Ian Randall CAARI lecture

Disaster and debris: remaking society in post-earthquake Kourion
At the end of the 4th century the city of Kourion was subjected to a period of intense stress that placed the lives of its inhabitants in severe danger, as well as challenged the fabric of their social and economic worlds. The earthquake of 395 devastated the city, and its immediate effects are readily apparent in the archaeological record. This talk will focus on the city’s response, how it rebounded (or did not), and place it into the larger context of the resilience to catastrophe of Byzantine systems of command and control. This episode will then be placed in conversation with the effects of the Arab raids in the 7th century on Kourion, and Cyprus more broadly. Touching on theories of resilience, it will be seen how the material responses of different sectors of society elucidate strengths and weaknesses in the interconnecting systems of socioeconomic interdependence, with important implications for shifts in the relations between classes over time. This also acts as a bellwether for the coherence of ties between Constantinople and more peripheral regions that has a marked effect on structural identity politics and the course of Byzantine history following periods of crisis and catastrophe.