Description
- Abstract:
- This dissertation applies notions of governmentality to resource landscapes in the Roman province of Asia Minor. My argument is that Roman techniques of governmentality, in the context of an expanding empire, worked fundamentally through places and landscapes in the creation of a spatial polity. Polities, however, are also inclusive of a variety of spatial practices, many of which are not reflections of state intervention, but demonstrate how local landscapes push back and shape the polity as well. My primary case study juxtaposes small-scale marble quarries in the Marmara Lake Basin of central Lydia, Turkey against other, larger and more structured forms of stone extraction, to demonstrate that the state’s spatial parameters are inchoate because such attempts are inherently physical. That is, attempts to create the polity as a spatial entity must occur in real landscapes that have different physical properties, histories, contextual geographies, and established links to place. As such, Rome should be considered an incomplete project, or a polity continuously in the making and always heterogeneous, appropriating physical engagements between places and people in order to structure social life through technologies, buildings, sculptural programs, and, most importantly, infrastructure. My emphasis, however, is on the incompleteness of this project during the Roman period and that one can detect these elements through close examinations of quarries. This study combines the results of intensive survey, mapping, and a marble sampling program to demonstrate the significance of local social contexts on how the marble from the Marmara Lake Basin was quarried during this period.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2012)
Access Conditions
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- In Copyright
- Restrictions on Use
- Collection is open for research.
Citation
Sekedat, Bradley Michael,
"Large Polities and Small Quarries: Local Resources and Imperial Governance in Roman Asia Minor"
(2012).
Graduate Research Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0KK993P
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Graduate Research Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Graduate Research department....