Late Antiquity: Situating Work and Labor in Narratives of Change
Lecture by Visiting Professor Elizabeth Murphy (Florida State University). Lecture 1/5 in the lecture series "Socially Re-Constructing the Late Roman City: Labor, Networks, Economy, and Narratives of Urban 'Decline'".
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Location
Moesgaard Museum, Moesgård Allé 15, 8270 Højbjerg, 4240-301
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Abstract
Late Antiquity (3rd– 7thcenturies AD) has been seen as a period of significant change for the cityscapes of Asia Minor. These changes have variably been cast in terms of either social ‘decline’ or ‘prosperity’, as a collapse or a transition. The contours of this long-running debate are widely known and find parallels for other periods and region. This lecture will attempt to re-evaluate those debates through the lens of work and labor. Drawing on recent literature from inequality studies and historical ‘shocks’, this lecture attempts to situate the archaeological record of craft- and trades-people of this period in order to understand how large-scale trends particularly impacted these segments of society.