Monograph by Miko Flohr
The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-qualit... more The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-quality garments, of Roman Italy. Analyzing the social and economic worlds in which the fullers lived and worked, it tells the story of their economic circumstances, the way they organized their workshops, the places where they worked in the city, and their everyday lives on the shop floor and beyond.
Through focusing on the lower segments of society, Flohr uses everyday work as the major organizing principle of the narrative: the volume discusses the decisions taken by those responsible for the organization of work, and how these decisions subsequently had an impact on the social lives of people carrying out the work. It emphasizes how socio-economic differences between cities resulted in fundamentally different working lives for many of their people, and that not only were economic activities shaped by Roman society, they in turn played a key role in shaping it.
Using an in-depth and qualitative analysis of material remains related to economic activities, with a combined study of epigraphic and literary records, this volume portrays an insightful view of the socio-economic history of urban communities in the Roman world.
Edited Volumes by Miko Flohr
This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Medi... more This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the fi rst centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history.
The contributions explore how these cities developed landscapes full of civic memory and ritual, saw commercial priorities transforming the urban environment, and began to expand signifi cantly beyond their wall circuits. These interrelated developments not only changed how cities looked and could be experienced, but they also affected the functioning of the urban community and together contributed to keeping increasingly complex urban communities socially cohesive. By focusing on the transformation of urban landscapes in the Late Republican and Imperial periods, the volume adds a new, explicitly historical angle to current debates about urban space in Roman studies. Confronting archaeological and historical approaches, the volume presents developments in Italy, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, thus significantly broadening the geographical scope of the discussion and offering novel theoretical perspectives alongside well- documented, thematic case studies.
Urban Space and Urban History in the Roman World will be of interest to anyone working on Roman urbanism or Roman history in the Late Republic and early Empire.
M. Flohr and A. I. Wilson (eds), The Economy of Pompeii (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy). Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017
This volume presents fourteen papers by Roman archaeologists and historians discussing approaches... more This volume presents fourteen papers by Roman archaeologists and historians discussing approaches to the economic history of Pompeii, and the role of the Pompeian evidence in debates about the Roman economy. Four themes are discussed. The first of these is the position of Pompeii and its agricultural environment, discussing the productivity and specialization of agriculture in the Vesuvian region, and the degree to which we can explain Pompeii’s size and wealth on the basis of the city’s economic hinterland. A second issue discussed is what Pompeians got out of their economy: how well-off were people in Pompeii? This involves discussing the consumption of everyday consumer goods, analyzing archaeobotanical remains to highlight the quality of Pompeian diets, and discussing what bone remains reveal about the health of the inhabitants of Pompeii. A third theme is economic life in the city: how are we to understand the evidence for crafts and manufacturing? How are we to assess Pompeii’s commercial topography? Who were the people who actually invested in constructing shops and workshops? In which economic contexts were Pompeian paintings produced? Finally, the volume discusses money and business: how integrated was Pompeii into the wider world of commerce and exchange, and what can the many coins found at Pompeii tell us about this? What do the wax tablets found near Pompeii tell us about trade in the Bay of Naples in the first century AD? Together, the chapters of this volume highlight how Pompeii became a very rich community, and how it profited from its position in the centre of the Roman world.
Wilson, A. I. and Flohr, M. (eds) (2016). Urban craftsmen and traders in the Roman world (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy). Oxford, Oxford University Press, Feb 11, 2016
This interdisciplinary volume presents sixteen papers by Roman historians and archaeologists, dis... more This interdisciplinary volume presents sixteen papers by Roman historians and archaeologists, discussing approaches to the economic history of urban craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, with a particular emphasis on the imperial period.
After an introduction by the editors, which discusses recent developments in the study of Roman craftsmen and traders and their changing place in Roman economic history, the remainder of the volume is divided into four sections. The first three chapters discuss the scholarly history of Roman crafts and trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, identifying different national traditions in the scholarship and showing how they influenced the development of thinking in very different ways in different regions, something which this book aims to overcome by promoting a greater interchange of ideas and perspectives between traditions.
