Browsing by Author "S. Thomas Parker, Committee Chair"

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    Christianization of the Kerak Plateau in Ancient Times
    (2008-11-26) Hardin, Sherry Michelle; S. Thomas Parker, Committee Chair
    ABSTRACT HARDIN, SHERRY MICHELLE. The Christianization of the Kerak Plateau in Ancient Times. (Under the direction of S. Thomas Parker.) Historians of both the Roman Empire and early Christianity have long debated the pace and extent of Christian conversion. This thesis attempts to add a significant new contribution to this debate. Conversion to Christianity was a complex process that moved differentially from region to region. This paper attempts to understand when and why Christianity penetrated the Kerak Plateau in Jordan by examining the full range of environmental, documentary, and archaeological evidence from the plateau itself as well as from adjacent regions that may offer instructive parallels to this process. Christianity was slow to make significant inroads to the Kerak Plateau until the sixth century for many reasons. Its geographical isolation and thriving polytheistic community acted as a deterrent for Christianity. Archaeological and literary sources provide several lines of evidence for this, including a lack of churches before the sixth century and a lack of bishops before the fifth century. Out of a corpus of 135 dated Christian tombstones from the Kerak Plateau, seventy-four percent are dated from the mid-sixth to mid-seventh centuries, which fall in line with dated churches in the area. In addition there is both literary and archaeological evidence for polytheistic practices being tenacious. In addition to this evidence, there is also evidence that though the Roman government had switched its support to Christianity, it could not enforce its laws against polytheism. Two hundred years after Constantine converted to Christianity, emperors were still issuing edicts against polytheism.
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    Egyptian Red Slip Pottery at Aila
    (2009-12-02) Williams, Cheri Lynne; S. Thomas Parker, Committee Chair
    The Roman Aqaba Project, an archaeological investigation of a Roman port on the Red Sea in southern Jordan, recovered over 500 sherds of Egyptian Red Slip Ware (ERS). This included both ERS A (presumably from the Aswan region of Upper Egypt) and ERS B (from various production centers along the Nile valley). ERS was the second most common imported fine ware found at Aila from the Late Roman and Byzantine periods (3rd through early 7th centuries A.D.), trailing far behind African Red Slip Ware (from Tunisia) but easily exceeding imports of Cypriote Red Slip and Phocaean Red Slip (from the Aegean). The most striking fact about the ERS at Aila is its chronological distribution. In most parts of Palestine and Jordan ERS appears in quantity only in the late 6th and 7th centuries. But at Aila both ERS A and ERS B wares begin appearing in securely attested 3rd century contexts and are most common in the 4th century, long before their appearance in the remainder of the Levant, generally in late 6th and 7th centuries.
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    Increasing Fertility in the Roman Late Republic and Early Empire
    (2009-04-07) Sullivan, Vanessa; Helen Perros, Committee Member; John Riddle, Committee Member; S. Thomas Parker, Committee Chair
    During the late Republic and early Empire, many Roman citizens emphasized their personal fertility and were concerned with increasing the citizen birthrate. The continuation of individual families, as well as the security of the Roman state and economy relied upon the existence of a stable population. Literary, medical, documentary and legal sources show a variety of political and social means that were employed by men and women of all classes to promote fertility. These means included legislation as well as an emphasis on the non-use of abortion. Medicine also played a role in increasing conception rates, through the involvement of physicians and reliance upon folk medicine. This research shows the critical importance of motherhood to Roman society during this period, and raises questions about the impact that the desire for fertility had upon Roman society.
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    Montanism in Second/Third Century CE Anatolia: A Hybridist Mystery Religion.
