Cities on the Edge. Exploring Late Antique urbanism in the Southern Caucasus - AD 300-600

The urban transformations that unfolded in Late Antiquity (300–600 CE) were responsible for creating the physical framework upon which cities across Europe and the Middle East would later develop. Because of this, late antique urbanism has attracted considerable attention by modern scholarship. Within this growing research field, the construction of cities on the borderlands of Empires has often been dismissed as instrumental for frontier defence. However, to what extent is this true? This project is for a conference at UrbNet (Aarhus University) to explore urbanism and urban networks in the Southern Caucasus, a region that was contended by Rome and Sassanian Persia in Late Antiquity. The event is organised in collaboration with Oxford University (Dr Paul Wordsworth).