Households in Context: Dwelling in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt

by Caitlín Eilís Barrett (Editor), Jennifer Carrington (Editor)

Overview

Households in Context shifts the focus from monumental temples, tombs, and elite material and visual culture to households and domestic life to provide a crucial new perspective on everyday dwelling practices and the interactions of families and individuals with larger social and cultural structures. A focus on households reveals the power of the everyday: the critical role of quotidian experiences, objects, and images in creating the worlds of the people who live with them.

The contributors to this book share contemporary research on houses and households in both Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to reshape the ways we think about ancient people's lived experiences of family, community, and society. Households in Context places the archaeology and history of Greco-Roman Egypt in dialogue with research on dwelling, daily practice, and materiality to reveal how ancient households functioned as laboratories for social, political, economic, and religious change.

Contributors: Youssri Abdelwahed, Richard Alston, Anna Lucille Boozer, Paola Davoli, David Frankfurter, Jennifer Gates-Foster, Melanie Godsey, Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, Sabine R. Huebner, Gregory Marouard, Miriam Müller, Lisa Nevett, Bérangère Redon, Bethany Simpson, Ross I. Thomas, Dorothy J. Thompson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501771309
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2024
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Caitlín Eilís Barrett is Associate Professor of Classics at Cornell University. She is the author of Domesticating Empire and Egyptianizing Figurines from Delos.

Jennifer Carrington has a PhD from Cornell University and is an archaeologist with a focus in museum and educational outreach.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Houses, Households, and Homes: Toward an Archaeology ofDwelling
Households in Spatial Context: Settlements, Neighborhoods, and Urbanism
1. Egyptian Houses in Their Urban and Environmental Contexts: Some Case Studies of the Roman and Late Roman Periods
2. Neighborhood Networks: The Civic and Social Organization of Accessways in Ancient Karanis
3. The Tower Houses of the Hellenistic Period: A Solution to the Urban Pressure within Egyptian Towns and Villages
Households in Social Context: Families, Individuals, and Communities
4. The Papyrus Trail: Houses and Households in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt
5. Habitatio: Transfer of Houses and Rights of Residence in Roman Egypt
6. Unsafe Houses in Greco-Roman Egypt: Forms and Locations of Violence
Households in Practice: Production, Consumption, and Discard
7. Modes of Production and Reproduction in Roman-Era Egyptian Villages
8. Domestic Discard: The Making and Unmaking of Romano-Egyptian Houses
Households in Cosmic Context: Religion and Ritual
9. Figurines and the Material Culture of Domestic Religion
10. The Supernatural Vulnerabilities of Domestic Space in Late Antique Egypt: Perspectives from the "Magical" Corpus
Expanding the Household: Dwelling Practices in Monastic and Military Contexts
11. Three Monks and a House: The Archaeology of Monastic Houses in Byzantine Egypt
Domestic Activities in Alternative Settings: The Ptolemaic Fort at Bi'r Samut, Egypt
Afterwords: Perspectives from Pharaonic Egypt and the Classical World
1. Greco-Roman Households in Pharaonic Perspective
2. Contextualizing Houses, Households, and Homes in the Classical World and Beyond

What People are Saying About This

Julia Budka

This stimulating volume will serve as a standard for all future investigations to understand past societies and lived experience.

Bradley Ault

Caitlín Eilís Barrett and Jennifer Carrington have overseen an outstanding volume that stands not only as the most comprehensive and up-to-date consideration of Ptolemaic and Romano-Egyptian household studies available, but also as the sole synthetic volume on household archaeology in Greco-Roman Egypt.