A chapter by Flohr and Wilson discusses the development of academic debate in Germany and the Anglo-Saxon world, highlighting the role of new sets of evidence and changing scholarly ideologies in pushing forward scholarly discourse. This broad chapter sets the stage for the two following chapters. Carla Salvaterra and Alessandro Cristofori sketch the development of debates on craftsmen and traders in twentieth century Italy, with particular emphasis on the fascist era and the marxist fashion in the 1970s. Jean-Pierre Brun discusses the historical development of debate among francophone scholars in the light of recent French approaches to the archaeology of crafts in Roman Italy.
The second section highlights the economic strategies of craftsmen and traders. The first two chapters discuss this issue in general terms. Candace Rice discusses strategies to overcome information deficiencies by people involved in maritime trade over longer distances. Kai Ruffing analyzes the phenomenon of specialization among urban craftsmen and retailers, with a particular emphasis on epigraphic and papyrological evidence from Asia Minor and Egypt. The other two chapters focus on specific trades: Carol van Driel-Murray investigates the marketing strategies of shoemakers in the Northern provinces based on preserved shoeware, while Nicolas Monteix discusses strategies by how bakers to aimed to enhance the efficiency of their workshops, based on archaeological evidence from Pompeii.
Subsequently, there are five chapters highlighting the human factor in urban crafts and trade, with particular reference to labour organisation. A chapter by Christel Freu discusses the phenomenon of apprenticeship. This is followed by a chapter by Lena Larsson Lovén on women’s work. Wim Broekaert analyzes the role of freedmen and their former owners in urban economic life. Nicolas Tran and Ilias Arnaoutoglou discuss the role of professional associations – the former in the port city of Arles, and the latter in Hierapolis in Asia Minor.
The final section discusses the position of crafts in urban space. It starts with two complementary chapters by Penelope Goodman and Kerstin Dross-Krüpe discussing the phenomenon of artisanal clustering from, respectively, an archaeological and papyrological perspective. The other two chapters present case studies of the commercial landscape of two cities: Orsolya Lang sketches the historical development of the civilian town of Aquincum, while Jeroen Poblome focuses on the urban context of the Potters’ Quarter at Sagalassos.
Together, the papers present a range of possible approaches to studying aspects of the socioeconomic lives of craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, on the basis of widely different sources of written and material evidence.
More than 250 years after its discovery, Pompeii continues to resonate powerfully in both academi... more More than 250 years after its discovery, Pompeii continues to resonate powerfully in both academic discourse and the popular imagination. This volume brings together a collection of ten papers that advance, challenge and revise the present conceptions of the city's art, industry and infrastructure.
The discussions of domestic art in this book, a perennial topic for Pompeian scholars, engage previously neglected subjects such as wall ornaments in domestic decoration, the sculpture collection in the house of Octavius Quartio, and the role of the covered walkways in luxury villa architecture. The famous cupid's frieze from the house of the Vettii is given a novel and intelligent reinterpretation. The place of industry at Pompeii, in both the physical and economic landscapes has long been overlooked. The chapters on building practice in inhabited houses, on the presence of fulling workshops in atrium houses, and on the urban pottery industry serve as successful contributions to a more complete understanding of the life of the ancient city.
Finally, this volume breaks new ground in the consideration of the urban infrastructure of Pompeii, a topic that has won serious attention only in the last decades, but one that is playing an increasingly central role in Pompeian studies. The final three chapters offer a reassessment of the Pompeian street network, a scientific analysis of the amount of lead in Pompeian drinking water, and a thorough analysis of the water infrastructure around the forum that supported its architectural transformation in the last decades before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. 200p, 99 illus. (Oxbow Books 2011)
Journal Articles by Miko Flohr
Hermeneus, 2019
Na een relatieve rust van meerdere decennia verricht men in Pompeii sinds een paar jaar weer op k... more Na een relatieve rust van meerdere decennia verricht men in Pompeii sinds een paar jaar weer op kleine schaal opgravingen in het vulkanische sediment van 79 n.Chr. In de zomer van 2017 werden hierbij tijdens werkzaamheden direct ten zuiden van de stad de resten van een groot grafmonument gevonden met een sensationeel lange en gedetailleerde inscriptie. Deze wordt op grond van een vermoedelijke verwijzing naar de nasleep van ook door Tacitus genoemde rellen in het Pompeiaanse amfitheater (59 n.Chr.) en een verkapte verwijzing naar keizer Nero gedateerd in de laatste tien jaar van het bestaan van de stad. De tekst vertelt uitgebreid over de daden en gunsten van een niet bij naam genoemde weldoener, en geeft en passant gedetailleerde informatie over de stad en haar inwoners. Dit artikel presenteert een eerste Nederlandse vertaling van de inscriptie, en bespreekt hoe de tekst een ander licht werpt op het Pompeii van de vroege keizertijd.
