ABSTRACT

New Directions in Urban Planning in the Ancient Mediterranean assembles the most up-to-date research on the design and construction of ancient cities in the wider Mediterranean. In particular, this edited collection reappraises and sheds light on ’lost’ Classical plans. Whether intentional or not, each ancient plan has the capacity to embody specific messages linked to such notions as heritage and identity. Over millennia, cities may be divested of their buildings and monuments, and can experience periods of dramatic rebuilding, but their plans often have the capacity to endure. As such, this volume focuses on Greek and Roman grid traces - both literal and figurative. This rich selection of innovative studies explores the ways that urban plans can assimilate into the collective memory of cities and smaller settlements. In doing so, it also highlights how collective memory adapts to or is altered by the introduction of re-aligned plans and newly constructed monuments.

chapter 1|7 pages

The order of cities

Ancient urban planning in the Mediterranean

chapter 2|20 pages

Urbanisation in inland Sicily

Acculturation on the periphery of the Greek world *

chapter 4|18 pages

The collective image of a city

Structure and meaning of Hellenistic agorai *

chapter 5|15 pages

The memory remains

Non-verbal symbolic communication and the planning grid at Pednelissos (Pisidia, SW Turkey) 1

chapter 6|13 pages

Cyrene and Apollonia

The Classical urban plan as a measure of opposites

chapter 7|11 pages

Privileged topography

Vitruvius and the siting of Halicarnassus

chapter 8|12 pages

Razed or raised?

Echoes of the Punic city in Roman Carthage

chapter 9|29 pages

Triumph, power and providence in Roman town planning

The golden age of Flavian Rome

chapter 10|19 pages

Albano

Castrum to town