Materializing childhood: An historical archaeology of children in Roman Egypt.

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the material culture of childhood and the social category of child through an examination of artifacts from nonmortuary contexts. These data come from the Egyptian town of Karanis during its Roman occupation, from the first through fifth centuries CE. The research design is built around theory and methods from archaeology, anthropology, psychology, philology, and history. There are physical, biological, behavioral, and cognitive features of the period known as childhood---here, children from roughly 3--12 years of age. The social construction of childhood is also recognized, particularly in studies on the history of the family. In addition to addressing the seminal work of Philippe Aries, there is a survey of Roman literary and documentary sources focusing on such topics as childhood as a distinct stage of life, children at play, and children at work. To explore the integration of historical and archaeological sources, the topic of literacy and education in Roman Egypt are both addressed. This is critical for designing an historical archaeological approach: to appreciate the value and power of writing and words in the past, not just to appreciate what they offer us as sources today. These discussions are then brought to bear on the archaeological and historical context for Karanis. After reviewing key concepts from previous chapters and problems inherent to the site data, this dissertation turns to constructing a typology of children's material culture, which revolves around the notion of play or pretense, a concept that also happens to include adult activities. This highlights the fact that agency is a crucial notion when considering artifacts. In order to reconstruct a sense of children's experiences at Karanis, the discussion moves to incorporate elements from research on the Roman census in Egypt as a means for highlighting population dynamics at large and the demographic realities of childhood in a high mortality regime. Additionally, the developmental and sociological characteristics of the playthings from Karanis are explored. Overall, an interdisciplinary approach to the subject of children and childhood is offered in the hope of stimulating further work on the topic.