Settlements and places I I : towns

A major concern for archaeologists and historians in the early medieval period

(7th-9th centuries) is the fate of the classical city. Views differ about whether

this should be understood as an end or a transformation (see the review of the

historical and archaeological approaches in early medieval Italy in Ward-Perkins

1997). The archaeological and historical evidence allows a number of interpretations

(see Wickham 2005: 626-35; Haldon 1999) although discussions are not

always sufficiently nuanced in recognizing regional diversity from the Adriatic to

eastern Pontos (cf. Hodges 2006:184-5). It is important to recognize that there is

greater diversity in the range of evidence than is frequently admitted; for Anatolia

we simply do not have clear archaeological evidence from cities like Ikonion or

Caesarea, and very little for major centres such as Ankyra or Nicaea. A case can be

made that the monumental archaeology of city defences and a few major churches

either represents effective resistance and the maintenance of urban centres with

an effective imperial administration (Howard-Johnston 2004) or alternatively as

£the hollow parodies of a classical town' (Hodges 2006: 185). The excavations at

Amorion reveal continuing economic activity (Lightfoot 2007) and it is important

also to recognize how some urban centres came to take on specific functions but did

not necessarily conform to the pattern of citta ad isole, like some cities in the west

which 'had gone over the edge into deurbanization' (Wickham 2005: 676). Without

the archaeology of early medieval housing (see Dark 2004), as is now known from

Rome at this period, it remains difficult to contextualize the surviving Christian and

defensive monuments from Byzantine poleis (see Crow and Hill 1995, and Crow 1996

for a discussion of examples from Amastris and northern Anatolia).

Middle Byzantine and later towns are more readily understood from surviving

remains such as Mistra and Geraki in the Peloponnese and from excavations at

Corinth (see a general discussion by Ousterhout in Evans and Wixom 1997:192-9,

and the studies of late Byzantine and Ottoman housing by Sigalos 2004 and Vionis

2008). In Anatolia the excavations at Amorion reveal settlement and economic

activity up to the late medieval period, but elsewhere investigations from this phase

are more restricted and the neglect of the Byzantine past in Anatolia is matched

for Seljuk and later periods (see Ozdgan, in Meskell 1998: 119), where the main

academic interest until recently has remained art historical.

Monuments

Fortifications were an important element in the urban and rural archaeology of the

Byzantine lands. Urban defences have already been noted: the only synthesis is Foss

and Winfield 1986, although the second part of that study is more concerned with

establishing a chronology of building styles than trying to understand the purpose

and role of fortifications in Byzantine society. This field is, however, developing

and Bakirtzis and Oreopoulos 2001 consider not just the form of fortifications but

also the economic and symbolic aspects of their construction. Rural defences are

considered in the volumes of TIB and it is quite clear from these and other studies

(see also Dunn 1999, Crow 1996) that some represented intervention by the state

as part of the imperial system of security, while others were either centres of local

refuge or of regional power. An exceptional study considering these themes in a

regional setting is Bryer and Winfield's account of the monuments of the Byzantine

Pontos (1985).

Churches are certainly the best documented single type of building, known

from both architectural surveys and excavations. Architectural historians have

tended to privilege the buildings of the elite over those more ubiquitous structures

(Ousterhout 1999) found throughout the Byzantine world, although the recent

study of Canli Kilise in Cappadocia sets the free-standing church in the context

of a broad range of rock-cut buildings (Ousterhout 2005). A recent development

is to consider churches as part of their wider setting, whether urban (Ousterhout

2000) or rural (Nixon 2006). The construction and repair of churches may be

viewed as one of the general signs of economic life as well as indicator of specific

patronage (see the assessment of Iconoclast buildings by Ousterhout, in Brubaker

and Haldon 2001). An outstanding problem is the limited availability of detailed

databases of churches or associated remains to draw upon; see, however, the survey

of ecclesiastical sculpture from Bithynia by Otuken 1996, or the recent guide to

the churches of Naxos (Mastoropoulos 2006) which provides for the first time a

nearly complete catalogue of the churches and their decoration. This latter study

also reveals the extent to which art historical research into the internal decoration

has militated against a fuller study of the buildings within their social and landscape

context. Such studies can lead on to wider debates relating to the religious world of

Byzantium including the consideration of pilgrimage, and the sacred and profane

(see Gerstel 2005; Maguire and others 1989; Nixon 2006). Finally, in considering

monuments we need to remain aware of how past monuments and places continue

to be negotiated, contested, and re-imagined by contemporary communities (for a

recent example see Costa and Ricci 2005).

Landscape archaeology can also contribute to an understanding of land use

and changing land tenure although such studies have been rarely applied in the

eastern Mediterranean, except in those areas such as the Pontos or the Cyclades

where there are documents surviving from the later medieval periods. Similarly

there has been limited application of environmental archaeology to the scientific

study of landscape changes, especially in those areas outside the Aegean basin.

One potential area for research is the use of irrigation, known from monastic and

other texts (Gerolymatou 2005) although until now fieldwork has been confined to

Cappadocia (Bicchi 1995).

Studies of Byzantine ceramics have already been noted and the strengths of the

traditional art historical approach are apparent in the Glory of Byzantium catalogue

entry (see Evans and Wixom 1997: 255-71; but for a study guide with an

extensive bibliography see Vroom 2005) although the full potential for the study

of pottery as a source for the economic life of the Byzantine world has yet to be

realized (see also II.8.4 Ceramics, below). Vroom, Vionis (2003, 2008) (Fig. 3), and

others are beginning to explore the social archaeology revealed through the study

of material culture, including ceramics and metalwork. Ceramic evidence from

field survey has been effectively combined with historic sources in Armstrong's

study of Byzantine Lakonia (2002). An important additional source for trade and

technology is provided by underwater archaeology. A number of wrecks have been

excavated off the south-west coasts of Turkey, especially Yassi Ada and Ser^e Limani,

dating respectively to the seventh and the eleventh century (Kingsley 2004). Closer

to Constantinople Nergis Gunsenin's excavation off the island of Proconessus in

the Sea of Marmara has shown the scale of trade in wine-carrying amphorae in

the tenth and eleventh centuries. On the southern shore of the city itself since the

summer of 2005 excavations on the site of the Harbour of Theodosios have revealed

the remains of over twenty-seven ships, some up to 30 metres in length, grounded