Corinthian Matters

A Resource for the Study of the Corinthia, Greece

Category: Sites, Urban Center

A new book on Corinth in Late Antiquity

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For some time I have been following alerts that Amelia Brown’s book on Corinth in Late Antiquity is almost out. The publisher, I.B. Tauris still lists it as not yet published, and Amazon shows it will be available for order next month. But Google Books still got hold of a copy and has posted parts of the front matter and introduction in a typically snippety way. Here are the details:

Amelia R. Brown, Corinth in Late Antiquity : A Greek, Roman and Christian City , 2018: I.B. Tauris.

 

The abstract indicates a wide-ranging survey of Corinth in late antiquity:

Late antique Corinth was on the frontline of the radical political, economic and religious transformations that swept across the Mediterranean world from the second to sixth centuries CE. A strategic merchant city, it became a hugely important metropolis in Roman Greece and, later, a key focal point for early Christianity. In late antiquity, Corinthians recognised new Christian authorities; adopted novel rites of civic celebration and decoration; and destroyed, rebuilt and added to the city’s ancient landscape and monuments. Drawing on evidence from ancient literary sources, extensive archaeological excavations and historical records, Amelia Brown here surveys this period of urban transformation, from the old Agora and temples to new churches and fortifications. Influenced by the methodological advances of urban studies, Brown demonstrates the many ways Corinthians responded to internal and external pressures by building, demolishing and repurposing urban public space, thus transforming Corinthian society, civic identity and urban infrastructure.

In a departure from isolated textual and archaeological studies, she connects this process to broader changes in metropolitan life, contributing to the present understanding of urban experience in the late antique Mediterranean.

And the outline of chapters shows a thematic approach oriented around key spatial features of Corinth’s urban topography:

Introduction: Significance, Scholarship and Structure

  1. Landscape and Civic Authorities in Late Antique Corinth
  2. The Forum and Spaces of Civic Administration
  3. Commerce, Water Supply and Communications
  4. Spaces of Civic Assembly and Entertainment
  5. Creation and Destruction of Public Sculpture
  6. Sacred Spaces around the Forum
  7. Sacred Spaces in the City and Corinthia
  8. Fortification Walls: Isthmus, City and Acrocorinth

A couple of appendixes follow.

The book revises Brown’s dissertation. Anyone who knows Brown’s scholarship knows her incredible abilities for crafting narratives through synthesis of a wide range of evidence. This should be a fulsome book that sets the record straight on Corinth in late antiquity and dismisses that outdated old idea of a city in decline. Now someone please send me a review copy.

Forthcoming Publications of the American School of Classical Studies

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I received a little pamphlet in the mail on Saturday about forthcoming publications of the ASCSA in 2016. Since some of these have been in production for years, I’ll save more detailed comments until the works actually appear in print. Forthcoming books include studies from Corinth, Isthmia, and the Nemea Valley, as well as the revised site guide to Corinth. I have provided links to the press pages for each book.

 

 

AncientCity – Urbanization through Geoinformatics

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Updated March 21, 2016 with italicized additions and strikethrough. See also this update.

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At the 8th Congress of the Balkan Geophysical Society, held in early October in Chania, Crete, a group of authors presented a paper on a new project called AncientCity – A new Frontier in Ancient Greek Urbanization through Geoinformatics. I don’t see that the project has its own web presence yet, and I’m not sure what will become of it, but the scope and aims sound interesting if not a little ambitious. Corinth, of course, is one of the case studies. The project website lives here. Here’s the abstract:

AncientCity is a project consisting in the use of new perspectives in studying the ancient Greek urbanism through modern and advanced technological tools. The understanding, reconstruction and development of ancient Greek cities is approached through an integrated protocol composed of satellite / aerial remote sensing, multicomponent geophysical prospection and spatial analysis within a Geographical Information System platform. This approach involves the use of digital applications to detect patterns in the buried ancient built environment, the identification of surface and subsurface features through non-destructive archaeological fieldwork and the creation of digitized thematic plans of ancient Greek settlements. Five archaeological sites from two different greek geographical regions (central Greece and Peloponnese) were chosen to incorporate new urban models and recalibrate the traditional narratives about the development of the Greek city. The encouraging results of this integrated approach can be used as a prototype model for the employment of Geoinformatics in the historical and archaeological sciences within the subfield of Mediterranean archaeology and Greek Urbanization.

Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Greek Lamps and Offering Trays (Bookidis and Pemberton)

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It’s a monumental achievement to publish in the Corinth Monograph series. These archaeological reports are designed as authoritative statements about the archaeology of individual buildings and sites investigated by the American Excavations at Corinth, and they represent years, if not decades, of scholarly study of architecture and artifacts of individual buildings. The production of the volumes themselves stretches over many years of editing and proofreading. So any new volume in the Corinth or Isthmia series is something to welcome and celebrate.
Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on the lower slopes of Acrocorinth. Photo by David Pettegrew, July 6, 2007
Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on the lower slopes of Acrocorinth. Photo by David Pettegrew, July 6, 2007

This new publication by Nancy Bookidis and Elizabeth Pemberton discusses the Greek lamps and offering trays from the sanctuary from the archaic to Hellenistic periods (and a few Roman finds are thrown in for good measure).

Corinth XVIII.7. The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Greek Lamps and Offering Trays, by Nancy Bookidis and Elizabeth G. Pemberton. 256 pp, 50 pls, 2 tables
9″ x 12″. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0-87661-187-6
Publication Date: Nov 2015.

As last month’s press release on the ASCSA website notes:
This volume continues the publication of excavations conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on Acrocorinth. It incorporates two bodies of material: Greek lamps and offering trays. The lamps include those made from the 7th through 2nd centuries B.C., together with a few Roman examples not included in Corinth XVIII.2. They served to provide light and to accompany the rites of sacrifice. The offering trays presented in this volume differ from the liknon-type offering trays published by A. Brumfield; they support a variety of vessels rather than types of food and had a symbolic function in the Sanctuary rituals. They are extremely common in the Sanctuary and only rarely attested elsewhere.
Here’s the webpage for the book, with information about ordering. And the table of contents:
ASCSAPart I: The Greek Lamps, by Nancy Bookidis
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Catalogue: Corinthian Lamps
Chapter 3: Catalogue: Imported Lamps, Multiple Lamps, Stands, and Lanterns
Part II: The Offering Trays, by Elizabeth G. Pemberton
Chapter 4: Introduction
Chapter 5: Catalogue: Offering Trays
Appendix: Contexts of the Lamps and Offering Trays
Concordance to Catalogue

Bridge of the Untiring Sea (Gebhard and Gregory, eds.)

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I finally have my hands on Bridge of the Untiring Sea: the Corinthian Isthmus from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, fresh off the press (December 2015) from the Princeton office of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. I wrote briefly about this forthcoming book in June (here and here).

The Bridge has been a long time in the making. It began really with a half century of excavation and survey on the Isthmus (Broneer’s excavations began at Isthmia in 1952). A conference was held in Athens in 2007 celebrating that milestone, which proceeded quickly to chapters in 2008 before stalling out in a long period of revisions (my own chapter on Corinth’s suburbs went through at least eight drafts from conference paper to final proof). So this is a well-edited and thoroughly corrected collection, which means no reviewer should point out spelling mistakes and grammatical inconsistencies in my essay! As I haven’t seen hardly any of these essays since the original presentation in Athens, I’m excited to finally have a copy to read, especially since I’m wrapping up page proofs of another book on The Isthmus of Corinth.

