The Roman city as articulated through terra sigillata
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Authors
van, Oyen Astrid
Publication Date
2014-07-08Journal Title
Oxford Journal of Archaeology
ISSN
0262-5253
Volume
34
Pages
279-299
Language
English
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
van, O. A. (2014). The Roman city as articulated through terra sigillata. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 34 279-299. https://doi.org/10.1111/ojoa.12059
Abstract
Debates on the nature of the Roman city and its relation to the countryside have lately
moved towards questioning the validity of the very category of ‘the city’, both
analytically and in terms of past reality. While archaeology has long been mobilized
within these debates, this paper argues for the unexplored potential of a range of
specialist pockets of qualitative knowledge about specific artefact classes. Terra
sigillata, the red-gloss imperial tableware, is a case in point. By adopting a bird’s eye
view on sigillata production, distribution, and consumption across a geographical and
chronological range, this paper develops a new metaphor for the role of Roman cities:
as switching devices in the building of networks. By describing the role of cities in
structural rather than categorical terms, this metaphor allows for contingency and for
the integration of different analytical and interpretive scales.
Sponsorship
This research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [AH/I010955/1] and the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.
Embargo Lift Date
2030-07-08
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ojoa.12059
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245397
Rights
DSpace@Cambridge license, Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales
Licence URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/