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Turf is not a material frequently associated with construction. However, as a cheap, easily available, and versatile material it was used in antiquity (and has been used in various contexts since) to form unit-based and mass walls, embankments, and ramparts. Some of the best-preserved evidence for historical turf use comes from the Roman period, when it was a mainstay of military construction, being widely used in forts (e.g. along the Rhine and in Britain) and large-scale linear earthworks, most notably thewalls of Hadrian (northern England) and Antoninus Pius (central Scotland). To our knowledge, turf has never been examined as a construction material; its interest has, until now, been restricted to the soil and agricultural sciences and sports engineering. This paper presents the first exploration of turf water retention properties, assessed to understand whether turf behaviour can be collated with that of more traditionalearthen materials, for example cob or rammed earth. Tensiometer and psychrometer methods were used to estimate the water retention curves of turf, representative of that used for construction, harvested from two sites near Crieff, Scotland. The obtained data were analysed in terms of unimodal type functions to understand qualities of the full range of the soil water retention curve for Scottish turf. This work supports a larger project examining how engineering materials principles can explain ancient construction practices. In so doing, we will be well positioned to reintroduce this low-carbon material to the modern construction market.

In the late antique period (fourth-seventh centuries AD), lime was produced and consumed in great quantities for use in building, medicine, tanning, fulling, mortuary practices, and as an agricultural fertiliser. As a result, lime kilns (and associated slaking pits) are common features of late antique contexts – both in urban and rural environments and involving public institutions and private enterprise. In this paper we consider the archaeological remains of lime production and use in the eastern Mediterranean, a region in which dozens of lime production sites have been recorded. Focusing on the example of lime mortar production specifically, and following evidence for the associated chaîne opératoire, we demonstrate the versatility of the lime production process and how it frequently involved and even relied upon multiple industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constantinople and Ravenna found new life in Late Antiquity through calculated decisions to transform them into capitals. For these cities to succeed, simultaneous large-scale imperial building projects had to be undertaken, such as fortifications, roads, aqueducts, palaces, and harbors. This created great competition for resources, especially considering the local lack of any established procurement and production industries of the scale required. Unfortunately, there exists no direct archaeological evidence for these industries. Though law codes provide useful insight into how the construction industry functioned, they do not mention brick, a critical building material that was used in great quantities. As such, this article addresses this gap in the evidence. It uses Actor-Network and Material Engagement Theories to investigate and reimage the complex human-object relationships involved in material sourcing and production industries in Ravenna and Constantinople in the decades following their accession as capital cities. Quantitative analysis of extant structures under the framework of backward induction—starting from an end result and reasoning backward in time to identify the most advantageous sequence(s) of events—helps us identify the comparable and contrasting nature of supplying enough building materials for these two new capitals in Late Antiquity. The qualitative and quantitative results from representative case studies show not only that new, large-scale industries focusing on the procurement of bricks were necessary to ensure the success of these new capital cities but that their successful operation was facilitated only by linking rural, peri-urban, and urban landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological remains around the world are testament that large-scale construction projects have been successfully carried out for millennia. This success is particularly evident through the great infrastructural works of the Roman Empire. Yet, it was when the capital was moved from Rome to Constantinople that the largest of these projects was undertaken. This megaproject of the fourth- and fifth-century water supply was made of hundreds of kilometres aqueduct channels and bridges that brought fresh water to the city’s complex system of reservoirs and cisterns. Unlike projects of the previous centuries, we are left with no written record of how this titanic project was undertaken and existing archaeological and historical commentaries on structures of this period do not provide details of organization of construction. We explore the nature of building Constantinople’s water supply through diverse sources of knowledge and the application of agent-based modelling - a method for simulating the actions, interactions and behaviours of autonomous agents and the resulting emergent properties of the system in which they are a part. This paper demonstrates the ability of ABM to develop and test richer hypotheses about historical construction organization and management than physical and historical evidence on their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]