American Journal of Archaeology, 2019
This article investigates how consumer demand shaped markets for high-quality domestic decoration... more This article investigates how consumer demand shaped markets for high-quality domestic decoration in the Roman world and highlights how this affected the economic strategies of people involved in the production and trade of high-quality wall decoration, mosaics, and sculpture. The argument analyzes the consumption of high-quality domestic decoration at Pompeii and models the structure of demand for decorative skills in the Roman world at large. The Pompeian case study focuses on three categories of high-quality decoration: Late Hellenistic opus vermiculatum mosaics, first-century C.E. fourth-style panel pictures, and domestic sculpture. Analyzing the spread of these mosaics, paintings, and statues over a database of Pompeian houses makes it possible to reconstruct a demand profile for each category of decoration and to discuss the nature of its supply economy. It is argued that the market for high-quality decoration at Pompeii provided few incentives for professionals to acquire specialist skills and that this has broader implications: as market conditions in Pompeii and the Bay of Naples region were significantly above average, the strategic possibilities for painters, mosaicists, and sculptors in many parts of the Roman world were even more restricted and, consequently, their motivation to invest in skills and repertoire remained limited.
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2016
This article assesses the impact of innovation on Roman society. It starts from a critical engage... more This article assesses the impact of innovation on Roman society. It starts from a critical engagement with past debate about technological progress, which over the past decades has been too strongly focused on economic growth, and a re-appreciation of the literary evidence for innovation, which points to a culture in which technological knowledge and invention were thought to matter. Then, it highlights two areas where the uptake of technology had a direct impact on everyday life: material culture, where the emergence of glass-blowing, a proliferation of metal-working, and innovation in pottery-production changed the nature and amount of artefacts by which people surrounded themselves, and construction, where building techniques using opus caementicium, arches and standardized building materials revolutionized urban and rural landscapes. A concluding discussion highlights the role of integration of the Mediterranean under Roman rule in making innovation possible, and the role of consumer demand in bringing it about.
Forma Urbis, XIX, 9, 42-44, Sep 2014
Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2013
A fiercely debated aspect of Pompeii's history, is the nature of the city's textile economy. This... more A fiercely debated aspect of Pompeii's history, is the nature of the city's textile economy. This paper presents a new perspective, in which the Pompeian textile economy is contextualized and discussed in relation to local, regional and supra-regional economic networks.
Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie, 2013
Babesch 82.1, 129-148., 2007
FOLD&R Fasti On Line Documents & Research, 214, 2011
FOLD&R FastiOnLine documents & research, Jan 1, 2008
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Monograph by Miko Flohr
Through focusing on the lower segments of society, Flohr uses everyday work as the major organizing principle of the narrative: the volume discusses the decisions taken by those responsible for the organization of work, and how these decisions subsequently had an impact on the social lives of people carrying out the work. It emphasizes how socio-economic differences between cities resulted in fundamentally different working lives for many of their people, and that not only were economic activities shaped by Roman society, they in turn played a key role in shaping it.
Using an in-depth and qualitative analysis of material remains related to economic activities, with a combined study of epigraphic and literary records, this volume portrays an insightful view of the socio-economic history of urban communities in the Roman world.
