Books by David K Pettegrew
The narrow neck of land that joins the Peloponnese with the Greek mainland was central to the for... more The narrow neck of land that joins the Peloponnese with the Greek mainland was central to the fortunes of the city of Corinth and the history of Greece from the classical Greek period to the end of the ancient world. Corinth was perfectly situated for monitoring land traffic between Athens and Sparta and overland movements between eastern and western seas.
David Pettegrew’s book offers a new history of the Isthmus of Corinth from the Romans’ initial presence in Greece during the Hellenistic era to the epic transformations of the Empire in late antiquity. A new interpretation of the extensive literary evidence outlines how the Isthmus became the most famous land bridge of the ancient world, central to maritime interests of Corinth, and a medium for Rome’s conquest, annexation, and administration in the Greek east. A fresh synthesis of archaeological evidence and the results of a recent intensive survey on the Isthmus describe the physical development of fortifications, settlements, harbors, roads, and sanctuaries in the region. The author includes chapters on the classical background of the concept isthmos, the sacking of Corinth and the defeat of the Achaean League, colonization in the Late Roman Republic, the Emperor Nero’s canal project and its failure, the growth of Roman settlement in the territory, and the end of athletic contests at Isthmia. The Isthmus of Corinth offers a powerful case study in the ways that shifting Mediterranean worlds transformed a culturally significant landscape over the course of a millennium.
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Pyla-Koutsopetria I presents the results of an intensive pedestrian survey documenting the diachr... more Pyla-Koutsopetria I presents the results of an intensive pedestrian survey documenting the diachronic history of a 100 ha microregion along the southern coast of Cyprus. Located around 10 km from the ancient city of Kition, the ancient coastal settlements of the Koutsopetria mircoregion featured an Iron Age sanctuary, a Classical settlement, a Hellenistic fortification, a Late Roman town, and a Venetian-Ottoman coastal battery situated adjacent to a now infilled, natural harbour on Larnaka Bay. This publication integrates a comprehensive treatment of methods with a discussion of artefact distribution, a thorough catalogue of finds, and a diachronic history to shed light on one of the few undeveloped stretches of the Cypriot coast. Illustrated in b&w with 137 illustrations and 56 tables.
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Pyla-Koutsopetria I presents the results of an intensive pedestrian survey documenting the diachr... more Pyla-Koutsopetria I presents the results of an intensive pedestrian survey documenting the diachronic history of a 100 ha microregion along the southern coast of Cyprus. Located around 10 km from the ancient city of Kition, the ancient coastal settlements of the Koutsopetria mircoregion featured an Iron Age sanctuary, a Classical settlement, a Hellenistic fortification, a Late Roman town, and a Venetian-Ottoman coastal battery situated adjacent to a now infilled, natural harbour on Larnaka Bay. This publication integrates a comprehensive treatment of methods with a discussion of artefact distribution, a thorough catalogue of finds, and a diachronic history to shed light on one of the few undeveloped stretches of the Cypriot coast. Illustrated in b&w with 137 illustrations and 56 tables.
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Articles by David K Pettegrew
Bridge of the Untiring Sea: The Corinthian Isthmus from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, 2015
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Across the Corrupting Sea: Post-Braudelian Approaches to the Ancient Mediterranean, 2016
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The First Urban Churches 2: Roman Corinth, 2016
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American Journal of Archaeology, 2011
Since the mid 19th century, the paved portage road
known as the diolkos has been central to inte... more Since the mid 19th century, the paved portage road
known as the diolkos has been central to interpreting the
historical fortune of the city of Corinth and the commercial
facility of its isthmus. In this article, I reevaluate the
view that the diolkos made the isthmus a commercial thoroughfare
by reconsidering the archaeological, logistical,
and textual evidence for the road and overland portaging.
Each form of evidence problematizes the notion of voluminous
transshipment and suggests the road did not facilitate
trade as a constant flow of ships and cargoes across
the isthmus. The diolkos was not principally a commercial
thoroughfare for transporting the goods of other states
but facilitated the communication, transport, travel, and
strategic ends of Corinth and her allies. The commercial
properties of the Isthmus of Corinth subsist in its emporion
for exchange, not in a road used for transshipment.
