Emerging distribution networks of Roman pottery in the Ancient Mediterranean: the sigillata clay lamps of Proconsular Africa

Abstract

This paper surveys the use of Network Science, especially the role of Archaeological Networks to the study of Archeology and Ancient History. Network thinking and network science are valuable methodologies and analytical techniques to apply to the study clay lamps in the framework of Roman economy. The recent application of network analysis in Antiquity and Archaeology has demonstrated that there are a variety of approaches to recognizing network patterns or thinking about phenomena as products of networked processes. Provincial connectivity is one of the most debated aspects of Roman economics, and ceramic consumption patterns in the interior and coastal regions of Africa Proconsularis have proven to be very different. The dominant tendency to turn to the communities formed and structured around native identities, especially those based in the major urban centers and larger areas, seems to establish itself as an argument for the economy and exchanges of the Roman Empire. This types of networks helped to spread ideas and religious symbols through clay lamps. Africa Proconsular demonstrates evidence that the ceramic workshops emerged as networks in order to established themselves seeking to meet the Mediterranean demand and religious consumption.

Keywords

• Network Science
• Archaeological Networks
• Classics
• Africa Proconsularis.