Neighborhood Networks: Social and Spatial Organization of Domestic Architecture in Greco-Roman Karanis, Egypt

TLDR: Simpson et al. as mentioned in this paper used space syntax theory to evaluate how architectural spaces reflect networks of social interaction at the level of household, neighborhood, and settlement, and found that houses were often accessed by individuals outside the immediate household group: extended family, friends, visitors, guests, business associates, and any other individuals who may have had cause to enter the house and interact with the inhabitants and their domestic spaces.

Abstract: Author(s): Simpson, Bethany Lynn | Advisor(s): Wendrich, Willemina z | Abstract: My doctoral thesis examines how physical architectural remains preserve ancient concepts of spatial organization and reflect neighborhood social organization. I document the architecture of Karanis, Egypt, a small Greco-Roman town of the Egyptian Fayum (250 B.C.E. to the first half of the seventh century C.E.). Through functional architectural analysis and space syntax analysis, I quantify and compare how private space and social control varied from individual private properties and local neighborhood interactions to the larger system of settlement-wide public access. Previous scholars have suggested that as a Roman province, housing in Greco-Roman Egypt was defiantly conservative of native practices, insular, and isolated from Roman tradition. My research challenges this assumption through the use of space syntax theory to evaluate how architectural spaces reflect networks of social interaction at the level of household, neighborhood, and settlement. Space syntax theory offers a quantifiable method to measure relative values of accessibility and privacy. This study therefore demonstrates that instead of remaining resistant to cultural interaction and change, the inhabitants of Karanis were heavily invested in maintaining complex social networks that transcended binary conceptions of "private" versus "public" designations of space. The results prove that houses were often accessed by individuals from outside the immediate household group: extended family, friends, visitors, guests, business associates, and any other individuals who may have had cause to enter the house and interact with the inhabitants and their domestic spaces. The creation of local pathways and shortcuts through neighboring properties facilitated movement and provided alternative routes to the public street system. Because access to privately-owned land had to be granted by the owner, the use of these alternate routes required negotiation and interpersonal agreements which created and reinforced social ties between neighbors. Thus the architecture of Karanis was designed to foster varying degrees communal interaction, and adaptations over time show that private property owners strove to balance their own needs and rights to privacy with the essential social role of maintaining good relationships with their neighbors.This study therefore provides important insight into the negotiation of interpersonal agreements relationships as reflected in architectural space, on global and local scales: far from being resistant to socio-cultural change, ancient Karanis was highly adaptive cultural environment. The site is therefore potentially comparable to other Hellenistic and provincial Roman towns across Europe and the Near East, and provides rich insight into their temporal development from foundation and into Late Antiquity.