Roman Workplaces, Work Practices, and Working Lives: A Multiscalar Socio-Economic Study of Ceramic Production in the Eastern Mediterranean

Murphy, Elizabeth Anne

Full Metadata

Overview

Year:: 2014
Contributor:: Murphy, Elizabeth Anne (creator); Alcock, Susan (Director); Poblome, Jeroen (Reader); Bodel, John (Reader); van Dommelen, Peter (Reader); Cherry, John (Reader); Brown University. Archaeology and the Ancient World (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Roman; production organization; Ceramics; Rome (Empire)
Extent:: 22, 334 p.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0Z31X0B

Files

Description

Abstract:: Much like Attic ware was to 6th century BC Athens, porcelain was to the 16th century Ming dynasty, and delftware to 17th century Netherlands – Italian terra sigillata, African red slip ware, and Dressel 2-4 amphorae have become archaeologically associated with ‘the Romans’. The Roman economy has often come to be characterized by its long distance trade networks that moved regionally-specific, yet seemingly standardized, ceramic wares around the Empire. Yet in certain parts of the Empire, particularly in the eastern provinces, the actual workshop sites of ceramic production have so far received little archaeological attention. At a broadly conceptual level, this dissertation evaluates how socially informed ways of manufacturing influence the organization and means of production within a workplace. Employing variables recognized by well established archaeological models (context and density of industry, scale and structure of the workplace, technological developments, and product repertoire), analyses were performed to assess the range of organizational diversity present in Roman ceramic workshops across the eastern Mediterranean. Such diversity was likewise interpreted according to frameworks of socialized work practices that occur across variable scales (within the workshop, between nucleated workshops, and across wider landscapes) and that appear to follow fluid spatial definitions of ‘region’ defined less by geographic boundaries than by sets of social relations. In addition, certain patterns in economic decision making appear to reflect structural features (legal restrictions, bounded rationality in investing capital, imperial military provisioning) some of which are associated with wider social norms and administrative institutions. The findings of this study, by assembling and analyzing the current published record of such workshop sites, demonstrates the highly local character of much economic decision making (choices in industry technologies, product types and forms, and spatial arrangements of workspaces). The results also demonstrate that the regional character of many major ceramic types derives from the culmination of ceramic goods from numerous small workshop units. These small-scale economic phenomena likewise contribute to observations of intra-ware typological variability.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2014)

Content

Access Conditions

Rights: In Copyright
Restrictions on Use: Collection is open for research.

Citation

Murphy, Elizabeth Anne, "Roman Workplaces, Work Practices, and Working Lives: A Multiscalar Socio-Economic Study of Ceramic Production in the Eastern Mediterranean" (2014). Graduate Research Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0Z31X0B

Relations

Collection:

Graduate Research Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Graduate Research department.
...