Feeding the Byzantine City: The Archaeology of Consumption in the Eastern Mediterranean Ca. 500-1500 (Medieval and Post-medieval Mediterranean Archaeology, 5)

"This book offers new and innovative perspectives on the archaeology of consumption in Byzantine cities and their hinterlands. Case-studies range from towns in eastern Macedonia, north-western and central Greece, and Crete to urban centres in Serbia, Bulgaria and western Turkey. The archaeological data and historical insights presented in this volume are always of great interest, often exciting, and more than once outright astonishing. The commodities discussed in the volume are dated between the 6th and the 16th century CE and include pottery (e.g., glazed table wares, amphorae, cooking pots, storage jars), textile fragments, metal objects, bronze and golden jewellery, marble carved slabs and columns. 'Feeding the City' sheds compelling light on a world which was much more complex and interconnected than has often been assumed, which makes it essential reading for scholars and a larger audience alike"-- Page 4 of cover Contents 6 Joanita Vroom. Preface 11 Archibald Dunn. The Medieval Byzantine town: Producers, suppliers, and consumers 20 Vesna Bikić. Caričin Grad (Justiniana Prima) as a market: Searching for an Early Byzantine model of pottery production and consumption 58 Myrto Veikou. Geographies of consumption in Byzantine Epirus: Urban space, commodification, and consumption practices from the 7th to the 12th century 80 Natalia Poulou. Production and consumption in Crete from the mid-7th to the 10th century AD: The archaeological evidence 114 Evelina Todorova. Mapping Byzantine amphorae: Outlining patterns of consumptionin present-day Bulgaria and the Black Sea Region (7th-14th century) 140 Philipp Niewöhner. Not a consumption crisis: Diversity in marble carving, ruralisation, and the collapse of urban demand in Middle Byzantine Asia Minor 172 Stefania S. Skartsis & Nikos D. Kontogiannis. Central Greece in the Middle Byzantine and Late Byzantine periods: Changing patterns of consumption in Thebes and Chalcis 196 Joanita Vroom, Elli Tzavella & Giannis Vaxevanis. Life, work and consumption in Byzantine Chalcis: Ceramic finds from an industrial hub in central Greece, ca. 10-13th c. 224 Elli Tzavella. Consumption patterns of ceramics in town and countryside: Case-studies from Corinth and Athens in central Greece 262 Joanita Vroom. Production, exchange and consumption of ceramics in the Byzantine Mediterranean (ca. 7th-15th centuries) 284 Back Matter 340 This book offers new and innovative perspectives on the archaeology of consumption in Byzantine cities and their hinterlands. Case-studies range from towns in eastern Macedonia, north-western and central Greece, and Crete to urban centres in Serbia, Bulgaria and western Turkey. The archaeological data and historical insights presented in this volume are always of great interest, often exciting, and more than once outright astonishing. The commodities discussed in the volume are dated between the 6th and the 16th century CE and include pottery (e.g., glazed table wares, amphorae, cooking pots, storage jars), textile fragments, metal objects, bronze and golden jewellery, marble carved slabs and columns. Feeding the Byzantine City sheds compelling light on a world which was much more complex and interconnected than has often been assumed, which makes it essential reading for scholars and a larger audience alike