"This collection begins from a methodological problem familiar to all who have worked on the housing of the ancient world. That problem centres on the relationship between the diverse texts that have come down to us from antiquity, documentary and literary, and the archaeology of Classical settlements. In relation to housing, the problem is a special instance of the sometimes fraught disciplinary relationship between Classical archaeology and Classical history, which goes back to the formation of the modern academic disciplines, and the more particular issue of a perceived gap between the material world and the textual world. Texts and archaeology rarely tell the same story. From the eighteenth century onwards, there was an increased availability and understanding of material remains. Classical archaeology brought together aesthetic interests, focused on art and architecture, but 'early' archaeology also aimed itself at resolving questions derived from the literary material (see the historiographical elements in the studies of Varto, Morgan, and Allison in the volume). From Schliemann's discoveries of Troy and Mycenae to the investigations at Pompeii, texts often determined patterns of excavation and how that material evidence was interpreted"--
