Advertisement
The Maghreb and Iberian Peninsula witnessed major political and cultural developments between Late Antiquityand the Early and Middle Islamic Period. In some regions, tribes became virtually autonomous, and in others, emirates arose that were integrated into broader, cross-African networks. As the region’s relationship with the political entities of the western Mediterranean changed, so too did its connections with the eastern Mediterranean world and sub-Saharan Africa become denser and more complex.
This workshop seeks to understand how these shifts in the post-conquest political order of the Islamic West were reflected in trade routes and commercial hubs across the region. It also asks how researchers can use material culture as a source for understanding these shifts. The study of objects and their contexts reveals not only the changes in taste, but also the mobility of craftsmen, the movement of goods, and finally the changing urban and commercial dynamics across time and space.
We invite the participants to take an interdisciplinary approach, using both material culture and literary evidence
to investigate four main topics:
1. The impact of trade on the birth, rise and demise of cities. What can be
understood about the conditions in
which the cities located on the coasts or on the Saharan trade routes arose and how to understand their transSaharan connections with the ports of the Maghreb?
2. The administration of the circulation of goods and merchandise. How did Islamic legal structures contribute to organizing the circulation of goods by regulating taxation, ensuring the necessary physical
infrastructure such as roads, markets, stores, warehouses, guesthouses and addressing the conduct of merchants,
craftsmen, and market overseers? This question is also relevant for understanding trade connections with regions outside the realm of Islamic rule.
3. A third focus will be on the axes and routes of trade in the space of the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula
and between the latter and the Italian mercantile cities acting as intermediaries with the rest of Western Europe.
4. Objects and their mobility are the fourth key focus. These may be addressed as witnesses to the mobility of
people and ideas, and the political, economic, and social exchanges between the different actors. Money and monetary circulation will also be one of the themes addressed in this conference.
More: https://www.romanislam.uni-hamburg.de/events-news/workshops/cities-objects-and-circulation-of-goods.html
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Universität Hamburg, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1,Hamburg, Germany
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.