On The Edge Of A Roman Port

Between 2007 and 2014, a Greek-American team investigated an impressive array of Early Roman to Early Byzantine buildings and burials on the Koutsongila Ridge at Kenchreai, the eastern port of ancient Corinth. This volume presents the project's final results, revealing abundant evidence not only for the history of activity in a transitional urban/suburban landscape, but also for the society, economy, and religion of local residents. Important structural and mortuary discoveries abound, including a district of lavish houses with exquisite mosaic pavement and an Early Christian Octagon. The large artifactual assemblage encompasses a variety of objects from pottery and lamps to glass, coins, and jewelry. Bones and teeth from over 200 individuals illustrate differences in health over time, while thousands of bones and shells from a variety of animals attest to diet and subsistence. This study paints a picture of a Corinthian community, small but prosperous and well connected, actively participating in an urban elite culture expressed through decorative art and monumental architecture.

The excavation of the earliest Roman port and fishery known establishes Cosa as the center for the flourishing commercial activities of the powerful Sestius family and extends the international trading picture of the Romans back to at least the early second century B.C. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The first in-depth analysis of the epigraphic evidence for the societies of the ports of the Roman Mediterranean.

One marker of the majesty of ancient Rome is its surviving architectural legacy, the stunning remains of which are scattered throughout the circum-Mediterranean landscape. Surprisingly, one truly remarkable aspect of this heritage remains relatively unknown. There exists beneath the waters of the Mediterranean the physical remnants of a vast maritime infrastructure that sustained and connected the western worldÕs first global empire and economy. The key to this incredible accomplishment and to the survival of structures in the hostile environment of the sea for two thousand years was maritime concrete, a building material invented and then employed by Roman builders on a grand scale to construct harbor installations anywhere they were needed, rather than only in locations with advantageous geography or topography. This book explains how the Romans built so successfully in the sea with their new invention. The story is a stimulating mix of archaeological, geological, historical and chemical research, with relevance to both ancient and modern technology. It also breaks new ground in bridging the gap between science and the humanities by integrating analytical materials science, history, and archaeology, along with underwater exploration. The book will be of interest to anyone interested in Roman architecture and engineering, and it will hold special interest for geologists and mineralogists studying the material characteristics of pyroclastic volcanic rocks and their alteration in seawater brines. The demonstrable durability and longevity of Roman maritime concrete structures may be of special interest to engineers working on cementing materials appropriate for the long-term storage of hazardous substances such as radioactive waste. A pioneering methodology was used to bore into maritime structures both on land and in the sea to collect concrete cores for testing in the research laboratories of the CTG Italcementi Group, a leading cement producer in Italy, the University of Berkeley, and elsewhere. The resulting mechanical, chemical and physical analysis of 36 concrete samples taken from 11 sites in Italy and the eastern Mediterranean have helped fill many gaps in our knowledge of how the Romans built in the sea. To gain even more knowledge of the ancient maritime technology, the directors of the Roman Maritime Concrete Study (ROMACONS) engaged in an ambitious and unique experimental archaeological project Ð the construction underwater of a reproduction of a Roman concrete pier or pila. The same raw materials and tools available to the ancient builders were employed to produce a reproduction concrete structure that appears to be remarkably similar to the ancient one studied during ROMACONÕs fieldwork between 2002-2009. This volume reveals a remarkable and unique archaeological project that highlights the synergy that now exists between the humanities and science in our continuing efforts to understand the past. It will quickly become a standard research tool for all interested in Roman building both in the sea and on land, and in the history and chemistry of marine concrete. The authors also hope that the data and observations it presents will stimulate further research by scholars and students into related topics, since we have so much more to learn in the years ahead.

