"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"--
With chapters ranging from early Greek housing in Homeric poetry, to the sounds of Pompeiian villas, to graffiti in houses in Roman Syria, and the presentation of 'domesticity' in contemporary museum, this volume tackles the challenge of combining textual and archaeological evidence to study housing in the ancient Mediterranean world.
One of the greatest benefits of studying the ancient Greek and Roman past is the ability to utilise different forms of evidence, in particular both written and archaeological sources. The contributors to this volume employ this evidence to examine ancient housing, and what might be learned of identities, families, and societies, but they also use it as a methodological locus from which to interrogate the complex relationship between different types of sources. Chapters range from the recreation of the house as it was conceived in Homeric poetry, to the decipherment of a painted Greek lekythos to build up a picture of household activities, to the conjuring of the sensorial experience of a house in Pompeii. Together, they present a rich tapestry which demonstrates what can be gained for our understanding of ancient housing from examining the interplay between the words of ancient texts and the walls of archaeological evidence.
