Hellenistic and Roman Gerasa

de Rubina Raja, Achim Lichtenberger

This volume examines local and imported ceramic wares from Gerasa, exploring this material in a broader cultural and historical context in order to improve our understanding of consumption, trading, and networks in the wider Decapolis area.00The Graeco-Roman Decapolis city of Gerasa was a flourishing centre of population from the Late Hellenistic up to the Early Islamic period. It was also home to a vibrant ceramics industry. Kilns found throughout the city, with a concentration in the Hippodrome, suggest that Gerasa was in fact a mass-production centre in the Decapolis region over a number of centuries, manufacturing a vast array of material to suit the changing needs of daily life.00Drawing on finds yielded during excavations by the Danish-German Northwest Quarter Project and other archaeological projects, as well as the research undertaken within the Ceramics in Context project, this volume evaluates the pottery from Gerasa produced in the Late Hellenistic and Roman periods. Typology, development over time, and variations in the Gerasene pottery are explored, and rare examples of imported material are analysed in order to shed light both on the inner workings of the city, and on the networks that extended beyond Gerasa?s walls. The contributions gathered here examine the archaeology and history of Gerasa and assess ceramic remains alongside other finds from both the city and neighbouring urban centres. In doing so, they seek to contextualize this material in a broader cultural and historical context, and to improve our understanding of consumption, trading, and networks in the wider Decapolis area.00Achim Lichtenberger and Rubina Raja are professors of classical archaeology and directors of the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project. They are the founders of Jerash Papers.