School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemSocial, civic and architectural unity at Aspendos, Aphrodisias and Oenoanda: three Greek agoras in Asia Minor( 2011)This thesis discusses the development of the Greek agora in three cities in Asia Minor: Aspendos, Aphrodisias and Oenoanda, from the Hellenistic period to the end of new major public building work in the late Imperial period. Previous scholarship of Greek agoras in Asia Minor has tended to focus on individual buildings, using a comparative methodology to establish the extent to which any building was representative of its type. This approach has been essential in understanding the evolution of specific buildings but has at times overlooked the interplay of the architecture on the agora and its relationship with other elements which were typically found there such as honorific inscriptions, statue monuments and altars. The agora was the political and social heart of a Classical-style polis and most likely originated as a large open space for citizens to participate in public life. The agora subsequently evolved specific building types to accommodate for the increasingly wide range of activities practised there. It also came to be one of the preferred locations for local and foreign elite to practice euergetism in order to legitimise their positions of power and right to rule within the social hierarchy of the city. This thesis takes up the concept of ‘urban armature’ and focuses this approach on the agora’s role in a city as the provider of social and civic unity as well as a space for the expression of the identity of its citizens. Apart from the discussion of the architectural development of the buildings which could be found on the agora, this thesis also takes into account historical, social, political and economic factors especially in terms of their effect on the architectural development of the agoras in the three cities discussed in this thesis. By applying this approach to three case studies, new observations are made about the agora and its development in these cities.
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ItemThe context of wall brackets during the Late Bronze Age on Cyprus( 2011)Wall brackets are enigmatic ceramic objects which begin to be found on Cyprus during the Late Cypriot (ca. 1600-1050 B.C.) and proceeding Cypro-Geometric period (ca. 1050-750 B.C.). They have been found in diverse contexts including domestic structures, sanctuaries, industrial areas and tombs. Their function is not known although a number have been suggested, including lamps, incense burners, coal scoops, water ladles and figure holders. This has made it difficult to determine their meaning and until recently they have mostly been interpreted through stylistic and iconographic comparisons with other objects, or through the use of analogy with wall brackets found outside of Cyprus or from much later periods. The results of these interpretations have usually been paradoxically either that they are perfectly mundane objects or that they are a ritual/religious object. Several recent approaches have used contextual analysis to attempt to determine the meaning and function of wall brackets outside of Cyprus. Although they have been more successful than previous analyses, they were hampered by the uncritical inclusion of earlier less rigorous investigations. A contextual analyses of the wall brackets from the Late Cypriot period on Cyprus indicates that a multiplicity of functions including as lamps, incense burners, scoops and as holders for other objects was possible. Their context of use also indicates a broad range of meanings. This ranged from them being integral to ritual activity and ceremonially disposed of, to being discarded as part of a feasting deposit with either fragments being included because this was a meaningful act or because other fragments were curated as tokens, to them being simply discarded as refuse when broken and no longer functional.
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ItemWhat are these queer stones? Baetyls: epistemology of a Minoan fetish( 2011)This thesis examines the aniconic cult stones, or baetyls, of the Aegean Bronze Age. Minoan baetyls are commonly understood by reference to the interpretive vocabularies of ancient Near Eastern traditions adopted by comparative ethnographies popular in the early 20th century. This study presents and interrogates the Aegean evidence for baetyl cult, providing the first comprehensive catalogue of archaeological evidence attesting to this cultic practice. A rigorous contextual analysis provides the basis for interpreting and (re)constructing aspects of the cult. It is argued that the ambiguity inherent in these aniconic stones renders them uniquely flexible in serving multiple functions across different contexts.
