Auswahl der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zum Thema „Urbanization – byzantine empire“

The article examines the location, design features and evolution of the sports facilities of the Byzantine Empire: the Great Hippodrome and smaller hippodromes of Constantinople and other cities of the empire, stadiums for playing equestrian polo (tzykanisterions) and other buildings used for training and sports competitions of the Byzantines in the IV – XII centuries. Special attention is paid to the constructive features of the Great Hippodrome of Constantinople, both in connection with its special significance for the history of the empire, and also with the abundance of sources on this issue: written and archaeological. It is concluded, that before the beginning of the systemic crisis of the empire in the first half of the 7th century and the massive invasions of the Persians, Avars, Slavs and Arabs into the territory of the empire, sports facilities and sports life (including competitive) were characteristic of all major cities of the empire. Each of them had monumental hippodromes and regular competitions. Their decline is associated both with the capture of most of the territory of Byzantium by the Arabs and (in the cities that remained under the control of Constantinople) with a protracted economic crisis and general de-urbanization. The revival of interest in sports and the need for sports facilities is associated with the strengthening of the economic and geopolitical position of Byzantium in the 9th-10th centuries. During this time many old buildings were restored and used, several new ones were built. The final decline of the empire’s sports infrastructure is associated with its defeat during the IV Crusade.

In Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, both coastal and sub-mountainous parts of Colchis underwent rapid urbanization. In the 12th century, the processes of decline began: Large settlements were replaced by small farmsteads with light wooden buildings, and the economy transformed from commodity-based to subsistence-based. What caused this decline? Was it the social and political events linked to the decline of the Byzantine Empire and changes to world trade routes, or were there other reasons? This article provides the answer. The synergy of archaeological, folkloristic, historical cartographic, climatological, seismological, and hydrological data depicts a strong link between these processes and climate change, which occurred at the turn of the 12th–13th centuries. The beginning of cooling led to a crisis in agriculture. A decline in both farming and cattle breeding could not fail to affect demography. Seismic activity, noted in the same period, led to the destruction of many buildings, including temples, and fortresses, and changes in hydrological networks, which were directly linked to climate change and caused water logging, led to a loss of the functions of coastal areas and their disappearance.

This thesis investigates the relationship between Christianity and urban monumental space in the late antique Levant. Through the analysis of both textual and archaeological evidence it seeks to clarify both the motives and the stages of the process of Christian takeover of the urban space of Levantine cities from the 4th to the 7th century AD. In doing so Christians were in essence both projecting their growth as the predominant religion and, at the same time, creating an entirely new monumental landscape. The case studies are presented in three separate groups, selected on the basis of the principal strategy that was chosen in the process of Christianisation of urban space. The first section analyses the cases of Gerasa, Jerusalem, Heliopolis, and Petra to illustrate the first of these strategies: the main method for occupying the symbolic space of the city was the construction of a contrast between the surviving ruins of the earlier, Hellenic, temples and the new Christian churches. The second group of case studies includes Scythopolis, Caesarea Maritima, Gaza, and to a certain extent Heliopolis. This section deals with those cities where the main strategy was the physical demolition of all or at least the most pre-eminent Hellenic buildings and their direct replacement with a new, and often grand, church. The third group, and the last, consists of the cities of Bostra, Gadara, Apamea, where rather than having to engage with a major Hellenic monument the main competitor was the secular state whether local or imperial. This is found to have resulted in a search for integration into the landscape rather than active competition.

This chapter shows that once the Jews became literate, urban, and engaged in skilled occupations, they began migrating within the vast territory under Muslim rule—stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to India during the eighth through the twelfth centuries, and from the Byzantine Empire to western Europe via Italy and within western Europe in the ninth through the thirteenth centuries. In early medieval Europe, the revival of trade concomitant with the Commercial Revolution and the growth of an urban and commercial economy paralleled the vast urbanization and the growth of trade that had occurred in the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates four to five centuries earlier. The Jewish diaspora during the early Middle Ages was mainly the outcome of literate Jewish craftsmen, shopkeepers, traders, scholars, teachers, physicians, and moneylenders migrating in search of business opportunities to reap returns on their investment in literacy and education.