UntiringBridge_m

The Bridge is a substantial book in paperback form, well-illustrated (160 figures) and carefully edited. It’s significantly smaller and about a third the weight of The Corinthia and the Northeast Peloponnese, another Corinthia conference published in 2014, which included 56 chapters and 558 pages on all aspects of the broad modern region of the Korinthia. While the editors’ introduction is short and efficient, the book just feels much more focused and coherent than The Corinthia and the Northeast Peloponnese with its sprawl of archaeological knowledge. The nearly 17 chapters and 400 pages of Bridge focus especially on the vicinity of the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia and, to some lesser extent, the broader region (technically the Isthmus, which has been generously extended in one chapter to the southeast Corinthia). Almost half of the essays (7 of 17) are devoted to the district of Isthmia in the geometric to Hellenstic periods (with chapters on subjects such as the Temple of Poseidon, the Rachi settlement, figurines, pottery, the Chigi Painter, and the West Foundation); another four chapters take on Roman subjects related to Isthmia (sculpture, agonstic festivals, Roman baths, East Field); there are a couple of Late Antique Isthmia essays (on lamps and the Isthmia fortress); and a few chapters consider the entire region (my piece on Roman settlement, Bill Caraher’s essay on the Justinianic Isthmus, and Tartaron’s piece on Bronze Age Kalamianos).

It’s worth noting that this is a collection of solid archaeological and (mostly) empirical essays on different facets of the history of the Isthmus, and especially the district of Isthmia. Some of the essays look like Hesperia articles with extensive catalogues and photos of artifacts. While the work’s scope provides “for the first time the longue durée of Isthmian history” (p. 1), covering the Mycenaean period to the end of antiquity, the editors do not attempt in the introduction (and there is no conclusion) to impose an overarching explanation or central thesis for the long-standing importance of the Isthmus through time. Rather, they offer a short discussion of its different values to ancient writers, an efficient overview of geography and topography of the broad Isthmus, a cursory history of research at Isthmia, and some discussion of recent research programs, publications, and approaches (which is only missing a substantial dicussion of recent efforts at digitization at Isthmia). What the introduction does establish is the long-lasting importance of the Isthmus in ancient thought and the important ties of the landscape to the city of Corinth — points that are discussed explicitly in many of the essays of the volume. But the essays largely stand on their own with little connection between.

In this respect, The Bridge of the Unitiring Sea should be most useful for Corinthian studies in its presentation of a series of state-of-the-field studies of different material classes (pottery, lamps, architecture, terracotta figurines) and sites, some of which are underpublished. Many of the scholars who have contributed essays to the volume have been engaged for years–decades, even–in archaeological research at Isthmia, the Isthmus, and Corinth and their material classes. The collection, for example, offers up-to-date assessments of the architectural development of the Temple of Poseidon, the history of settlement at Rachi, the West Foundation near Isthmia, the Roman bath, the mysterious “East Field” area near the Temple of Poseidon, and late antique lamps–most of which will form the subject of their own specialist publications in the future.

The work is valuable in a final respect in making available numerous up-to-date maps, plans, and illustrations: maps of the eastern Corinthia, the Isthmian district, the Sanctuary of Poseidon, and the Temple proper; maps of Bronze Age and Roman and Late Roman settlement in the Corinthia; state plans and restored views of the temple, sanctuary, and domestic architecture (at Rachi); reconstructed views of men at work; and dozens of photos of materials excavated at Isthmia.

As the Isthmus is central in so many ways to Corinthian history, this edited collection is a most welcome addition to the scholarship of the ancient Corinthia. And since the essays cover every period from prehistory to late antiquity (sadly, no medieval), and often consider the sanctuary’s relationship to Corinth specifically, this is a work relevant to anyone interested in ancient Corinth and Panhellenic sanctuaries.

On the Eutychia Mosaic Conservation

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EutychiaMosaicThe American School of Classical Studies at Athens posted this update yesterday about the conservation work surrounding the Eutychia Mosaic, which has been the focus of the Corinth excavation and conservation teams in recent years. The piece by Katherine M. Petrole discusses the excavation below the mosaic last summer, continued conservation, recent presentations about the work, and educational outreach programs designed to link the mosaic to culture and life in the Roman world. The article update also includes links to videos.

