Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World : Material and Textual Approaches

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.