Lived Spaces in Late Antiquity

This volume considers “lived space” as a scholarly approach to the past, showing how spatial approaches can present innovative views of the world of Late Antiquity, integrating social, economic and cultural developments and putting centre stage this fundamental dimension of social life. Bringing together an international group of scholars working on areas as diverse as Britain, the Iberian Peninsula, Jordan and the Horn of Africa, this book includes burgeoning fields of study such as lived spaces in the context of ships and seafaring during this period. Chapters investigate the history, function and use of different spaces in their own right and identify the social and historical logic presiding over continuity and/or change. They also explore the fluidity of lived space in both its physical and conceptual dimensions, analysing issues like agency and intentionality as well as meaning and social relations. Space is the fundamental dimension of social life, the arena where it unfolds and the stage where social values and hierarchies are represented; analysis of space allows us to understand history through different means of shaping, occupying and controlling space. Considering Late Antiquity through a spatial perspective offers a complex and stimulating picture of this pivotal period, and this volume provides avenues for the development of further research and discussion in this area. Lived Spaces in Late Antiquity is a fascinating resource for students and scholars interested in space and spatiality in the late antique world, as well as archaeology, classical studies and late antique studies more generally.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: Lived spaces in Late Antiquity, Carlos Machado and Rebecca Sweetman; Part 1 – Visualising late antique spaces; 2. Lost in Space? Finding the people in late antique archaeology, Will Bowden; 3. Suburban Saints: Space, place and environment in Theodoret’s Religious History, Jason König; 4. Living with neighbours in late antique Rome, Michelle L. Berenfeld; 5. Shipshape and Roman Fashion: Space at sea in Late Antiquity, Rowan Munnery; Part 2 – Place-making and emplacement: the impact of religion; 6. Space(s) in transition: The impact of early Christianity on the late antique Horn of Africa, Gabriele Castiglia; 7. Making Space in the Visigothic Kingdom: Church founders in sixth- and seventh-century Iberian epigraphy, Carolyn T. La Rocco; 8. Holy Objects on the Move: Relics in Constantinople between city centre and urban periphery, Nadine Viermann; 9. Space and Place: Late antique churches and place remaking, Rebecca Sweetman; Part 3 – Space and meaning; 10. Entanglement of Public Space and Honorific Statue Habit in Late Antique Asia Minor, Esen Ogus; 11. Civitatem condidit. City building and community formation in the new Visigothic urban foundations, Javier Martínez Jiménez; 12. From Theoria to Pilgrimage: Ships, shores and sacred travel around the Mediterranean sea in Late Antiquity, Amelia R. Brown; Part 4 – Changing spaces; 13. Clean Death or Messy Resilience? Forum Traiani and Forum Romanum as activity spaces during the sixth century, Christina Videbech; 14. Lived Spaces in Late Antique and Early Islamic Jerash – old questions in the light of new evidence, Rubina Raja; 15. "Places of continuity”: before, around and after the end of the Roman villas in Central Italy, Enrico Zanini; 16. Lived space and social change in late antique Rome: the Campus Martius, Carlos Machado.

About the Author :
Carlos Machado is a senior lecturer in ancient history at the University of St Andrews (UK). He has published extensively on late antique history and material culture, including Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome (2019) and co-edited Poverty in Ancient Greece and Rome (2023). Rowan Munnery is a doctoral candidate at the University of St Andrews (UK). He focuses on utilising quantitative and network approaches in maritime archaeology to examine the maritime cultural landscape of the late antique western Mediterranean. His research interests also include the phenomenology of space aboard ships and behavioural economics in the ancient world. Rebecca Sweetman is the director of the British School at Athens and a professor of ancient history and archaeology at the University of St Andrews (UK). She has published widely on the archaeology of Greece in the Roman and late antique periods, including The Mosaics of Roman Crete: Art, Archaeology and Social Change (2013). She is particularly interested in religious spaces, mobility and network analysis.