Invisible Labour in Antiquity: Visualizing Obscure Work in the Ancient Mediterranean and West Asia

Invisible Labour in Antiquity Visualizing Obscure Work in the Ancient Mediterranean and West Asia Nathanael Andrade, Rubina Raja (eds) Pages: 395 p. Size:156 x 234 mm Illustrations:4 b/w, 6 col., 1 tables b/w. Language(s):English Publication Year:2026This edited volume consists of contributions by specialists on the economy of the ancient and late antique world and its socio-economic aspects.Summary Labour in Antiquity, ranging from commerce and trade to physical labour, slavery, and the activity of subalterns, has long been studied, and the notion that certain elements of labour are not immediately visible in source material is widely accepted. Even so, the concept of ‘invisible labour’, that is, labour hidden from the view of either ancient peoples or modern scholars, has, up to now, been very little studied. This volume aims to address the balance by examining how the quotidian behaviours and strategies of ‘invisible’ ancient people shaped economic life, and vice versa, and by exploring new ways to account for the invisible, both empirically and methodologically, through an analysis of environmental, social, and cultural factors.The scholars writing in this volume focus on different key trends. Some address the impact of practices determined by environmental or social factors, such as caravan trading, religious practice, transhumanism, and maritime commerce, on economies at a micro- and macro-level. Others examine the effect that daily routines of the invisible, including peasants, nomads, daily labourers, and vendors, had on local economies and the formation of broader socio-economic structures. Bridging classics, archaeology, history, and the natural sciences, the chapters gathered here offer important new insights into work that is often hardly visible in the evidence but that drove the economies of the Mediterranean, Europe, and Western Asia in antiquity.TABLE OF CONTENTS List of IllustrationsList of Contributors1. Introduction: Invisible Labour and Ancient Economy Nathanael Andrade and Rubina Raja 2. The Palmyrene Trade and the Nomads Udo Hartmann 3. Ground-up Spices: Investigating the Role of the Marginalized and Unseen in the Distribution, Processing, and Consumption of Spices and Aromatics during the Roman Imperial Period Matthew A. Cobb 4. Invisible Labour in Hellenistic Central Asia and North-West India (Third to First Centuries BC) Omar Coloru 5. River, Rain, and Sea: Physical and Behavioural Ephemerality in Peninsular South Asia in the First Millenium AD Rebecca Darley 6. Economic Choices and Naval Transport between the Middle Euphrates and the Persian Gulf Kai Ruffing 7. Wetlands and their Plant Resources: Flax and Hemp Annalisa Marzano 8. Cultural Capital and the Economy in Roman Egypt Micaela Langellotti 9. The Work of Cultural Capital: Labour and a Coinage Tradition Lara Fabian 10.‘Tribes’ and Invisible Labour in Roman Africa Stéphanie Guédon 11. The Economy of paideia in the Hauran (Southern Syria) in Roman Times Julia Hoffmann-Salz 12. Twice Overlooked: Enslaved Women Workers in the Roman Latin West Miriam J. Groen-Vallinga 13. Harvesting in the Shadows: Farmers, Power, and Economy in Late Antique Syria Michael J. Decker 14. (Re)Constructing Rural Lifeways of North-Eastern Gaul in the Sixth Century AD Cam GreyIndex Subject(s) Economic History (up to c. 500) Ancient Western Asia (Near East) (up to 7th cen.) India & South Asia (up to 7th cen.) Roman Empire Social History (up to c. 500) Classical Archaeology BIO Nathanael Andrade is professor of ancient history at Binghamton University, USRubina Raja is professor of classical archaeology and art, Aarhus University, Denmark