Edited Volumes by Miko Flohr
The contributions explore how these cities developed landscapes full of civic memory and ritual, saw commercial priorities transforming the urban environment, and began to expand signifi cantly beyond their wall circuits. These interrelated developments not only changed how cities looked and could be experienced, but they also affected the functioning of the urban community and together contributed to keeping increasingly complex urban communities socially cohesive. By focusing on the transformation of urban landscapes in the Late Republican and Imperial periods, the volume adds a new, explicitly historical angle to current debates about urban space in Roman studies. Confronting archaeological and historical approaches, the volume presents developments in Italy, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, thus significantly broadening the geographical scope of the discussion and offering novel theoretical perspectives alongside well- documented, thematic case studies.
Urban Space and Urban History in the Roman World will be of interest to anyone working on Roman urbanism or Roman history in the Late Republic and early Empire.
After an introduction by the editors, which discusses recent developments in the study of Roman craftsmen and traders and their changing place in Roman economic history, the remainder of the volume is divided into four sections. The first three chapters discuss the scholarly history of Roman crafts and trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, identifying different national traditions in the scholarship and showing how they influenced the development of thinking in very different ways in different regions, something which this book aims to overcome by promoting a greater interchange of ideas and perspectives between traditions.
A chapter by Flohr and Wilson discusses the development of academic debate in Germany and the Anglo-Saxon world, highlighting the role of new sets of evidence and changing scholarly ideologies in pushing forward scholarly discourse. This broad chapter sets the stage for the two following chapters. Carla Salvaterra and Alessandro Cristofori sketch the development of debates on craftsmen and traders in twentieth century Italy, with particular emphasis on the fascist era and the marxist fashion in the 1970s. Jean-Pierre Brun discusses the historical development of debate among francophone scholars in the light of recent French approaches to the archaeology of crafts in Roman Italy.
The second section highlights the economic strategies of craftsmen and traders. The first two chapters discuss this issue in general terms. Candace Rice discusses strategies to overcome information deficiencies by people involved in maritime trade over longer distances. Kai Ruffing analyzes the phenomenon of specialization among urban craftsmen and retailers, with a particular emphasis on epigraphic and papyrological evidence from Asia Minor and Egypt. The other two chapters focus on specific trades: Carol van Driel-Murray investigates the marketing strategies of shoemakers in the Northern provinces based on preserved shoeware, while Nicolas Monteix discusses strategies by how bakers to aimed to enhance the efficiency of their workshops, based on archaeological evidence from Pompeii.
Subsequently, there are five chapters highlighting the human factor in urban crafts and trade, with particular reference to labour organisation. A chapter by Christel Freu discusses the phenomenon of apprenticeship. This is followed by a chapter by Lena Larsson Lovén on women’s work. Wim Broekaert analyzes the role of freedmen and their former owners in urban economic life. Nicolas Tran and Ilias Arnaoutoglou discuss the role of professional associations – the former in the port city of Arles, and the latter in Hierapolis in Asia Minor.
The final section discusses the position of crafts in urban space. It starts with two complementary chapters by Penelope Goodman and Kerstin Dross-Krüpe discussing the phenomenon of artisanal clustering from, respectively, an archaeological and papyrological perspective. The other two chapters present case studies of the commercial landscape of two cities: Orsolya Lang sketches the historical development of the civilian town of Aquincum, while Jeroen Poblome focuses on the urban context of the Potters’ Quarter at Sagalassos.
Together, the papers present a range of possible approaches to studying aspects of the socioeconomic lives of craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, on the basis of widely different sources of written and material evidence.
The discussions of domestic art in this book, a perennial topic for Pompeian scholars, engage previously neglected subjects such as wall ornaments in domestic decoration, the sculpture collection in the house of Octavius Quartio, and the role of the covered walkways in luxury villa architecture. The famous cupid's frieze from the house of the Vettii is given a novel and intelligent reinterpretation. The place of industry at Pompeii, in both the physical and economic landscapes has long been overlooked. The chapters on building practice in inhabited houses, on the presence of fulling workshops in atrium houses, and on the urban pottery industry serve as successful contributions to a more complete understanding of the life of the ancient city.