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Corinth in Contrast: Studies in Inequality, 2014
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Hesperia, Jan 1, 2007
Using data generated by the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey, the author examines the evid... more Using data generated by the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey, the author examines the evidence for the frequently attested “explosion” of Late Roman settlement in the Corinthia, assessing the degree to which the differential visibility of pottery from the Early and Late Roman periods affects our perception of change over time. Calibration of ceramic data to compensate for
differences in visibility demonstrates a more continuous pattern of exchange, habitation, and land use on the Isthmus during the Roman era. The author also compares excavated and surface assemblages from other regional projects, and suggests new ways of interpreting the ceramic evidence produced by archaeological surveys.
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Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, Jan 1, 2002
Over the past 20 years, the classical farmstead has become an essential categorical term in the l... more Over the past 20 years, the classical farmstead has become an essential categorical term in the literature of Greek survey archaeology. This paper traces the development of the category ‘farmstead’ out of the conceptual paradigm of settlement archaeology. It is argued that the tendency to categorize classical-period artifact clusters as ‘farmsteads’, without understanding the role of cultural processes in forming the archaeological record, creates a false dichotomy between ‘site’ and ‘off-site’ scatter. This paper applies a model of cultural formation processes developed in household archaeology in the Americas to the formation of domestic artifact assemblages in classical Greece. It presents a variety of literary, epigraphic,
and archaeological evidence from 5th- and 4th-century Athens to delineate the cultural formation processes operative in both town and country in that society. This paper argues that classical
farmsteads and landscapes represent accumulated debris generated by repeated behaviors of habitation, discard, recycling, and abandonment. The typical ‘farmsteads’ recognized in intensive survey represent only a narrow range of the signatures of habitation for the classical period; low density scatters of pottery
and tiles, in particular, represent a signature of habitation that archaeologists have rarely interpreted as evidence for habitation.
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Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, Jan 1, 2003
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Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, Jan 1, 2006
Archaeological survey in the eastern Mediterranean has become increasingly intensive over the las... more Archaeological survey in the eastern Mediterranean has become increasingly intensive over the last 20 years, producing greater and more diverse data for smaller units of space. While complex, siteless data sets have allowed more sophisticated reconstructions of natural and cultural regional histories, the employment of more intensive methods has refocused the scope of Mediterranean surveys from region to ‘micro-region’. Such increasingly myopic approaches have been criticized for their failure to address research questions framed by a large-scale, regional perspective and the analytical categories of ‘settlement’ and ‘site’. This paper uses results from a survey in southern Greece to show how artifact-based approaches make valuable contributions to ‘big-picture’ historical and archaeological issues in a Mediterranean context.
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International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Jan 1, 2010
This paper reexamines the archaeological evidence for three episodes of rural abandonment and res... more This paper reexamines the archaeological evidence for three episodes of rural abandonment and resettlement in the countrysides of Late Roman Greece (200–700 CE): an abandoned Late Hellenistic-Early Roman countryside (second century BCE to third century CE), a decline in the third to early fourth centuries CE, and the Dark Age beginning in the seventh century CE. The first and third episodes of abandonment, especially, have sharply defined Late Antiquity (250–700 CE) as a healthy period of new rural settlement and economic resurgence, and the entire pattern has been described in the terms of “boom-and-bust” demographic and economic cycles. Closer readings of the archaeological data can contribute to more sensitive pictures of continuity and change in settlement and connectivity in the late antique Corinthian countryside and other regions in Greece.
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Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections, 2013
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Report of the …, Jan 1, 2005
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Near East Archaeology, Mar 1, 2008
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In the historiography of the Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean, the city has always held a pri... more In the historiography of the Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean, the city has always held a privileged place in “meetings between cultures,” and especially those kinds of encounters under discussion here today-economic interaction and exchange. Traditional studies of the Roman economy have highlighted cities as central places in regional exchange, which consume resources produced by the countryside or redistribute them to urban centers beyond the region1.
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Books by David K Pettegrew
David Pettegrew’s book offers a new history of the Isthmus of Corinth from the Romans’ initial presence in Greece during the Hellenistic era to the epic transformations of the Empire in late antiquity. A new interpretation of the extensive literary evidence outlines how the Isthmus became the most famous land bridge of the ancient world, central to maritime interests of Corinth, and a medium for Rome’s conquest, annexation, and administration in the Greek east. A fresh synthesis of archaeological evidence and the results of a recent intensive survey on the Isthmus describe the physical development of fortifications, settlements, harbors, roads, and sanctuaries in the region. The author includes chapters on the classical background of the concept isthmos, the sacking of Corinth and the defeat of the Achaean League, colonization in the Late Roman Republic, the Emperor Nero’s canal project and its failure, the growth of Roman settlement in the territory, and the end of athletic contests at Isthmia. The Isthmus of Corinth offers a powerful case study in the ways that shifting Mediterranean worlds transformed a culturally significant landscape over the course of a millennium.