Here’s a taste:

In June 2015 Corinth Excavations hit something better than gold—bedrock! The soil underneath the Eutychia mosaic was removed to bedrock thanks to the careful work of Dr. Sarah James and Corinth Excavations workmen. Keep an eye out for her publication to learn about some of the fascinating finds and their potential implications for the South Stoa…Fun Fact: Did you know that Corinth Excavations now has an outreach program all about the Eutychia mosaic? It’s highlighted in a lesson plan about the cultural achievements of the Roman Empire. From a classroom in America, students can examine how this mosaic helps us learn about the Roman Empire, and their teacher can show current conservation work at Corinth Excavations. A variety of videos showing a behind-the-scenes look at the process of conservation will be available to teachers, and is linked below. With this case study of the Eutychia mosaic, we are looking at its connection to the Roman Empire and its connection to us today as an object of art:  a masterpiece laden with many meanings that affected the function of the space it decorated. It puts Corinth on the “Learning about the Roman Empire” map.

Read the full article here:

See related stories:

The End of Greek Athletics in Late Antiquity (Remijsen)

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This new book by Sofie Remijsen, scheduled for publication this month with Cambridge University Press, offers a fresh evaluation of how and why the tradition of athletic competitions came to an end in late antiquity. A work like this is long overdue in light of the long-standing and battered assumption that an imperial edict of Theodosius the Great simply shut the games down in the later fourth century. Judging from the book description, Remijsen will debunk that myth in a sweeping study of the entire circuit of Greek games.

As the book description puts it at the publisher page, “This book presents the first comprehensive study of how and why athletic contests, a characteristic aspect of Greek culture for over a millennium, disappeared in late antiquity. In contrast to previous discussions, which focus on the ancient Olympics, the end of the most famous games is analysed here in the context of the collapse of the entire international agonistic circuit, which encompassed several hundred contests. The first part of the book describes this collapse by means of a detailed analysis of the fourth- and fifth-century history of the athletic games in each region of the Mediterranean: Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Italy, Gaul and northern Africa. The second half continues by explaining these developments, challenging traditional theories (especially the ban by the Christian emperor Theodosius I) and discussing in detail both the late antique socio-economic context and the late antique perceptions of athletics.”

 

The Table of Contents itself suggests that this work will offer a new starting point in its comprehensive discussion:
Introduction
Part I. An Overview of Athletics in Late Antiquity:
1. Greece
2. Asia Minor
3. Syria
4. Egypt
5. Italy
6. Gaul
7. North Africa
Conclusions to Part I
Part II. Agones in a Changing World:
8. A religious ban?
9. An imperial ban?
10. The athletic professionals
11. Athletics as elite activity
12. The practical organization of agones
13. The agon as spectacle
Conclusions to Part II.

 

Since our corporate friends at Google have already scanned sections and random pages of the book, I can see that there are frequent discussions of Corinth and Isthmia throughout, which will no doubt provoke fresh debate among Corinthian scholars, or at least a broader framework for consideration. Indeed, the work clearly advances the view that the ending of the athletic contests were much later than traditionally imagined (390s). Remijsen, for example, concludes (p. 167) that the Isthmian games ended in the period of AD 410-435, a date significantly later than either of the prevailing views which see athletic competition and religious cult ending in either the mid-third century date, or the late fourth. Moreover, pushing the end of athletic contests into the fifth century will also have broader implications for Corinthiaka. One passage I read, for example, reevaluates Antony Spawforth’s influential view (and that of Bruno Keil long before him) that the Emperor Julian’s Epistle 198 (“The Letter on behalf of the Argives”) was written not by Julian but some other author in the later first or early second century AD; Remijsen argues, rather, that the letter fits well within a mid-fourth century context.

 

That all of this comes from a snippet view suggests that the work has broad implications for the archaeology and history of the Roman and late antique Corinthia. Looking forward to reading the work and the critical reviews.

Ancient Corinth in the Digital Public Library of America

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The Digital Public Library of America boasts an expanding collection of 11,000,000 images, books, and video from public libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. If you’re unfamiliar with this new resource, the DPLA is a portal and platform launched in 2013 that enables a user anywhere to discover cultural materials once locked up in public libraries across the country. As the DPLA website describes the organization:

The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used, through its three main elements:

This short YouTube video offers a compelling overview of the DLPLA’s vision, mission, and scope. The project is a brilliant one that promises to create a longer-lasting and higher-quality digitization of cultural material with solid metadata than commercial giants like Google have done with Google Books.

