Government Issue: Roman Legionary Crafts Production in Context

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One of the most iconic images of the Roman Empire was and is that of the Legions, citizen-warriors clad in shiny lorica segmentata and with gladius in-hand.  These soldiers were however skilled not only in the art of war, but also in crafts and trades – supplying and supporting the operations of the Roman imperial military through their daily activities.  One such industry about which we have relatively extensive evidence is ceramic production (of tile, brick, and pottery).  While most ceramic production in the Roman period has been attributed to private investment, semi-permanent sites of production directly associated with military activities have also been identified.  Such legionary production sites present unusual features in terms of their organization of the manufacturing process and its skilled labor, which offer insights into wider questions concerning imperial interests and crafts production.  This paper investigates the spatial organization of Roman (AD 50 – 250) legionary ceramic production sites, assessing the extent to which the scale and organization of production were influenced by and integrated into larger military and imperial structures of the period.  

Elizabeth Murphy holds a PhD in Archaeology and the Ancient World from Brown University (2014), a MA in Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (2007), and a BA in Anthropology from Arizona State University (2004).  Her research interests concern the study of ancient crafts production, embedded economic practice, technology, and labor, while her technical specializations are centered on excavation, material culture studies, ethnoarchaeology, and experimental archaeology.  Her fieldwork at the site of Sagalassos (SW Turkey) has investigated crafts production during the Roman and late Antique periods of the city through the excavation of workshop buildings, furnaces, and production infrastructure, as well as through the analysis of associated material culture (tools, finished products, raw materials, and production waste). This research is serving to reconstruct daily work practices and the organization of artisanal labor in the city.

Elizabeth’s research project at ISAW, “At the Intersection of Work, Economy, and Society: A cross-industry analysis of production, labor, and work in the Roman eastern Mediterranean”, investigates workshops from the Roman imperial (1st -3rd c. AD) and late Roman (4th – 6th c. AD) periods in order to unravel how diversity is expressed in production practice and labor organization across industries and the extent to which work practices and labor organization represent patterned decision-making strategies influenced by structural features of Roman economy and society.