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05/03/2016 06:00 PM
ISAW Lecture Hall
At the Intersection of Work, Economy, and Society
Cross-Industry Relations in the Roman World
Elizabeth Murphy
Roman crafts production -- and its associated technological and labor organization -- has been conceived of as segmented, in part, although not exclusively, because of the structure of archaeological practice. Yet, in approaching potmaking, metalwork, glass manufacture, and other industries as discrete types of process, the intrinsically messy nature of the lived experience of making in the ancient Mediterranean is unhelpfully glossed. In response, this paper considers the bridge between intra- and inter-craft production; how and in what terms ways of making intersected and informed each other, from recycling to pooled infrastructure. Cases studies are presented from Roman and Late Antique Sagalassos, which illustrate the extent to which embedded social attitudes to making, and culturally constructed notions of the optimal, drove the structure of Roman crafts production.