IndexPlentiful Corinthian material is already available and one can imagine the material will grow rapidly. A word search on “Corinth, Greece” at the time of this post returns about a hundred hits for historic and recent photographs, stereo photo-negatives, plans, postcards, illustrations, old maps, novels, and archaeology and historical monographs in PDF. A search on “Corinth” returns over 1,300 hits although much of that material returns content related to particular American churches (e.g., Corinth Baptist Church) or towns in Mississippi and Vermont. But the relevant material includes private collections of photographs of Corinth, made widely available for the first time, and pdf versions of  scholarship such asCorinth VII.1 and Carl Blegen’s dissertation, to name a couple of examples.

As with most digital resources that cover such extensive ground, the metadata is uneven and depends on the investments made during the digitization process. Some records for the Corinthia have a full description about the source while others, such as the imaginative illustration of Corinth pasted above, lack the cues that could help the reader understand the illustration. The digital record is simply titled “Ancient Corinth,” tagged with a creation date of 1884-1885, and ascribed to John Clark Ridpath’s Universal history : an account of the origin, primitive condition, and race development of the greater division of mankind. (New York : Merrill Baker, c1899). I tracked found the original image in volume 1 of Ridpath’s earlier work, Cyclopædia of Universal History, which was published a full decade before excavations began at ancient Corinth.

Moreover, in extensive data resources like the DPLA, there’s always the risk of the loss of original context.  The imaginative vision of ancient Corinth, in fact, comes from a passage about the end of the Greek polis and the rise of Macedon. It is encased in 19th century nostalgia for a lost antiquity. It is almost wholly the work of imagination.

“The voice of the Greek, so shrill in battle so musical in peace; his gay activities, his energy, so often reviving from humiliation and ruin; his brush, his chisel–alas, for all these! where are they? The beauty of Athens has sunk into the dust. The wolves of Mount Taygetus howl in the Grecian communities, their failure in public spirit…For the present, it is sufficient to take leave, not without regret, of that brilliant dark among the broken stones of Sparta. The splendor of Corinth is no more. Only by the imperishable Thought–the verse of Homer, the page of Herodotus, the infinite spirit of Plato, the clarion of Demosthenes–has the renown of Hellas survived, illumining the world that now is, and shedding a glory over her name, even to teh far-off shores of the setting sun.”

This is not to downplay the tremendous asset of the DPLA for research and teaching purposes, but the visitor should use thsi resource aware of the quality of the metadata.

Classical Archaeology in Context (Haggis and Antonaccio, eds.)

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This new book published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH should be of wide interest for classical archaeologists who understand how particular contexts, theory, and method frame archaeological research, data, results, and conclusions at the end of the day. As one of the longest-running excavations in the Mediterranean, references to Corinth are plentiful. I am also glad to see due attention paid to smaller rural sites in the Mediterranean. Here are the details:

Haggis, Donald, and Carla Antonaccio, eds. Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2015.

 

“This book compiles a series of case studies derived from archaeological excavation in Greek cultural contexts in the Mediterranean (ca. 800-100 B.C), addressing the current state of the field, the goals and direction of Greek archaeology, and its place in archaeological thought and practice. Overviews of archaeological sites and analyses of assemblages and contexts explore how new forms of data; methods of data recovery and analysis; and sampling strategies have affected the discourse in classical archaeology and the range of research questions and strategies at our disposal. Recent excavations and field practices are steering the way that we approach Greek cultural landscapes and form broader theoretical perspectives, while generating new research questions and interpretive frameworks that in turn affect how we sample sites, collect and study material remains, and ultimately construct the archaeological record. The book confronts the implications of an integrated dialogue between realms of data and interpretive methodologies, addressing how reengagement with the site, assemblage, or artifact, from the excavation context can structure the way that we link archaeological and systemic contexts in classical archaeology.”

