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1 results

  • 1 - The resources of Late Antiquity

  • from PART I - THE LATE ANTIQUE CONTEXT
  • Edited by Chase F. Robinson
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge History of Islam
    Published online:
    28 March 2011
    Print publication:
    04 November 2010, pp 17-71

  • Summary

    The late ancient world in the lands that were to be conquered by the first Muslim armies included a number of disparate regions, each offering a particular environment. Communications depended on landscape and climatic conditions, of course, but a series of major strategic routes connected these different cultural and geographical zones. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that road building and bridge building were on several occasions carried out using the skills of Roman captives during the third and fourth centuries. The city was one of the most important features of the late ancient landscape, both in respect of the social organisation of production and the ownership and control of resources in land and manpower. Cities and urban centres in the Sasanian world occupied a somewhat different role in the structure of the state, although they were similar in respect of some of their social and economic functions.