Economic Change Across the Late Roman-Early Byzantine Divide: The View from Western Anatolia

Boğaziçi University Byzantine Studies Research Center cordially invites you to a lecture by James Gross, entitled “Economic Change Across the Late Roman-Early Byzantine Divide: The View from Western Anatolia” as part of the lecture series “Changes on the Horizon: Economy of the Late Antique Mediterranean”.

The lecture will be held at Boğaziçi University, South Campus, Anderson Hall 310.

To register, if you are not affiliated with Boğaziçi University, please contact byzantinestudies@bogazici.edu.tr

Abstract

Within scholarship on western Anatolia, the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Byzantine period is typically characterized as a moment of profound economic decline. Cities were abandoned, maritime trade collapsed, and the countryside was depopulated. Due to a scarcity of archaeological evidence, this narrative of catastrophe has been argued primarily on historical grounds. Assumptions about the impact of the Justinianic plague, the Arab conquests, and climate change have driven the interpretation of scant material remains.

The unprecedented expansion of archaeological investigations in Türkiye in recent years provides an opportunity to reevaluate these assumptions. In this talk, I will synthesize three bodies of archaeological evidence – rural survey data, shipwrecks, and urban excavations – to reconsider the trajectory of agricultural production, maritime trade, and urbanism across the 6 th –8 th centuries. This evidence points the way to a more nuanced and complex understanding of this period of transformation.

Bio:

Dr. James Gross is a postdoctoral fellow at Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations. He completed his PhD in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World Program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2025. His current research explores the interplay between taxation and commerce in the Late Antique Mediterranean. Dr. Gross specializes in maritime archaeology and ceramic analysis and has conducted fieldwork in Italy, Greece, and Türkiye.