The ancient evidence suggests that international commerce supplied Roman government with up to a third of the revenues that sustained their empire. In ancient times large fleets of Roman merchant ships set sail from Egypt on voyages across the Indian Ocean. They sailed from Roman ports on the Red Sea to distant kingdoms on the east coast of Africa and the seaboard off southern Arabia. Many continued their voyages across the ocean to trade with the rich kingdoms of ancient India. Freighters from the Roman Empire left with bullion and returned with cargo holds filled with valuable trade goods, including exotic African products, Arabian incense and eastern spices. ??This book examines Roman commerce with Indian kingdoms from the Indus region to the Tamil lands. It investigates contacts between the Roman Empire and powerful African kingdoms, including the Nilotic regime that ruled Meroe and the rising Axumite Realm. Further chapters explore Roman dealings with the Arab kingdoms of south Arabia, including the Saba-Himyarites and the Hadramaut Regime, which sent caravans along the incense trail to the ancient rock-carved city of Petra.??The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean is the first book to bring these subjects together in a single comprehensive study that reveals Rome's impact on the ancient world and explains how international trade funded the Legions that maintained imperial rule. It offers a new international perspective on the Roman Empire and its legacy for modern society.

Rome is not one city but many, each with its own history unfolding from a different center: now the trading port on the Tiber; now the Forum of antiquity; the Palatine of imperial power; the Lateran Church of Christian ascendancy; the Vatican; the Quirinal palace. Beginning with the very shaping of the ground on which Rome first rose, this book conjures all these cities, past and present, conducting the reader through time and space to the complex and shifting realities—architectural, historical, political, and social—that constitute Rome. A multifaceted historical portrait, this richly illustrated work is as gritty as it is gorgeous, immersing readers in the practical world of each period. James H. S. McGregor’s explorations afford the pleasures of a novel thick with characters and plot twists: amid the life struggles, hopes, and failures of countless generations, we see how things truly worked, then and now; we learn about the materials of which Rome was built; of the Tiber and its bridges; of roads, aqueducts, and sewers; and, always, of power, especially the power to shape the city and imprint it with a particular personality—like that of Nero or Trajan or Pope Sixtus V—or a particular institution. McGregor traces the successive urban forms that rulers have imposed, from emperors and popes to national governments including Mussolini’s. And, in archaeologists’ and museums’ presentation of Rome’s past, he shows that the documenting of history itself is fraught with power and politics. In McGregor’s own beautifully written account, the power and politics emerge clearly, manifest in the distinctive styles and structures, practical concerns and aesthetic interests that constitute the myriad Romes of our day and days past.

More than a tenth of the land mass of the UK comprises 'urban fringe': the countryside around towns that has been called 'planning's last frontier'. One of the key challenges facing spatial planners is the land-use management of this area, regarded by many as fit only for locating sewage works, essential service functions and other un-neighbourly uses. However, to others it is a dynamic area where a range of urban and rural uses collide. Planning on the Edge fills an important gap in the literature, examining in detail the challenges that planning faces in this no-man’s land. It presents both problems and solutions, and builds a vision for the urban fringe that is concerned with maximising its potential and with bridging the physical and cultural rift between town and country. Its findings are presented in three sections: the urban fringe and the principles underpinning its management sectoral challenges faced at the urban fringe (including commerce, energy, recreation, farming, and housing) managing the urban fringe more effectively in the future. Students, professionals and researchers alike will benefit from the book's structured approach, while the global and transferable nature of the principles and ideas underpinning the study will appeal to an international audience.

Walking the Edge The next step might be the last. A woman without a past Left amnesiac after an accident, Amelia Jamison's instincts slowly rise from the depths of oblivion to question her life as the wife of a cold, manipulating and distant man. Wisps of a dream show her another man she may have known intimately, but is he a memory or a figment of her imagination? A man with too much information After many aliases, today Gerard Besson is simply a police commissaire in Marseille. When a mysterious woman starts to follow him, he is suspicious. But things aren't what they seem, and as he reluctantly gets closer to her, dredges of his painful, buried past spring to light and make him question her identity. Each seems to have led two different lives. But neither is prepared for what awaits them when they cross the fine line between knowing your true self and that of your alter ego. Danger is the name of the game, and as it catches up with them in the French Provence, both know they better be ready for the inevitable fall.