    (2009-04-23) Viets, Chaffee W.; S. Thomas Parker, Committee Chair; William Adler, Committee Member; John M. Riddle, Committee Member
    The purpose of this research is to provide an alternative lens to use in the study of Montanism than is offered by the dominant paradigm developed during the last two centuries. Most scholars assume or assert that the earliest Montanists in Phrygia, in ancient Turkey, sprung from within the local, rural Christian community of Pepouza. As such, most modern research has omitted considerations of anything beyond incidental contact with so called ‘pagan’ cults in the surrounding area. I will argue that Phrygian Montanism can be viewed from its inception as a religion with several parental contributors, embodied as an eclectic amalgam of multiple forms of Christianity, the cult of Cybele and Attis, the cult of Dionysius, the oracle cult of Apollo, and other sources including Judaism. In this sense, it rather resembled not merely a Christian ‘heresy’ as several Ante and Post Nicene fathers asserted in their polemical tracts, nor an offshoot of a polytheistic cult, but instead a unique mystery religion, neither wholly ‘pagan’ nor Christian in composition. In other words, Montanism might be viewed alternately, regardless of what its founder(s) believed this “New Prophecy†represented, as an independent mystery religion, separately practiced while simultaneously overlapping the various Anatolian Christianities, ‘pagan’ cults, and state sponsored religions of the eastern Roman Empire. Within this context, arguments about its source, placement, acceptance and religious validity within the ‘pagan’ or Christian historical worlds become tangential. Seen as an island, a new vision of Montanism arises, one defined more comprehensively by the social, cultural and religious traditions of Anatolia and a Christianity that began with Pauline missionary activity 100 years prior to Montanism’s rise in Phrygia. I intend to argue this thesis by presenting an outline of Anatolian culture and religion as it relates to the emergence of Montanism in rural Phrygia before showing how it represents a uniquely structured hybrid mystery religion with both Christian and ‘pagan’ elements.
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    Reassessment: A Mummy Shroud from the North Carolina Museum of Art
    (2005-04-20) Dopko, Cynthia Hogan; S. Thomas Parker, Committee Chair
    The purpose of this research has been to reassess the dating and iconography of a Roman period mummy shroud entitled, Mummy Portrait of a Young Man from the Fayum, in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art. This reevaluation benefited greatly from the recent international scholarship and museum exhibitions done on mummy portraits from Roman Egypt in the past few years. The research for the North Carolina shroud involved analyzing, in detail, the unique symbolic arrangement depicted on the shroud by evaluating each of the object's four registers individually as well as assessing the composition as a whole. This research found that the symbolic content of the shroud, as a whole, possesses a cohesive iconographical message. The registers of the shroud depict the individual, his mummification, revivification, and subsequent rebirth into an afterlife, if read from top to bottom. Further, this research has concluded that the numerous symbols on the shroud support this ritual transformation as well as point to its relationship with the Isiac or Serapion mystery cult. The fourth century date of this shroud has been redated to the third century and the stylistic features of the shroud's design point to an Er-Rubayat provenance. It is hoped that this research will benefit the North Carolina Museum of Art, and enter this mummy shroud into the on-going international scholarship on mummy portraits from Roman Egypt.
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    A Reevaluation of Iron Age Fortified Sites on the Eastern Kerak Plateau
    (2010-04-20) Brown, Stephanie Hope; S. Thomas Parker, Committee Chair; Ronald Sack, Committee Member; Carol Meyers, Committee Member
    This thesis is concerned with the nature of ten Moabite fortified sites on the eastern Kerak Plateau in central Jordan. Based largely upon an attempted synthesis between the archaeological record of the eastern Kerak Plateau and the Hebrew Bible, scholars believed for many years that there existed a fortified Moabite frontier, made up of contemporary fortified sites that ran north/south along the eastern edge of the Kerak Plateau as part of a larger system of defense against a threat from the eastern desert. During the past thirty years some scholars have begun to doubt the validity of this idea. However, if the original interpretation is incorrect, what then is the nature and function of these Iron Age fortified sites on the eastern Kerak Plateau? This thesis attempts to answer that question In comparison to other regions in Jordan the Kerak Plateau has seen little archaeological research. Several surveys have recorded many sites but few have been excavated. The ten sites examined in this study were surveyed and published by S. Thomas Parker in his Limes Arabicus Project. However, this survey was conducted over twenty years ago when there were very few sites that could offer stratified sequences of Iron Age ceramics to aide in the initial dating of the sites. Since then several Moabite sites have been or are being excavated, mostly north of the Kerak Plateau, and several regional surveys have reported Iron Age ceramic evidence at various sites in the region, providing more evidence of Moabite ceramic typology. Therefore, in light of this more recent research, this thesis focuses on the reexamination of ten Iron Age fortified sites surveyed by the Limes Arabicus Project and their associated ceramics. Being able to date these fortified sites more closely makes it possible to address important questions relevant to the nature and function of these sites, the rise and fall of Moab as a state, and Moab’s relationship with Assyria.