Limina/Limites: Archaeologies, histories, islands and borders in the Mediterranean (365-1556) – serie

The central theme The Ubaldini and the City is the classic confrontation between feudal society and a resurgent urban form as the central instrument of organisation of European society, which is crucial to the origins of Europe as we know it today. The analysis starts from a reconstruction of the historical role played by the Ubaldini on the basis of a critical reconsideration of the available documentary evidence, and the results appear to be perfectly consistent with the general pattern for the Florentine aristocracy. The theme is one of ‘boundaries’: between historical and archaeological evidence, between the late Middle Ages and the birth of modernity; it concerns space with the establishment of new ‘borders’ which evolve from Terra Nuova and become completely territorial. The book takes as its subject a turning point in the history of the late Middle Ages on the threshold of the modern world: the crisis and collapse of the traditional feudal and rural world and the emergence of new territorial states based on the cities.

Ancient aqueducts have long commanded the attention of archaeologists, both for their intrinsic, monumental importance and for their significance as infrastructures closely related to the concept of civilisation. An aqueduct, in fact, is an artefact that has a great potential for providing information concerning at least two major aspects of ancient society: those relating to structural, technical, and engineering matters, and those relating to building and construction technology. These topics have enjoyed considerable attention in past studies, and in recent years they have also been integrated with a multi-disciplinary and contextual approach. They have further increased the potential of the analysis of ancient hydraulic systems, turning them into historical subjects capable of expanding our knowledge of the urban and social transformation of ancient cities and their territories. The current study of the early Byzantine aqueduct of Gortyn (Crete) follows this tradition, but starts from a viewpoint related not so much to the aqueduct itself, as to a series of questions about the city: what was the appearance of Gortyn in the early Byzantine era? How did the inhabitants live? Where did they live and what did they do for living? The aqueduct was born with the Roman city and accompanied it for its entire lifetime, constituting the backbone around which the various forms of urban settlement were redrawn at each major historical stage. Its vital link with everyday life makes the aqueduct a key witness for the study of the transformations of the city over the long term.

This volume brings together different contributions on the history and archaeology of the Balearic Islands during Late Antiquity. Together, these contributions provide an overview of the period between the 3rd and 10th centuries AD, traditionally considered to be one of the least known periods in the history of the islands.

The latest entry in the 'Limina/Limites: Archaeologies, histories, islands and borders in the Mediterranean' series presents the study of the rural landscape of the eastern part of the island of Mallorca (Balearic Islands) during Late Antiquity, providing new data that improves our understanding of one of the least well-known periods of the island.

A study of trade flows on the southern coast of Sardinia in Late Antiquity through underwater finds, amphorae analysis and hypothetical docking points. Recent underwater surveys have highlighted multiple examples of possible cargoes from wrecks, especially of heterogeneous types, as in Cagliari, Nora (Pula) and in the sea around Sulcis.

This study is a historical archaeological analysis of a territorial area including the Island of Elba, Monte Pisano and the neighboring plain, using the methodology of 'light' archeology: stratigraphic reading of the elevations and reading of the historical landscape.

Early Christianity on the Margins (?) is the final result of a five-year project divided into multiple phases, in which the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana (Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology - PIAC) of Rome took a leading role in the excavation and study of some of the most significant areas of the ancient city of Adulis, now in Eritrea. From the 1st to the 8th centuries AD, Adulis was the main port of the great Aksumite Kingdom and, as we will see, a flourishing Christian centre from the mature 5th century AD onward.

This volume explores the evolution of urban and residential architecture in L'Aquila, a medieval frontier city between the Papal States and southern Italy, examining construction methods, anti-seismic strategies, and social influences from the 12th to the 15th century, based on archaeological and stratigraphic analysis.

The so-called Dead Cities region, or the Syrian Limestone Massif region, is located in the north-western part of Syria, in the historical region of Belus, bordered by the cities of Apamea, Antioch, Kyrrus and Aleppo. From the first centuries of the Christian era, the mountains of Belus experienced an extraordinary development, becoming an important and integral part of the Early Byzantine Empire, a phase in which the region saw a quantitative and qualitative peak of rural settlements never seen in the rest of the Empire. With the arrival of the Arabs in 636 CE, the Limestone Massif continued to be one of the key territories for the Muslims, especially for their expansionist plans, which caused the gradual dissolution of the proto-Byzantine economic system. This book is the result of archaeological research carried out a few months before the outbreak of the Syrian conflict, thanks to the support of the Metropolitan of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Aleppo, Mar Gregorios Yuhanna Ibrahim. The work also summarizes the results of previous researches carried out by European and American teams, who have been interested in the region. After appropriate historical and religious introductions, the book traces the topography of settlements in their poto-Byzantine phase, highlighting the various transformations and expedients that affected the architecture in general, with a main focus on the ecclesiastical architecture. The work also presents unpublished photographs of visited archaeological sites which, in 2010, were still in an excellent state of preservation and which today, due to the events of the war, have been partially or completely destroyed.