One of the greatest benefits of studying the ancient Greek and Roman past is the ability to utilise different forms of evidence, in particular both written and archaeological sources. The contributors to this volume employ this evidence to examine ancient housing, and what might be learned of identities, families, and societies, but they also use it as a methodological locus from which to interrogate the complex relationship between different types of sources. Chapters range from the recreation of the house as it was conceived in Homeric poetry, to the decipherment of a painted Greek lekythos to build up a picture of household activities, to the conjuring of the sensorial experience of a house in Pompeii. Together, they present a rich tapestry which demonstrates what can be gained for our understanding of ancient housing from examining the interplay between the words of ancient texts and the walls of archaeological evidence.
Introduction: Between Words and Walls: Material and Textual Approaches to Housing in the Graeco-Roman World Richard Alston, J. A. Baird, and April Pudsey; 1. Kinship 'In the Halls': Poetry and the Archaeology of Early Greek Housing Emily Varto; 2. Domesticating the Ancient House: The Archaeology of a False Analogy Caspar Meyer; 3. Mind the Gap: Re-uniting Words and Walls in the study of the Classical Greek House Janett Morgan; 4. A Family Affair: The Household use of Attic lekythoi Katerina Volioti; 5. Textiles in Alkestis' Thalamos Amy C. Smith; 6. Architectural Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of Architecture: Athens and Macedon in the mid-fourth century BCE Lisa Nevett; 7. The Reconstruction of an Agricultural Landscape: Seeking the Farmstead Maeve McHugh; 8. Mudbricks and Papyri from the Desert Sand: Housing in the Ptolemaic and Roman Fayum Inge Uytterhoeven; 9. Housing and Community: Structures in Houses and Kinship in Roman Tebtynis April Pudsey; 10. The Elusive Vestibulum Simon Speksnijder; 11. Living in the Liminal: Lares Compitales Shrines, Freedmen and Identity in Delos Crysta Kaczmarek; 12. Experiencing Sense, Place and Space in the Roman Villa Hannah Platts; 13. Houses and Time: Material Memory at Dura-Europos J. A. Baird; 14. Spaces of Desire: Houses, Households, and Social Reproduction in the Roman World Richard Alston; 15. A Response: 'Using the Material and Written Sources' Revisited Penelope Allison.
J. A. Baird is Professor of Archaeology at Birkbeck College. She is also the author of The Inner Lives of Ancient Houses (2014) and Dura-Europos (2018), and co-editor of Ancient Graffiti in Context (2011). April Pudsey is Reader in Roman history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has published widely on ancient childhood, family, and demography including Demography and the Graeco-Roman World (with C. Holleran, 2011) and A Social Archaeology of Roman and Late Antique Egypt (with E. Swift and J. Stoner, 2021).
Reviews for Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Material and Textual Approaches
'The volume will be mostly appreciated by researchers seeking to better understand the methodological and textual orientations towards housing in Classical archaeology.' Michael Eisenberg, Scripta Classica Israelica