Finally, this volume breaks new ground in the consideration of the urban infrastructure of Pompeii, a topic that has won serious attention only in the last decades, but one that is playing an increasingly central role in Pompeian studies. The final three chapters offer a reassessment of the Pompeian street network, a scientific analysis of the amount of lead in Pompeian drinking water, and a thorough analysis of the water infrastructure around the forum that supported its architectural transformation in the last decades before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. 200p, 99 illus. (Oxbow Books 2011)
Journal Articles by Miko Flohr
Through focusing on the lower segments of society, Flohr uses everyday work as the major organizing principle of the narrative: the volume discusses the decisions taken by those responsible for the organization of work, and how these decisions subsequently had an impact on the social lives of people carrying out the work. It emphasizes how socio-economic differences between cities resulted in fundamentally different working lives for many of their people, and that not only were economic activities shaped by Roman society, they in turn played a key role in shaping it.
Using an in-depth and qualitative analysis of material remains related to economic activities, with a combined study of epigraphic and literary records, this volume portrays an insightful view of the socio-economic history of urban communities in the Roman world.
The contributions explore how these cities developed landscapes full of civic memory and ritual, saw commercial priorities transforming the urban environment, and began to expand signifi cantly beyond their wall circuits. These interrelated developments not only changed how cities looked and could be experienced, but they also affected the functioning of the urban community and together contributed to keeping increasingly complex urban communities socially cohesive. By focusing on the transformation of urban landscapes in the Late Republican and Imperial periods, the volume adds a new, explicitly historical angle to current debates about urban space in Roman studies. Confronting archaeological and historical approaches, the volume presents developments in Italy, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, thus significantly broadening the geographical scope of the discussion and offering novel theoretical perspectives alongside well- documented, thematic case studies.
Urban Space and Urban History in the Roman World will be of interest to anyone working on Roman urbanism or Roman history in the Late Republic and early Empire.
After an introduction by the editors, which discusses recent developments in the study of Roman craftsmen and traders and their changing place in Roman economic history, the remainder of the volume is divided into four sections. The first three chapters discuss the scholarly history of Roman crafts and trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, identifying different national traditions in the scholarship and showing how they influenced the development of thinking in very different ways in different regions, something which this book aims to overcome by promoting a greater interchange of ideas and perspectives between traditions.
A chapter by Flohr and Wilson discusses the development of academic debate in Germany and the Anglo-Saxon world, highlighting the role of new sets of evidence and changing scholarly ideologies in pushing forward scholarly discourse. This broad chapter sets the stage for the two following chapters. Carla Salvaterra and Alessandro Cristofori sketch the development of debates on craftsmen and traders in twentieth century Italy, with particular emphasis on the fascist era and the marxist fashion in the 1970s. Jean-Pierre Brun discusses the historical development of debate among francophone scholars in the light of recent French approaches to the archaeology of crafts in Roman Italy.
The second section highlights the economic strategies of craftsmen and traders. The first two chapters discuss this issue in general terms. Candace Rice discusses strategies to overcome information deficiencies by people involved in maritime trade over longer distances. Kai Ruffing analyzes the phenomenon of specialization among urban craftsmen and retailers, with a particular emphasis on epigraphic and papyrological evidence from Asia Minor and Egypt. The other two chapters focus on specific trades: Carol van Driel-Murray investigates the marketing strategies of shoemakers in the Northern provinces based on preserved shoeware, while Nicolas Monteix discusses strategies by how bakers to aimed to enhance the efficiency of their workshops, based on archaeological evidence from Pompeii.
Subsequently, there are five chapters highlighting the human factor in urban crafts and trade, with particular reference to labour organisation. A chapter by Christel Freu discusses the phenomenon of apprenticeship. This is followed by a chapter by Lena Larsson Lovén on women’s work. Wim Broekaert analyzes the role of freedmen and their former owners in urban economic life. Nicolas Tran and Ilias Arnaoutoglou discuss the role of professional associations – the former in the port city of Arles, and the latter in Hierapolis in Asia Minor.
The final section discusses the position of crafts in urban space. It starts with two complementary chapters by Penelope Goodman and Kerstin Dross-Krüpe discussing the phenomenon of artisanal clustering from, respectively, an archaeological and papyrological perspective. The other two chapters present case studies of the commercial landscape of two cities: Orsolya Lang sketches the historical development of the civilian town of Aquincum, while Jeroen Poblome focuses on the urban context of the Potters’ Quarter at Sagalassos.