Articles by David K Pettegrew
known as the diolkos has been central to interpreting the
historical fortune of the city of Corinth and the commercial
facility of its isthmus. In this article, I reevaluate the
view that the diolkos made the isthmus a commercial thoroughfare
by reconsidering the archaeological, logistical,
and textual evidence for the road and overland portaging.
Each form of evidence problematizes the notion of voluminous
transshipment and suggests the road did not facilitate
trade as a constant flow of ships and cargoes across
the isthmus. The diolkos was not principally a commercial
thoroughfare for transporting the goods of other states
but facilitated the communication, transport, travel, and
strategic ends of Corinth and her allies. The commercial
properties of the Isthmus of Corinth subsist in its emporion
for exchange, not in a road used for transshipment.
differences in visibility demonstrates a more continuous pattern of exchange, habitation, and land use on the Isthmus during the Roman era. The author also compares excavated and surface assemblages from other regional projects, and suggests new ways of interpreting the ceramic evidence produced by archaeological surveys.
and archaeological evidence from 5th- and 4th-century Athens to delineate the cultural formation processes operative in both town and country in that society. This paper argues that classical
farmsteads and landscapes represent accumulated debris generated by repeated behaviors of habitation, discard, recycling, and abandonment. The typical ‘farmsteads’ recognized in intensive survey represent only a narrow range of the signatures of habitation for the classical period; low density scatters of pottery
and tiles, in particular, represent a signature of habitation that archaeologists have rarely interpreted as evidence for habitation.
David Pettegrew’s book offers a new history of the Isthmus of Corinth from the Romans’ initial presence in Greece during the Hellenistic era to the epic transformations of the Empire in late antiquity. A new interpretation of the extensive literary evidence outlines how the Isthmus became the most famous land bridge of the ancient world, central to maritime interests of Corinth, and a medium for Rome’s conquest, annexation, and administration in the Greek east. A fresh synthesis of archaeological evidence and the results of a recent intensive survey on the Isthmus describe the physical development of fortifications, settlements, harbors, roads, and sanctuaries in the region. The author includes chapters on the classical background of the concept isthmos, the sacking of Corinth and the defeat of the Achaean League, colonization in the Late Roman Republic, the Emperor Nero’s canal project and its failure, the growth of Roman settlement in the territory, and the end of athletic contests at Isthmia. The Isthmus of Corinth offers a powerful case study in the ways that shifting Mediterranean worlds transformed a culturally significant landscape over the course of a millennium.
known as the diolkos has been central to interpreting the
historical fortune of the city of Corinth and the commercial
facility of its isthmus. In this article, I reevaluate the
view that the diolkos made the isthmus a commercial thoroughfare
by reconsidering the archaeological, logistical,
and textual evidence for the road and overland portaging.
Each form of evidence problematizes the notion of voluminous
transshipment and suggests the road did not facilitate
trade as a constant flow of ships and cargoes across
the isthmus. The diolkos was not principally a commercial
thoroughfare for transporting the goods of other states
but facilitated the communication, transport, travel, and
strategic ends of Corinth and her allies. The commercial
properties of the Isthmus of Corinth subsist in its emporion
for exchange, not in a road used for transshipment.
differences in visibility demonstrates a more continuous pattern of exchange, habitation, and land use on the Isthmus during the Roman era. The author also compares excavated and surface assemblages from other regional projects, and suggests new ways of interpreting the ceramic evidence produced by archaeological surveys.
and archaeological evidence from 5th- and 4th-century Athens to delineate the cultural formation processes operative in both town and country in that society. This paper argues that classical
farmsteads and landscapes represent accumulated debris generated by repeated behaviors of habitation, discard, recycling, and abandonment. The typical ‘farmsteads’ recognized in intensive survey represent only a narrow range of the signatures of habitation for the classical period; low density scatters of pottery
and tiles, in particular, represent a signature of habitation that archaeologists have rarely interpreted as evidence for habitation.