Ancient Antioch

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Cambridge University Press, May 3, 2016 - History - 226 pages
From late fourth century BC Seleucid enclave to capital of the Roman east, Antioch on the Orontes was one of the greatest cities of antiquity and served as a hinge between east and west. This book draws on a century of archaeological fieldwork to offer a new narrative of Antioch's origins and growth, as well as its resilience, civic pride, and economic opportunism. Situating the urban nucleus in the context of the rural landscape, this book integrates hitherto divorced cultural basins, including the Amuq Valley and the Massif Calcaire. It also brings into focus the archaeological data, thus proposing a concrete interpretative framework that, grounded in the monuments of Antioch, enables the reader to move beyond text-based reconstructions of the city's history. Finally, it considers the interaction between the environment and the people of the city who shaped this region and forged a distinct identity within the broader Greco-Roman world.
 

Contents

ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND THE SANJAK
13
FOUNDATION AND GROWTH OF THE CITY
34
THE PLAIN OF ANTIOCH AND THE AMUQ VALLEY
66
THE HIGHLANDS OF ANTIOCH
97
THE PEOPLE OF ANTIOCH
163
CONCLUSIONS
178
Bibliography
201
Index
217
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About the author (2016)

Andrea U. De Giorgi is an assistant professor in the Department of Classics at Florida State University. De Giorgi is an experienced field archaeologist who has worked on ancient urbanism in Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Cyprus and Turkey, and currently codirects the Cosa Excavations in Italy. He has received various accolades from the Thyssen Foundation, Loeb Foundation, Kress Foundation, the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Berliner Antike-Kolleg, and the Whiting Foundation, among others.

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