Jan 9

Question 1

How are inscriptions not representative

Answer 1

• The frequency of funerary commemoration varied hugely according to:
  
  • Sex
  • wealth
  • social status
  • other actors
• The epigraphic record underreports:
  
  • The loss of life at very young ages
  • Equally vastly neglects death in old age
• Vastly privileges deaths of:
  
  • Older children
  • Teens
  • Young adults
• Man receive more inscriptions than women

Question 2

what can inscriptions show

Answer 2

Inscriptions can show where people were born, and where they died, mapping movement patterns with enough individuals.

Can determine which professions moved around the most.

Question 3

why is Archaeology good

Answer 3

• Perhaps the most productive source of information
  
  • Very young discipline
• Data constantly growing
  
  • Technology and methods constantly evolving
• We have learned more about the past in 130 years than ever before
  
  • Material culture
  • Town planning
  • Diet, Agriculture and skeletal remains
  • Mobility, trade

Question 4

What does archaeology do

Answer 4

• Gives a voice to the people who have left no literature and who are represented (today) only by the anonymous evidence of their settlements, possessions, garbage, and their graves
• Important tool to acknowledge the consequences of the growth of imperial power on indigenous societies
  
  • Can acknowledge the agency of individuals but also pay due attention to the powerful forces that shaped their worlds and with which they had to interact
• Can be small scale or large scale

Question 5

how do archaeology work on the small scale

Answer 5

Only source of data for the study of life at the local scale: household archaeology

• Perception of space
• Creation of identity and ethnicity
• Individuals living within a larger societal structure
  
  • Individual agency

Question 6

how does archaeology work on the large scale

Answer 6

Large scale approach: survey

• Used to map rural and urban landscapes
• Contributes to the understanding of broad patterns of landscape

Question 7

what was Vindolanda

Answer 7

Vindolanda was a Roman Auxiliary fort (castrum) just south of Hadrian’s wall in northern England

Was demolished and completely rebuilt at least 9 times

Very muddy site that preserved things like boxing gloves, toilet covers, shoes.

Shoes included child and Women’s shoes. When against writings which said that Roman camps were male only areas for the army.

Women and Children’s items found throughout the fortress.

Question 8

How did Homer describe ship building

Answer 8

• The methods for building a seagoing vessel in Homer’s time described in the Odyssey
• “she [The nymph Calypso] gave hum a great bronze axe… she also gave him a well-polished adze. Then she led the way to the farthest part of the island where tall trees stood… long dry and well-seasoned, which would float for him lightly… and he started cutting planks. The work went quickly for him, and he cut down twenty in all and trimmed them with his axe. He smoothed them skillfully and made them true to the line… The radiant goddess, brought him augers, and he shaped the planks to fit one another and bored mortises in them all. Then he hammered the ship together with tenons and dowels.”

Question 9

what does archeological evidence show about ship building

Answer 9

• Archaeological eviddence shows that the Greeks used a different system
  
  • From the late bronze age and the late classical period
• Three shipwrecks have been excavated:
  
  • Giglio (580 BC)
    Bon Porté (540 BC)
    Jules Verne 9 (525-510 BC)
• The three ships are built identically
  
  • Lashed frames
  • Laced planks
  • Round-bottom ships

Question 10

What do we know about water supply in rome

Answer 10

“when it [the water] has reached the walls of the city… a three-part reservoir compartments… receive the water. Within the reservoir lay three systems of pipes, one for each of the connecting tanks. The piping system for all the public pools and running fountains should be put in the middle tank; pipes for the baths in one of the outside, to provide tax revenue every year for the people of Rome; and in the third tank the piping system should be directed to private homes, so that there will never be a shortage of public water for private citizens will not be inclined to divert public supplies if they have their own supply from the same source.”

A site in Nimes France was found with 10 pipes

Question 11

how do pipes vary

Answer 11

Some sites had pipes made of lead

Other had wood, iron, or clay

There was variety across the Roman world.