|
The SCHOOL OF HISTORY,
CLASSICS AND ARCHAEOLOGY is pleased to
host an international colloquium on the study
of south Italy in the Roman period that will bring
together leading archaeologists and historians
of ancient Lucania, Apulia and Bruttium. The conference
will take place in Edinburgh on 26-28 October
2012.
Following THE PUBLICATION
of the excavations at Vagnari
by Prof. Alastair Small, an honorary research
fellow in the School of History, Classics and
Archaeology, the workshop is intended to explore
further the historical development of south Italy
in Roman imperial times.
THE ROMAN vicus
AT VAGNARI in the territory of
Gravina in Puglia formed part of a large estate
which was acquired by the Roman emperor early
in the 1st century AD. Excavation, geophysical
prospection and field survey have revealed much
of the plan of the settlement which lay close
to the Via Appia and was a centre of local industries,
including tile works and smithies. The settlement
declined in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries
AD, but it recovered in the late 4th century when
new buildings were erected including a smithy
and a large structure with a portico, perhaps
a covered market. These in turn fell into decay,
and in the 6th century AD their place was taken
by a small group of huts.
To what extent WAS VAGNARI
TYPICAL? Can we speak of a general decline
in the 5th and 6th centuries in south Italy? Or
are the changes we can observe at Vagnari in this
period no more than the kind of changes that may
occur in any locality in any historical period,
but do not provide evidence for a structural transformation
of the region? And, whatever their meaning, how
do the physical changes we can observe at Vagnari
over half a millennium map onto the wider human
landscape? Was the status of the inhabitants of
the imperial estate in the 1st century AD different
from that of those who occupied the site in Late
Antiquity? Can we, for instance, observe a shift
from slavery to freedom in the make-up of the
population at Vagnari - and in the Italian south
as a whole in this period? And how did the population
at Vagnari compare with that of the peasant population
elsewhere? The conference will explore in depth
these and related questions through a focus on
both new archaeological work carried out in south
Italy and new historical interpretations.
THIS INTERDISCIPLINARY
COLLOQUIUM draws on the expertise of
archaeologists, epigraphers, ancient historians,
and early medievalists in the School and their
passion for a better understanding of the human
past. It will moreover bring together researchers
from Britain, Canada, the USA, Ireland, the Netherlands,
and Italy, and established and younger scholars.
Confirmed SPEAKERS and
CHAIRS include Maureen Carroll (Sheffield),
Marcella Chelotti (Bari), Amanda Claridge (RHUL),
Michael Crawford (UCL), Helga di Giuseppe (Rome),
Lisa Fentress (Rome), Helena Fracchia (Alberta),
Maurizio Gualtieri (Perugia), Edward Herring (Galway),
Philip Kenrick (Oxford), Maria Luisa Marchi (Foggia),
Myles McCallum (Halifax), Tracy Prowse (McMaster),
Nicholas Purcell (Oxford), Pasquale Rosafio (Lecce),
Christopher Smith (Rome), Hans VanderLeest (Mount
Allison), Domenico Vera (Parma), Giuliano Volpe
(Foggia), and Douwe Yntema (Amsterdam): see the
CONFERENCE
PROGRAMME for the full list of speakers!
Organisers:
Dr Ulrike
Roth (Head of Classics)
Prof. Alastair
Small
(Honorary Professorial Fellow)
|
