Space Syntax Analysis and the Domestic Architecture of the Roman West
Space Syntax Analysis and the Domestic Architecture of the Roman West Sean Alexander Tennant Chesapeake, Virginia B.A., History, George Mason University, 2010 M.A. History of Art and Architecture, University of Virginia, 2013 A Dissertation, presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy McIntire Department of Art University of Virginia September 2019 Prof. Tyler Jo Smith Prof. John J. Dobbins Prof. Fotini Kondyli Prof. Adria LaViolette ©Copyright by Sean Alexander Tennant All Rights Reserved September 2019 i Abstract In the first century AD, following a period of expansion and conquest that stretched the bounds of its territory to the edges of the known world, the Roman Empire had grown to encompass the frontiers of the Roman northwest, a region which would come to be known as three separate provinces: Gaul, Germania, and the island of Britannia. These areas, at the edge of the Roman world, contained their own populations, replete with distinct cultures, architecture, and ways of life distinct from the cosmopolitan Mediterranean world of their Roman conquerors. Over the course of decades and centuries, indigenous ways of life adapted to and incorporated the advances and technological innovations brought by the Latin invaders. The phenomenon of this cultural change, long referred to by scholars as “Romanization,” is manifest in the archaeological record. Nowhere is this truer than in the architectural remains of the domestic spaces occupied by these provincial inhabitants of the Roman Empire, traditionally grouped together under the umbrella term of “Celts.” Employing a methodology grounded in network theory, the present study applies space syntax analysis to the architectural plans of over 350 domestic sites from the Roman northwest.
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