CONTENTS

1. Donald C. Haggis and Carla M. Antonaccio, “A Contextual Archaeology of Ancient Greece”

Historical Contexts and Intellectual Traditions

2. James Whitley, “Scholarly Traditions and Scientific Paradigms: Method and Reflexivity in the Study of Ancient Praisos”

3. Carla M. Antonaccio, “Re-excavating Morgantina”

4. David B. Small, “A Defective Master Narrative in Greek Archaeology

5. Tamar Hodos, “Lycia and Classical Archaeology: The Changing Nature of Archaeology in Turkey”

Mortuary Contexts

6. Alexandra Alexandridou, “Shedding Light on Mortuary Practices in Early Archaic Attica: The Case of the Offering Trenches” 

7. Anna Lagia, “The Potential and Limitations of Bioarchaeological Investigations in Classical Contexts in Greece: An Example from the Polis of Athens”

Urban and Rural Contexts

8. Jamieson C. Donati, “The Greek Agora in its Peloponnesian Context(s)” 

9. Donald C. Haggis, “The Archaeology of Urbanization: Research Design and the Excavation of an Archaic Greek City on Crete”

10. Manolis I. Stefanakis, Konstantinos Kalogeropoulos, Andreas Georgopoulos, and Chryssi Bourbou, “Exploring the Ancient Demos of Kymissaleis on Rhodes: Multdisciplinary Experimental Research and Theoretical Issues” 

11. Kalliope E. Galanaki, Christina Papadaki, and Kostis S. Christakis, “The Hellenistic Settlement on Prophetes Elias Hill at Arkalochori, Crete: Preliminary Remarks”

12. Evi Margaritis, “Cultivating Classical Archaeology: Agricultural Activities, Use of Space and Occupation Patterns in Hellenistic Greece” 

Sanctuary Contexts

13. Athanasia Kyriakou and Alexandros Tourtas, “Detecting Patterns through Context Analysis: A Case Study of Deposits from the Sanctuary of Eukleia at Aegae (Vergina)” 

14. Dimitra Mylona, “From Fish Bones to Fishermen: Views from the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia”

Paul’s Political Strategy in 1 Corinthians 1-4 (Bitner)

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Bradley Bitner’s new book on Paul’s political theology, published last month with Cambridge University Press, looks to offer an interesting approach to understanding the opening chapters of the New Testament letter of 1 Corinthians. Here are the details from the publisher page:

Bitner, Bradley J. Paul’s Political Strategy in 1 Corinthians 1-4. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Introduction: constituting the argument

Part I. Constitution and Covenant in Corinth:
1. Paul and politics
2. Law and life
3. The Corinthian constitution
4. Traces of covenant in Corinth
5. Constituting Corinth, Paul, and the assembly
Part II. Constitution and Covenant in 1 Corinthians 1:1-4:6:
6. 1 Corinthians 1:4-9 and the politics of thanksgiving
7. 1 Corinthians 3:5-4:5 and the politics of construction
Conclusion: comparison of constitutions.

Paul's Political Strategy in 1 Corinthians 1–4This volume examines 1 Corinthians 1-4 within first-century politics, demonstrating the significance of Corinth’s constitution to the interpretation of Paul’s letter. Bradley J. Bitner shows that Paul carefully considered the Roman colonial context of Corinth, which underlay numerous ecclesial conflicts. Roman politics, however, cannot account for the entire shape of Paul’s response. Bridging the Hellenism-Judaism divide that has characterised much of Pauline scholarship, Bitner argues that Paul also appropriated Jewish-biblical notions of covenant. Epigraphical and papyrological evidence indicates that his chosen content and manner are best understood with reference to an ecclesial politeia informed by a distinctively Christ-centred political theology. This emerges as a ‘politics of thanksgiving’ in 1 Corinthians 1:4-9 and as a ‘politics of construction’ in 3:5-4:5, where Paul redirects gratitude and glory to God in Christ. This innovative account of Paul’s political theology offers fresh insight into his pastoral strategy among nascent Gentile-Jewish assemblies.