Together, the papers present a range of possible approaches to studying aspects of the socioeconomic lives of craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, on the basis of widely different sources of written and material evidence.
The discussions of domestic art in this book, a perennial topic for Pompeian scholars, engage previously neglected subjects such as wall ornaments in domestic decoration, the sculpture collection in the house of Octavius Quartio, and the role of the covered walkways in luxury villa architecture. The famous cupid's frieze from the house of the Vettii is given a novel and intelligent reinterpretation. The place of industry at Pompeii, in both the physical and economic landscapes has long been overlooked. The chapters on building practice in inhabited houses, on the presence of fulling workshops in atrium houses, and on the urban pottery industry serve as successful contributions to a more complete understanding of the life of the ancient city.
Finally, this volume breaks new ground in the consideration of the urban infrastructure of Pompeii, a topic that has won serious attention only in the last decades, but one that is playing an increasingly central role in Pompeian studies. The final three chapters offer a reassessment of the Pompeian street network, a scientific analysis of the amount of lead in Pompeian drinking water, and a thorough analysis of the water infrastructure around the forum that supported its architectural transformation in the last decades before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. 200p, 99 illus. (Oxbow Books 2011)
dominated by everyday commercial life. Whatever the economic basis of individual cities or the urban system as a whole, and however negative the attitudes of elite authors towards manufacturing and retail, there is no doubt that, through their spatial positioning, craftsmen and retailers had a fundamental impact on the public atmosphere in many Roman cities. This also was true for Roman Ostia, from the Republic onwards, throughout its history until the last stages of urban decline. Key element in this spatial dominance of commercial life was the taberna, a
multifunctional commercial facility consisting of one big room with a wide opening to the street, and, often, one or more secondary
rooms behind or above the main room. The taberna tends to leave clearly identifiable remains in the archaeological record, which
allow archaeologists to reconstruct and analyse the commercial landscapes of cities that have been excavated on a larger scale, such as,
in central Italy, Pompeii, Ostia, and a limited number of other sites.
Personally, I only gradually came to be bothered by the geographical boundaries of ‘our’ ancient world. Of course, I learned about Rome’s intensive trade with India in the first and second centuries CE, and I read stuff about China under the Qin and Han emperors, but the actual position of Rome, and its empire, in the wider world of the early first millennium CE is something that only came onto my radar over the course of the last two years or so; perhaps, this is due to the increasingly heated debates about the extent to which European perceptions of the past are still firmly rooted in ideas defined in the era of European colonial empires. Should not a post-colonial view on the history of the world also have implications for the way in which we approach the Ancient Mediterranean, and if so, which?
In the first century CE, all of this was in the far future. ‘Indianization’ (as it is called by some) had not yet truly begun, and there is no evidence that the Indian religions had established a meaningful presence in Indonesia. In fact, no historical sources from the period exist: the oldest texts on Java date to the reign of an early fifth century (CE) king of the kingdom of Tarumanagara, who was called Purnawarman. They are written in Sanskrit using the so-called Pallava-script – indeed, both the language and the script came from India
An interesting case is that of Sembiran and Pacung on Bali. Bali, of course, lies immediately east of Java, but in the larger scheme of things that means that it is further away from the main trans-Asian seafaring routes, and therefore, its integration in ‘global’ networks of exchange was a bit more complicated. To put it a bit more bluntly: while North-West Java is relatively well-connected to a variety of places simply because of its location, Bali had mostly one claim to fame, and that is that it was (roughly) en route to the Maluku Islands, where unique spices could be obtained, and one of the debates amongst scholars is how intensive this spice trade had become in the early first Millennium CE.
Proposals for contributions, from provinces and elsewhere alike, are welcome.
See http://www.aiac2018.de/ for the procedure and https://www.academia.edu/31419127/The_impact_of_Roman_expansion_and_colonization_on_ancient_Italy_in_the_Republican_period._From_diffusionism_to_networks_of_opportunity for the position paper with examples regarding republican Italy.