Archaeologists working on late antique sites have not spent enough time thinking about methodology. Their focus has been on recovering and cataloguing evidence, or on the study of specific historical problems. Digging has often been more important than publishing, which has rarely extended beyond the basic summaries found in preliminary reports. The re-emergence of clearance excavation, fuelled by the demands of tourism, has further reduced the value of urban excavations in the East Mediterranean. Here, late antique levels have suffered, in the hunt for photogenic early imperial architecture. This volume attempts to address this situation by offering a critique of present practice and a series of exemplars, alongside discussion articles on field technique and post-excavation analysis. The articles ranges from urban survey to the study of finds. The book also considers if we need to develop specific field methods appropriate to the study of late antiquity. Contributors are John Bintliff, Jeremy Evans, Axel Gering, Stefan Groh, Yoshiki Hori, Nikolaos D. Karydis, Veli Koese, Luke Lavan, Zsolt Magyar, Philip Mills, John Pearce, Steve Roskams, Helga Sedlmayer, Ellen Swift, Itamar Taxel, Douglas Underwood, Lutgarde Vandeput and Joe Williams.

This book is the first to closely examine the location of the earliest purpose-built Christian buildings inside the city of Rome in their contemporary context. It argues that some of these were deliberately sited by their builders so as to utilise prominent positions within the urban landscape or to pragmatically reuse pre-existing bath facilities for Christian liturgical practice. Several examples are discussed with the latest archaeological discoveries explored. Two particular case studies are also examined within the Subura area of the city, and their urban location is examined in relation to the commercial, religious, social and public spaces around them, known through a 3rd century A.D. survey of the city. Certain other Christian basilicas in the city encroached or blocked roads, were situated by main arterial highways, were located on hills and eventually reused prestigious public buildings. Other examples were located by potent 'pagan' sites or important places of public congregation, with two structures suggesting the political astuteness of a 4th century pope. This book shows that the spatial Christianisation of Rome was not a random and haphazard process, but was at times a planned project that strategically built new Christian centres in places that would visually or practically enhance what were generally small and modest structures.