"The City Wall of Aphrodisias"

Like Rome itself, Aphrodisias existed for centuries without a surrounding fortification. With changes in military security and the image of the city, Aphrodisias built itself an enceinte in the 360s ce that is now one of the best-preserved and best-documented city walls of late antiquity in Asia Minor. This talk will detail many of the decisions made in the process of building the wall—regarding the materials used, the incorporation of spolia, the course, the locations of gates and towers—and also look at how the fact of the wall then affected the later development of the city, in particular using new information gathered by the Regional Survey project.

Sponsored by the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology