Dr Johannes Fouquet

Connecting bricks. Towards a study of the brick industry in Roman Greece and its supply networks

The practice of building with fired bricks, along with other influences of Roman architecture, became increasingly common in many provinces of the Roman Empire since the Augustan period. In the provincia Achaia, however, fired bricks remained for most of the early Roman period essentially confined to major centres such as the Roman colonies of Patras and Corinth or the civitas libera Nikopolis. Despite the earlier, yet never systematic use of fired bricks in the architecture of Hellenistic north-western Greece and the Peloponnese, it was not before the broader adoption of Roman bathing practices and the widespread construction of corresponding bath buildings in the late 1st and 2nd century AD that this building material in its characteristic Roman modules saw a more extensive production. While research has already discussed the brick masonry of Roman Greece and its potential for technical-architectural innovation in the form of vaulting, a systematic study of the brick industry is still lacking, not at least because the Greek brickyards usually did not stamp their products (contrary to tiles and architectural terracottas) as it was common practice in Italy.

This paper, as part of a currently planned archaeological-archaeometric research project on the brick industry in Attica and the Peloponnese during the Roman period, does not set out to provide definitive answers on this topic. It rather seeks to address and explore key aspects of producing and building with fired bricks in Roman Greece from the perspective of connectivity: the inclusion in epistemic and economic networks in the micro regions of southern Greece and the Mediterranean, the identification of local production sites and possible modes of distribution, and the relation of cities and hinterland.

Johannes Fouquet holds a position of substitute assistant professor of Classical Archaeology in the University of Leipzig. His research focuses on the architecture and urbanism of Roman Greece (Bauen zwischen Polis und Imperium. Stadtentwicklung und urbane Lebensformen auf der kaiserzeitlichen Peloponnes [Berlin 2019]) as well as on the materiality and intermediality of inscriptions in Greek sculpture (Schreiben auf statuarischen Monumenten. Aspekte materialer Textkultur in archaischer und frühklassischer Zeit [Berlin 2020, co-authored with Nikolaus Dietrich and Corinna Reinhardt]; Das Bild der Schrift in der griechischen Plastik. Materialität und Intermedialität schrifttragender statuarischer Monumente von archaischer bis hellenistischer Zeit [habilitation thesis, submitted to the University of Heidelberg in 2023]). In cooperation with Ewdoksia Papuci-Władyka (Jagiellonian University of Krakow) and Georgios Doulfis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), he is PI of the planned excavation project “The Roman ‘loutro’ at Thelpousa (Arcadia)” under the auspices of the Polish Archaeological Institute at Athens and funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung.