New Cities in Late Antiquity

The foundation of new cities and towns is a particular aspect of urban history in Late Antiquity. Decades of archaeological work on sites like Iustiniana Prima, Dara, Rusafa, Androna and Zenobia provided ample material on specific cases, but we are still far from having a coherent picture of the background and impact of city foundations in Late Antiquity. Dictated by government decision or favoured by economic and demographic growth, newly-founded cities are witnesses of the realities, needs and ideals of urbanism in their own time and they provide a perspective which is quite different from the usual problems of transformation and decline of pre-existing Graeco-Roman cities. This volume, deriving from a workshop organized in Istanbul in November 2013, brings together studies by archaeologists working on sites that were founded or developed as urban centres during Late Antiquity (3rd to 7th century AD). On the base of case studies and synthetic approaches it is attempted to draw a comprehensive picture of the state of research and a theoretical discussion on the motives and characteristics of city-building and settlement development in Late Antiquity.