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Michielin2019vol1.Pdf (2.093Mb) This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Fores et fenestrae. A computational study of doors and windows in Roman domestic space Lucia Michielin Volume 1: Text PhD in Classics University of Edinburgh 2019 ii Signed Declaration I declare that this thesis has been composed solely by myself that it has not been submitted, whole or in part, to any previous application for a degree. Except where stated otherwise by reference or acknowledgement, the work is entirely my own. Signed: Lucia Michielin Edinburgh, 15/08/2019 iii iv Abstract Until very recently the role of doors and windows in shaping the life and structure of Roman private dwellings has been highly underestimated. The reason for this lies primarily in the difficulties linked to their study. The low level of preservation of walls and the widespread use of perishable and recyclable materials hinder in many cases a correct assessment of these structures. This thesis aims to analyse Roman doors and windows and their role as an essential part of daily life. They are the structures that connect not only rooms but the houses to the outside world. They relate to privacy, security and light in domestic spaces. To achieve this greater understanding, a computational approach has been followed. The two cores of the research are the analysis of the database and the observation of results based on new 3D models. 1,855 doors and windows have been surveyed across eight towns of Roman imperial Italy. The information collected has been organised in a database comprised of nine tables and mined through statistical analyses. Three 3D models of three different types of dwellings have been generated simulating realistic materials and light conditions to observe the role of doors and windows in context. The thesis is subdivided into four sections. The first one explains the methodology used during the study and analyses the previous scholarship available on the topic, highlighting how the issue of doors and windows has often be ignored or only superficially considered. The second section collects the typologies of complementary sources needed to comprehend the result of the statistical analyses better and to integrate the 3D models; literary, epigraphic, and visual sources are considered. To these, the analysis of the complementary archaeological sources has been added. The third section of the thesis examines the case studies analysed and assesses the housing units’ subdivision within the single dwellings. The fourth part enters the core of the analysis. It is composed of two chapters, the first of which provides a detailed overview of the statistics analyses produced on the sample v collected. The latter chapter investigates the results of the renders and analyses views and natural light in the Roman house. The analysis undertaken shows the importance that doors and windows have on the organisation of private dwellings. Considering the general darkness of the Roman house, the sizes and location of these features influence the life within the different areas of the abodes. By controlling the levels of light in the house, these structures can regulate the activities and generate preferential paths through houses. Furthermore, the possibility of equipping windows with glazed panels, from the late first century AD, had a significant influence on changing the outlook of the Roman house, allowing bigger windows to be built facing the public street, opening up, therefore, dwellings towards the outside. Finally, doors and windows present a high level of standardisation and correlation between their sizes, testifying, on one side, to an interconnection between the two structures, and, on the other, the presence of a shared idea on how doors and windows should look. vi Lay summary Until very recently the role of doors and windows in shaping the life and structure of the Roman private dwellings has been highly underestimated. The reason for this undervaluation lays primarily on the difficulties linked to their study. The low level of preservation of walls and the widespread use of perishable and recyclable materials hinder in many cases a correct assessment of these structures. This thesis aims to analyse Roman doors and windows and their essential part of daily life. They are the structures that connect not only rooms but also houses and the outside world. They interfere with privacy, security and light in domestic spaces. To achieve this greater understanding, a computational approach has been followed. The two cores of the research are the analysis of the database and the observation of the 3D models’ results. 1855 doors and windows have been surveyed across eight towns of Roman imperial Italy. The analysis undertaken shows the importance that doors and windows have on the organisation of private dwellings. Considering the general darkness of the Roman house, the sizes and location of these features influence the life within the different areas of the abodes. By controlling the levels of light in the house, these structures can regulate the activities and generate preferential paths through houses. Furthermore, the possibility of equipping windows with glazed panels, from the late first century AD, had a significant influence on changing the outlook of the Roman house, allowing bigger windows to be built facing the public street, opening up, therefore, dwellings towards the outside. Finally, doors and windows present a high level of standardisation and correlation between their sizes, testifying, on one side, to an interconnection between the two structures, and, on the other, the presence of a shared idea on how doors and windows should look. vii viii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the support of many individuals. I firstly want to thank my supervisor Dr. Ben Russell for all his support, discussion, and explaining the importance of the Oxford comma over the last five years. I furthermore thank Prof. Jim Crow and Dr. Lucy Grig for their helpful suggestions and comments. A big part of this thesis was based on a survey the result of which would not have been as detailed as they have been without the help of local Soprintendenze. The list of people who I wish to thank would be too long to name individually, but I am grateful to all who granted me access to the archives and sites closed to the public, and also to the custodi that endured extreme summer and winter temperatures to accompany and show me hidden details of the houses I was surveying. Furthermore, these surveys would not have been possible without the financial support awarded by the Baldwin Brown Travelling Scholarship and the School of History, Classics and Archaeology. I am also very grateful to the School of History, Classics and Archaeology for granting me the School Doctoral Teaching Award to support my PhD. I am furthermore grateful to Prof.ssa Stella Falzone for her suggestions concerning Ostia and the work of the secretaries of the BSR for allowing me access to sites in Rome. I have a debt of gratitude with Dr. Dragana Mladenović and Dr. James Miles for granting me access to the laser scanner 3D model of the Insula dell’Ara Coeli, and for their comments and advice. I would also like to thank Dr. Taylor Lauritsen for his availability to discuss the results of his research on doors from Pompeii and Herculaneum and comparing ideas on the topic, who was also instrumental in helping me start my PhD journey in Edinburgh. Additionally, there is a long list of friends who have supported me in various ways throughout this long process. Foremost in this list are Giulia Rossi, Zofia Guertin, and Katie Cullen, who made sure I would not lose my mind, mostly while enduring the last phases of this research. I am also deeply grateful to the latter for all her efforts ix in polishing and correcting my thesis, making sure I was able to convey my ideas in clear and concise English. I also wish to thank all my friends who read and discussed various section of my thesis: Andrew Mclean, Bas Willems, Claudia Baldassi, Elodie Powell, Emilia Mataix Ferrándiz, Caity Concannon, Gianluca De Rosa, Guglielmo Strapazzon, James Page, Kathleen O’Donnell, Katie Paul, Laura Donati, Mario Antonioletti, Marta Alberti, Philip Harrison, Rory Nutter, Roseanna Doughty, and Tim Penn. I am very thankful to you all for the comments and interesting points of discussion that you offered. My appreciation to my two desk neighbours Bobby Nolan and Audrey Scardina who have endured me asking “does it make sense to you?”, Vincenzo Castaldo and Martina Astolfi for their constant support, and to my brother Francesco for his help on image processing. Last but not least, I wish to thank my parents who believed in me and my research even when I had moments of uncertainty, and my father for enduring long hours of surveys in Rome and Ostia during the freezing winter months. I dedicate this thesis to them and to my Grandma Edda who taught me how to love and lose myself in the magical word of books.
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