The Chronology and Economic Condition of Late Roman Karanis: An Archaeological Reassessment

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Much of the scholarly attention paid to Roman Egypt through this century has emphasized the undoubted importance of papyrus documents which provide a level of documentation for historical study unparalleled in the Roman empire. It was thus, perhaps, inevitable that the archaeology of Roman Egypt has tended, until recently, to be overshadowed by the study of papyrus documents and by historical analysis which gave pride of place to the study of these documents. In writing document-based history, some scholars have attempted to use archaeological evidence as an ancillary, but often the sophistication of their historical approach has out-stripped the standard of archaeological recording and analysis possible at the time when some excavations were conducted and published. In addition, the idiosyncrasies of Romano-Egyptian history and material culture, often exaggerated, have tended to separate the study of the archaeology of Roman Egypt from that of the rest of the Roman empire. The following paper is an attempt to reconsider the long-standing contention, still found in historical literature, that the site of Karanis (Kom Aushim) in the Fayoum, excavated by the University of Michigan in the 1930s, was in severe economic and demographic decline in the fourth century c.E. and abandoned early in the fifth century c.E. The principal method employed is the re-integration of the site into the archaeology of the wider Roman empire, by examining pottery excavated from the site (and now in the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology in Ann Arbor) in the light of evidence from elsewhere in the Mediterranean. This evidence has