Monastic Economies in Egypt and Palestine, 4th to 11th centuries CE, Oxford, March 16–17, 2016
Recent decades have seen renewed interest and vigour in the archaeology, visual culture, and textual evidence of monasteries in Egypt and Palestine. This includes new excavations in both regions, as well as the examination of evidence in museum collections across the world. This symposium aims to expand and diversify past conceptions of monastic economies by combining these sources – both of newly excavated and re-discovered material – through four main sessions:
- Monastic food production and consumption;
- The monastic estate (built environments and landholdings);
- Travel and pilgrimage;
- Trade and the production and consumption of material culture.
The chronological scope of the symposium is broad, from the 4th to 11th centuries CE, in order to reflect the date range of the material that is currently being researched. This, in turn, has the added benefit of tracing the changing economic realities of monastic economies in the light of major historical events. The opportunity to study side-by-side the evidence from Egypt and Palestine will also enable richer perspectives and comparative analyses to be undertaken than would not be possible if dealing with each region individually.
Organisers
Dr Louise Blanke (Århus University), Dr Jennifer Cromwell (University of Copenhagen), Prof. Bryan Ward-Perkins (University of Oxford)