[MGSA-L] Princeton Hellenic Studies Workshop: September 30, 2011

[Dimitri H. Gondicas]

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Hellenic Studies

Workshop

(Re)Mapping Medieval Antioch:
Urban Transformations of the Post-Classical City

Asa Eger
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Visiting Fellow, Hellenic Studies
Respondent: John Haldon, History and Hellenic Studies
Many scholars have taken a bleak view of the post-classical city of Anṭākiya, arguing for a significant decline and ruination that began already before the Islamic conquests. Indeed, this view is supported by the Princeton excavations from 1932–1939, which revealed little of the post-classical city. However, historical accounts affirm that the city’s population did not decrease dramatically, but rather maintained an active economic and religious life. Further, a rereading and reanalysis of the excavated and published material from Princeton shows that Antioch, although contracted from its previous Roman and early Byzantine incarnation, was a local center of manufacturing production and linked to surrounding frontier settlements, as well as an important emporium along the trans-Asian Silk Road. The contracted city can be hypothetically divided into radiating zones of residential to industrial to agricultural space within its continuously utilized Byzantine city walls. The city was no longer dependent on its large hinterland plain as a ‘parasite city,’ but more self-sufficient, being codependent on the needs of a far more immediate hinterland than previously and serving the western Islamic-Byzantine fronter. The textual and excavated evidence offers a compelling case for reenvisioning post-classical Antioch and replacing the narrative of Antioch’s decline with one of contraction, self-sufficiency, and transformation.

Asa Eger is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His primary field is the archaeology of the Byzantine and Islamic Near East. His current research focuses on the formation and nature of the Byzantine-Early Islamic frontier from the 7-12th centuries. He has participated in several surveys and excavations in the region of Antioch and Kahramamaraş in Turkey and has been directing excavations at the Early Islamic and Middle Byzantine frontier site of Hisn al-Tinat since 2006 (near modern Dortyol, Turkey). Eger was a Senior Fellow at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (Koç University, Istanbul) from 2008-2009 and will be a Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks in the Spring of 2012. His first book, The Spaces Between the Teeth: A Gazetteer of Towns on the Islamic-Byzantine Frontier (Istanbul: Ege Yayınları), is currently in press. His second book-in-progress, The Islamic-Byzantine Frontier: Interaction and Exchange between Christian and Muslim Communities in the Early Islamic Period, studies the problem of the frontier as a militarized zone based solely on text-based viewpoints. The book considers cross-cultural interactions within a larger framework of the frontier as a landscape, examining its settlements, economic networks, and environmental history.
Friday, September 30, 2011
1:30 p.m.
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103



The HELLENIC STUDIES WORKSHOP provides an opportunity for post-doctoral fellows, visiting fellows, and graduate students to present their work-in-progress or recently published research. The aim is to encourage exchange of ideas across disciplines among Classical scholars, Byzantinists, and Modern Greek Studies specialists.



DATES:  Most Fridays, 1:30-3:30 p.m., during the term.  Dates, speakers and titles will be announced in advance via e-mail.



PLACE:  Room 103, Scheide Caldwell House, Princeton University



For further information about current events in Hellenic Studies, please refer to the calendar posted on our website:  http://www.princeton.edu/~hellenic/
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