Material Collaborators: Making and Unmaking Roman Imperial Power at Trimithis (Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt)

Summary

Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis preserves a Roman city, its hinterland, and a Romano-Egyptian house known to be occupied by a city councilor. We can do more than simply read these material remains as physical symbols of Roman political power. The intimate collaboration between imperial agents and the material world allows us to interpret the making and unmaking of Roman imperial power on the local level. This paper explores fluctuations in imperial power at Trimithis (Roman Amheida) through the changes inscribed in domestic, urban, and extra-urban material residues. This explicitly multi-scalar approach demonstrates how the entanglements between power, agents, and things reverberated throughout Romano-Egyptian society. Ultimately, I suggest that the same material worlds that collaborated in imperial power are also implicated in its collapse.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18828