The Economics of the Roman Stone Trade

ISBN-13: 9780199656394 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 480 str.

Ben Russell

Opis

The use of stone in vast quantities is a ubiquitous and defining feature of the material culture of the Roman world. In this volume, Russell provides a new and wide-ranging examination of the production, distribution, and use of carved stone objects throughout the Roman world, including how enormous quantities of high-quality white and polychrome marbles were moved all around the Mediterranean to meet the demand for exotic material.
The long-distance supply of materials for artistic and architectural production, not to mention the trade in finished objects like statues and sarcophagi, is one of the most remarkable features of the Roman world. Despite this, it has never received much attention in mainstream economic studies. Focusing on the market for stone and its supply, administration, distribution, and chronology of quarrying, Russell offers a detailed assessment of the practicalities of stone transport and how the relationship between producer and customer functioned even over considerable distances.

Recenzje

Russell's book brings together an enormous amount of archaeological, historical and archaeometric data and puts forwards some important new hypotheses on the Roman stone trade.

O autorze

Ben Russell is a lecturer in Classical Archaeology in the School of History, Classics, & Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh.