Revision:Arguments in Stone
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DEFS. VALUE: REINSTATION RESEARCH IN THE EUROPEAN CITY
- Manipulation of heritage – contemporary politicians used buried past to enhance their own ideology, merchants to enhance income
- Archaeological value – compete with property value, commercial value, amenity value, cultural value. Archaeological value: product of quality of deposits and relevance to preconceived research programme.
- Conservation, development planning and heritage management studies should take account of archaeological value – cannot operate without knowledge underground and agreed research programme.
AUTHORITY AND CULT: RESEARCH ON URBAN SPACE
- Aim: narrative history of towns, role of towns in different centuries. 3 types of pace, local, regional and maritime and three types of imperatives for change – ideological, economic and ecological.
- LOCAL SPACE – cult and ideology instrumental creating towns – but altering their geography at frequent intervals. Republican Rome, early Christian Rome, Ephesus, Salona and Aosta. Nuceli power now inside not outside walls – archaeologists should not look at modern municipality – temp. picture political map.
- RURAL HINTERLAND – containing ecological resources – rship between town and hinterland varies dramatically. Animal bones good source of info.
- Maritime space important detecting economic relations that define urban states and roles – e.g. Roman amphorae command economy 2nd century, redeployment imperial resources in 4th century
AMENITY V. ENTERPRISE: RESEARCH ON URBAN CONTINUITY
- Dark Ages do not favour towns – no due to a decline, scarcity of bullion, invading Germanic or Islamic peoples, or lack of economic vigour – 5th and 8th centuries sees a redistribution of wealth and investment following new political priorities – rather than decline and impoverishment.
- Privatisation urban space – public amenities to private estates – hard to distinguish from dereliction, burial humans in old p spaces or uncleaned streets seem symptoms deprivation – reflect changes use – redundancy of private buildings. Rome, Brescia and Veroena.
- Outside Roman towns – power redeployed into small fortified hill-top settlements – new network in common hinterland – “baronial” power centres – found in old towns – former public buildings converted to “castles”
- North – investment redirected into burials, cult sites and beach-markets – new signals ideological and economic in character detectable from end of Roman period – Norway and Denmark.
- Re-Romainised areas combine with beach-markets to furnish new “kingdoms” – 9th century England 0 coalesced into signal state. Need for inter-settlement analysis
IMAGE OF WAR: RESEARCH ON URBAN SYMBOLS
- Post-processual welcome return of combined archaeological, architectural and art historical study.
- Perceived function of imperial Roman buildings well known; what about meaning? Important for analysis of the urban mood – “imperial hulks” conversion to chapels, churches, fortresses
- Tombs and cemeteries: disposal of dead and manifesto for the living. History of propaganda from murals and objects of towns – Totila trying to destroy image of Rome, energy Charlemagne resurrecting politics of urbanism by Roman and Greek culture + replica fountain outside s.Peter’s.
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