Amorium: Exploring the Transformation of a Byzantine City

The archaeological project at Amorium, one of the most significant Byzantine cities in medieval Asia Minor, investigates the multifaceted transformation of the urban landscape from Late Antiquity (4th–7th c.) into the Middle Byzantine period (8th–11th c.)—an era of dramatic change for the Byzantine world. The project’s approach moves beyond the traditional model of urban “decline,” examining Amorium as a dynamic example of urban resilience. Recent excavations in the Lower City and the citadel reveal a deliberate process of contraction and reorganization of the urban fabric around fortified nuclei, a key survival strategy during the Arab raids. Concurrently, the systematic analysis of material culture—including small finds, ceramics, and numismatic evidence—highlights an economy more complex than expected for a military center. This evidence testifies to the maintenance of commercial networks, local production, and the import of goods, indicating that the city remained an active economic hub throughout the Middle Byzantine period. Beyond public buildings, research now focuses on the micro-archaeology of domestic assemblages, investigating how private spaces were reshaped, how older public infrastructure was repurposed, and what household organization reveals about the city’s social structure during a period of intense uncertainty. Finally, through the intensive utilization of digital technologies (geophysical survey, GIS, 3D modeling), all archaeological data are synthesized into a unified digital model of the city. This enables the precise spatial analysis and visualization of Amorium’s successive phases of urban transformation. The project, under the auspices of the NHRF, aims to study and publish the results, creating a comprehensive archaeological and historical narrative for the long life of this emblematic, yet enigmatic, Byzantine city.