Sailors and Saints: Kenchreai as a Mediterranean Port at the End of Antiquity

Lecture | Vienna

»Sailors and Saints: Kenchreai as a Mediterranean Port at the End of Antiquity»

Joseph L. Rife | Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
 

As cities by the sea, constantly subject to changing conditions, ancient Mediterranean ports were nodes of transient engagement and innovative experiment. Recent research at the archaeological site of Kenchreai, near Corinth in southern Greece, is shedding new light on society from the Roman era to the dawn of the Byzantine Middle Ages as radically transforming but still prosperous, connected, and resilient. J. Rife will discuss the work by his team at Kenchreai, focusing on themes in their recent research: interconnectivity between southeastern Europe and the Near East; the Christianization of the harbor landscape; and the development of maritime commerce.