written sources; an example of

this is the way that in the past biblical archaeology was seen to demonstrate and

support the biblical texts as fact (Silberman, in Meskell 1998:175-88). Archaeologists

and textual historians have come to recognize that the relation between text and

material culture is altogether more complex and potentially more enriching for

an understanding of the past. Both sides have narratives, one derived from text

and memory, the other from the physical narratives of structures and artefacts. To

understand the relationship of these is to engage in an equal dialogue, not to prefer

one over the other.

Settlements and places I: V I l l a g es

Archaeologists often distinguish between sites—defined places of human activity

represented by archaeological deposits and artefacts—and landscapes—the physical

setting for human activity, which is the product and interaction of both natural

and human agency. In Byzantine archaeology, through the influence of historical

geography and notably the project of Tabula Imperii Byzantinii, initiated in Vienna

over thirty years ago, the emphasis has been on sites, since unsurprisingly this is

what the texts record. Sites can be divided simply by situation between rural and

urban. Studies of the Byzantine village have developed dramatically with the publication

of the papers from the session on villages held at the Paris Congress in 2001

(Lefort and others 2005). These cover each of the three core countries and much

more beside. Inevitably the early Middle Ages (600-850) is least well represented

in the chronological cover, but what is clear is that for Greece and Bulgaria there

is some evidence to document the structure of village houses and village material

culture (see especially Pitarakis 2005, for metalwork and Vorderstrasse 2005, for the

patterns of coin distribution and loss). However, if the fabric of the Byzantine world

was villages (see Howard-Johnston 2004), archaeologists in Anatolia have done little

to illustrate or investigate them. Until very recently there have been virtually no

published excavations of villages, except as part of the work on earlier sites such as

the Hittite capital of Bogazkoy (Neve 1991) or more recently at Bronze Age Kilise

Tepe in Isauria (Postgate and Thomas 2007) (Fig. 2). Other rural settlements are

known at Binbirkilise and Karacadag north-west of Konya, where Bell published

surveys of the churches, although the overall site plan was lost by Ramsay (Ramsay

and Bell 1909). Significant changes are, however, affecting the nature of archaeological

discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean and two can be noted. Recent

excavations before the construction of the new Eleftheris Venizelos airport outside

Athens revealed a range of settlements, dating from the prehistoric to later medieval

times and including an early medieval to mid-Byzantine village, the plans and finds

from which are now displayed in the Airport Museum. Excavations in advance

of the construction of the major BP pipeline across eastern Anatolia to Mersin

investigated a medieval village north-east of Kars.

Rural settlements can also be located from surface surveys and survey archaeology,

especially in Greece, and this technique has made a significant contribution

for the understanding of the distribution and change of settlement in the context of

multi-period studies. Amongst the most important recent surveys have been those

in Boeotia directed over twenty years by John Bintliff (Bintliff 2000); others include

Armstrong 2002 in Lakonia, and Baird 2004 in the Konya plain, as well as ongoing

surveys in Anatolia associated with the Sagalassos project and with excavations at

Haci Musular in northern Lycia. (See also in general II.6.2 Villages, below.)