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ItemMedia and motivations: a discourse analysis of media representations of Eilat Mazar’s ‘City of David’ excavations( 2010)The primary aim of this thesis is to examine the scholarly discourse surrounding the recent excavations conducted by Eilat Mazar at the ‘City of David’ site in Jerusalem, specifically her claims regarding the unearthing of King David’s palace. Through an analysis of the reports and results published by prior excavators of the ‘City of David’ site, Mazar’s conclusions regarding King David’s palace will be critiqued, as will the ideologies of her chief sources of funding, the Jerusalem based Shalem Centre and the Ir David Foundation. Social context surrounding Mazar’s excavations will also be examined, highlighting text often omitted from archaeological discourse, such as popular magazine articles, tourist pamphlets and blogs, in order to better understand both the ideological and political agendas that impacting upon Mazar’s conclusions and publications. The politicization of archaeology throughout the Near East, whether it is omission of Muslim history from Jerusalem tourist brochures or the complete denial of any Jewish historical claims to the Temple Mount, is an issue that greatly effects the interpretation, publication and dissemination of scholarly debate. Eilat Mazar’s work at the ‘City of David’ is a prime example of this issue, for while archaeologists internationally and domestically continue to debate her conclusions, the popular press has presented her findings as near definitive facts. Mazar’s aim to uncover the palace of King David is therefore not the primary issue, for although her belief in the historicity of the biblical narrative certainly influences her results, it is of greater concern that the public’s access to all academic arguments and theories is being limited. The fact that in over fifty articles published about Mazar’s discovery of King David’s palace not a single one mentions that her conclusions are based on preliminary results illustrating this lack of transparency. Ultimately it is the intention of this thesis to not only present the arguments for and against Eilat Mazar’s interpretations regarding King David’s palace, by comparing her conclusions with those of prior excavators and recent academic responses, but also to show the motivations behind her results and the impacts of funding, politics and faith (social context) can have upon scholarly conclusions.
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ItemAn analysis of the Palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad: its organisation and function( 1994)“Palace of Sargon prefect of Enlil, priest of Assur the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria.....Following the prompting of my heart, at the foot of Mount Musri, I built a city and called its name Dur-Sharrukin.....Palaces of ivory, maple, boxwood, mulberry, cedar and cypress, juniper, pine and pistachio-wood I built therein and erected a bit-hilani, patterned after a Hittite palace, in front of their gates, and beams of cedar and cypress I placed over them.....Whoever destroys the work of my hands, who obliterates my noble deeds, may Assur, the great lord, destroy his name and his seed from the land.” Thus does the proud voice of king Sargon II of Assyria speak out to us across the millennia. Inscribed on tablets hidden in the walls of his royal palace, on the gigantic lammasu figures guarding its entrances and on the paving stones of the city gates, similar messages promise his imprecations to those presumptuous enough to deface his monuments. Unfortunately for this mighty Assyrian king, his exhortation to later generations to preserve his palace's “of ivory and boxwood...” at his newly built capital, Dur-Sharrukin, utterly failed. Barely a year after his new city's dedication in 706 B.C.E., Sargon was killed in battle. His son and successor Sennacherib decided to abandon the not yet complete royal city and move the royal residence and Assyrian capital to the site of Nineveh, where it remained until the fall of the Empire in 612 B.C.E. Dur-Sharrukin, standing ignored and unfinished, would never again capture the attention of an Assyrian monarch. As it slowly disappeared beneath amorphous mounds of earth and stone, so too did its memory drift into myth and oblivion. However, in 1843, after spending almost two thousand years lying deserted and buried in both the earth and the minds of man, the efforts of two Frenchmen digging at the small village of Khorsabad in northern Iraq, brought the “Palace without a rival” of King Sargon II of Assyria into the light of day once more.
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ItemFrom house church to tenement church: domestic space and the development of early urban Christianity( 2010)The thesis attempts to posit a solution to the widely attested gap in our current knowledge regarding the physical circumstances in which the first urban Christians met and established a tangible presence in their social world. Whilst the literary record points to the phenomena of the ‘house church’ in multiple localities across the Roman world, there is a paucity of archaeological evidence for houses large enough to accommodate the numbers involved, and no attested record of purpose-renovated or purpose-built meeting places until well into the third century. The application of a relatively new approach in the sociological investigation of ancient communities, known as social networking theory, is applied to understand the social circumstances under which communities were formed and cohered around a common cultic practice or figure in the ancient world. This sheds light on the manner in which such groups formed and adds to our knowledge of both the social and physical circumstances experienced by the first generations of Christians in the urban environments of the Graeco-Roman city during the critical stage of the development of the group’s architecture, occupying the period c. 50 -150 CE. The possibility that the insula or apartment block may provide a suitable locale on both physical and social grounds, is then discussed appealing to both literary and archaeological evidence.