| Reports by SPBS Members |
Conferences
held in 2004 |
38th SPRING SYMPOSIUM OF BYANTINE STUDIES Byzantine Trade (4th-12th c.): Recent Archaeological Work Symposiarch: Dr. Marlia Mango The symposium examined evidence produced by recent archaeological work relevant to trade conducted within and beyond Byzantine territory between the foundation of Constantinople and its sack by the Fourth Crusade. Its objectives were outlined in an introductory lecture which provided a working definition of trade (monetized or bartered exchange) and stated that the symposium would cover trade as distinct from the economy as a whole. Instead, it considered the concrete evidence for trade's goods, locations and mechanisms of operation, and focused on local and international trade rather than the inter-regional movement of basic staples within the Mediterranean which is already well studied. Altogether 50 papers were given: 28 main lectures delivered during 9 sessions and 22 communications during 3 simultaneous sessions. The opening lectures provided an introductory perspective on maps (Savage-Smith), shipwrecks (Kingsley) and amphorae (Karagiorgou) as potential tools for the study of trade. Session 2 covered commerce and trade in 4 important cities -- Constantinople (C. Mango), Scythopolis (Tsafrir), Alexandria (Rodziewicz) and Preslav (Kostova) in lectures which adduced a variety of evidence. Session 3 examined a regional market (in pottery) partly identified through scientific analysis (Vokaer) and an inter-regional market (in wine) discovered by a combination of marine and terrestrial archaeology (Günsenin). In session 4 three speakers surveyed the circulation of metalware (M. Mango) and pottery finewares: the earlier white wares (linked to the capital) (Armstrong) following a different geographical and chronological pattern than the sgrafitto red wares (Dimopoulos). Sessions 5-9 were concerned with international trade, starting with exports and imports; again patterns varied. Exports included early Byzantine wine traded with Spain and (Saudi) Arabia (Decker) and specific pieces of western glass excavated in China, indentified as partly Late Roman/Byzantine in origin before the 7th c. and Islamic rather than Byzantine thereafter (Kinoshita). Materia medica continued to be imported into the empire from the 4th c. onwards (McCabe), but Sassanian pottery disappears from the archaeological record after the 3rd century at Zeugma on the Euphrates (Kenrick). The following 4 sessions concentrated on Byzantine trade with specific regions. Session 6 considered key subjects relating to late antique Britain: the question of ocean-going ships (Kingsley), the nature of and evidence left by tin mining (Salter), and the interpretation of eastern Mediterranean pottery found at numerous sites in the SW (Campbell). Session 7 examined the eastern Mediterranean, in particular Alexandria and the Red Sea, 7th-12th century, in order to detect changes caused by the Arab Conquest. This session started with a Byzantine site uncovered by recent work at Canopus (Goddio/Cole). The communications networks of the Red Sea, the important artery for trade south and east, were chronologically assessed in light of extensive archaeological work (Sidebotham), as was the changing nature of Aksum's role in trade between late antiquity and the medieval period (Phillipson). Further south excavated evidence of phased Mediterranean trade with Zanzibar and Shanga relates to high-value materials (ivory, gold, rock crystal) which reached Byzantium in quantity, particularly through the 6th and again in the 10th-11th centuries. Session 8 consisted of three technical papers on glass (Henderson), copper (Northover) and pottery (Hayes), respectively, which examined technology transfer and trade within the triangle created by Byzantium, the Levant and Italy, 10th-12th centuries. These papers will be joined in the publication by a study of Venetian and Amalfitan trade, 10th-12th c. (Jacoby). The final session looked to the north, to the Black Sea and beyond, to older and newer trade networks (Shepard) discernible through the study of glass technology known from scientifically analysed excavated material (Shchapova) and through survey and excavation of northern Russian sites (Makarov). In sum, a wide variety of recent archaeological work was clearly presented within a coherent conceptual framework to a broad range of participants who included many non-Byzantinists and students. The symposium was attended by 182 people from 17 countries. In addition to the main speakers (from Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Israel, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the UK, the U.S.A.), this included those who had travelled to Oxford from as far away as the U.S.A., Greece, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Holland, and Ireland.
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