Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices in the Northwest Provinces of the Roman Empire - Softcover

9781785702563: Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices in the Northwest Provinces of the Roman Empire

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1785702564 ISBN 13: 9781785702563

Publisher: Oxbow Books, 2016

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Small finds – the stuff of everyday life – offer archaeologists a fascinating glimpse into the material lives of the ancient Romans. These objects hold great promise for unraveling the ins and outs of daily life, especially for the social groups, activities, and regions for which few written sources exist. Focusing on amulets, brooches, socks, hobnails, figurines, needles, and other “mundane” artifacts, these 12 papers use small finds to reconstruct social lives and practices in the Roman Northwest provinces. Taking social life broadly, the various contributions offer insights into the everyday use of objects to express social identities, Roman religious practices in the provinces, and life in military communities. By integrating small finds from the Northwest provinces with material, iconographic, and textual evidence from the whole Roman empire, contributors seek to demystify Roman magic and Mithraic religion, discover the latest trends in ancient fashion (socks with sandals!), explore Roman interactions with Neolithic monuments, and explain unusual finds in unexpected places. Throughout, the authors strive to maintain a critical awareness of archaeological contexts and site formation processes to offer interpretations of past peoples and behaviors that most likely reflect the lived reality of the Romans. While the range of topics in this volume gives it wide appeal, scholars working with small finds, religion, dress, and life in the Northwest provinces will find it especially of interest. Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices grew out of a session at the 2014 Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices
Stefanie Hoss and Alissa Whitmore

Small finds, the Body, and Identity
2. Iron footed - hobnail patterns under Roman shoes and their functional meaning
Boris Burandt

3. Wearing socks in sandals: The height of Roman fashion?
Barbara K�stner

4. Laying it on thick - makeup in the Roman Empire
Gisela Michel

5. Of brooches and men
Stefanie Hoss

Religion and Ritual in the Roman Northwest Provinces
6. Ordinary Objects Transformed: the compound natures of material culture
Mara Vejby

7. A Mars with Breasts from Weissenburg in Bavaria
Nicole Birkle

8. Metropolitan Styling: Metal figurines from London and Colchester
Emma Durham

9. Staring at Death: The Jet Gorgoneia of Roman Britain
Adam Parker

Artefacts, Behaviours and Spaces
10. Dining with Mithras – functional aspects of pottery ensembles from Roman Mithraea
Ines Klenner

11. Cloth Working in the Baths? Site Formation Processes, Needles, and Spindle Whorls in Roman Bathhouse Contexts
Alissa M. Whitmore

12. The complexity of intramural and extramural relationships on the northern frontier of Roman Britain - a Vindolanda case study
Andrew R. Birley

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About the Author

Stefanie Hoss has worked as a post-excavation small finds specialist in the Netherlands for more than ten years and has taught at the Free University Amsterdam and the University of Cologne. Her research interests include the Roman culture of bathing and Roman toilets, Roman and Byzantine metal and glass finds, Roman military finds, Roman food and dining habits, and the wondrous ways of Roman refuse.

Alissa Whitmore is an independent archaeologist and anthropologist who also teaches at a community college in Iowa. Her primary interest is the intersection between small finds, identity, and spatial analysis, focused on artefacts recovered from bathhouses, especially from the drains and latrines, to reconstruct the social activities of bathers in Roman public and military bathhouses. She also has interests in ancient gender and sexuality.

Review

Many of the papers... offer considered discussion of artefacts and the contexts in which they were found. This approach teases out some intriguing patterns and peculariaties leading to discussion on topics ranging from what we should make of amulaets bearing the likelness of a gorgon appearing exclusively in graves in Roman Britain, to votive plaques from Bavaria that feature a figure with the head of Mars and a woman's bosom. * Current Archaeology *

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