Remembering and Forgetting the Ancient City

Abstract

De auctoribus, conditarum urbium plerumque dissensio inveniturThere is much disagreement about who was responsible for the founding of cities Isidore, Etymologies, 15.1.1The ancients knew that all cities were founded by great kings. So too was this volume, which would not exist without Andrew Wallace-Hadrill who, as the Principal Investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant 'Impact of the Ancient City' (grant agreement no. 693418), gathered both the editors of this volume, as well as many of the contributors, and turned their minds to cities (and us, mere dwellers, into the project's citizens). The editors are also grateful to other members of the project including Louise Blanke, Suna Çağaptay, Elizabeth Fowden, Sofia Greaves and Edward Zychowicz-Coghill, who have offered essential help and guidance, as did our adopted member Thomas Langley and our advisory board members Rosamond McKitterick and Amira Bennison. We also want to thank Beth Clark, our project administrator, for her tireless work, and the Faculty of Classics for hosting us through one of the strangest periods in recent memory. We are also deeply grateful to Oxbow, and in particular to Julie Gardiner and Felicity Goldsack for their help and enthusiasm.This volume has its origins in a series of panels organised by the editors on 'Remembering and Forgetting the Ancient City' for the 2018 Leeds International Medieval Congress, responding to the conference central theme of 'Memory'. Although only some of the chapters that follow were first introduced in these sessions, the conversations that began on those warm early July days would shape and determine the questions this book asks and the answers it seeks. The editors would like to thank Pablo Díaz Martínez, Pablo Poveda Arias and Lenneke van Raaij for their contributions to those panels, and the many attendees who raised awkward questions and important problems. Lastly, we must necessarily thank the reviewers who assessed and commented on the different chapters.This manuscript was finished on the 13th of September 2021, day of Saint John Chrysostom, patron saint of preachers, speakers and orators. Jarash/Gerasa, showing late Roman and early Islamic provincial structures (Alan Walmsley). 4.2. Topography between Baysān and Fiḥl showing the land route via al-Shaykh Ḥusayn crossing. Note all height measurements are minus (below sea level). (1) Fiḥl, -39 m (summit of tall); (2) floor of Jordan Valley (al-Ghawr), -202 m; (3) al-Shaykh Ḥusayn crossing, -274 m; (4) Ayn Nimrud, -246 m; (5) modern Baysan, -125 m; (6) Roman and early Islamic town, -151 m (lower town) (Base image: Google Earth, 20 August 2021). 4.3. The Wādī al-Jirm, the tall of Fiḥl and the red-earth ṭabaqah beyond, overlooking the north Jordan Valley; Baysān on the left in the distance (Alan Walmsley). 4.4. Map of central Baysān (from R. Bar-Nathan and W. Atrash, Baysān, 5, plan 1.3). 4.5. The tall above the lower (monumental) town of Baysān, with the partially restored theatre in the foreground (Alan Walmsley). 4.6. Streets and buildings of downtown Ba...