Medieval Landscapes of Anatolia: Deciphering the Dynamic Relationship between Urban and Rural, Zoom, October 23, 2024–May 15, 2025
The aim of this Talk Series, organized by the IFEA in collaboration with Sorbonne University and METU, is to improve our understanding of settlement processes in Anatolia during the medieval period, with a particular focus on the very complicated transition between Byzantine and Islamic rule (XIIth-XVth centuries). There is a lack of comprehensive and systematic studies in landscape archaeology for the medieval period in Anatolia, as well as a rather conservative approach to settlement systems, the relationship between urban landscapes and rural landscapes, the role of institutions, including religious ones, in the management of rural lands, and their socio-economic implications at both macro (regional) and micro (local) levels. While excavations and surveys in rural/“subsidiary” settlements have great potential to raise important questions about land tenure, population diversity, resource exploitation, sacred economy and spheres of spiritual domination, previous studies have relied heavily on either historical sources or the archaeology of large urban centres. Scholarship therefore needs to develop new ways of integrating data with thought-provoking theory, while strengthening archaeological studies to introduce alternative definitions of urban and rural and to understand their interrelations.
October 23, 2024: Burcu Erciyas (ODTÜ, Ankara) and Maxime Durocher (Sorbonne Université, Paris)
Resilient Landscapes and Dynamic Communities of Medieval Komana
November 28, 2024: Nicolas Trépanier (The University of Mississippi, Oxford)
Out in the country: Urban elites encounters with the countryside in medieval Anatolia
January 16, 2025: Oya Pancaroğlu (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Istanbul)
Town and Country in Medieval Cappadocia: The View from Endowment Deeds and Records
March 13, 2025 : John Haldon (Princeton University, Princeton)
Coincidence and complexity: complex interaction of society, environment and conjuncture in the Eastern Roman world ca. 600 – 1000 CE
May 15, 2025 : Fahri Dikkaya (TED Üniversitesi, Ankara)
The Mountains of Osman: The Crucial Role of Landscape in the Foundation of the Ottoman State