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Conquest, Ecology and Economy in Islamic North Africa: The Example of the Central Medjerda Valley
The Muslim conquest of North Africa and subsequent regime changes resulted in widespread changes in urbanism, agriculture and regional economies which are fundamental to understanding the development of North African society, united under Islam. Recent synthetic studies challenge what has long been the textbook understanding of the collapse of Roman rule and the impact of the Muslim conquests in North Africa, in which the eighth and ninth centuries have often been seen as a dark age. Ongoing excavations at the important, neighbouring urban centres of Simitthus (Chimtou) and Bulla Regia (Hammam Darraji) in NW Tunisia have highlighted the complexity of urban trajectories, technological innovation and environmental change in the medieval period.
This聽project will build on these findings, addressing a fundamental gap in our understanding of cultural, economic and landscape transformations in medieval North Africa. Moving beyond the simple question of urban continuity or collapse in late antiquity and the early medieval period, it will investigate the extent to which the Muslim conquests and subsequent regime change represented a force of economic and social transformation.
This will be assessed by tracking long-term changes in settlement patterns, landscape use, patterns of exploitation and technology in the central Medjerda valley, the famed granary of Roman and Islamic Africa.聽This project will ultimately result in both a fundamental advance of our understanding of Islamic North Africa and a new interpretative framework which can be applied to other regions of the Islamic world.
Related outputs
- Fenwick, C. (2020), Early Islamic North Africa: A New Perspective. London.
- Fenwick, C. (2020), 鈥楾he Umayyads and North Africa: Imperial Rule and Frontier Society鈥�, in A. Marsham (ed.), The Umayyad World. London.
- Fenwick, C. (2020), 鈥楾he Fate of the Classical Cities of Ifr墨qiya in the Early Middle Ages鈥� in R. Bockmann, A. Leone & P. von Rummel (eds.) Africa-Ifr墨qya: Cultures of Transition in North Africa between Late Antiquity and Early Medieval. Rome: Deutsches Arch盲ologisches Institut (Palilia Series 34).
- Fenwick, C. (2018),聽'Early medieval urbanism in Ifr墨qiya and the emergence of the Islamic city鈥� in S. Panzram and L. Callegarin (eds), Entre civitas y mad墨na. El mundo de las ciudades en la pen铆nsula ib茅rica y en el norte de 脕frica (ss. IV-IX), Madrid: Casa de Vel谩zquez: 283-304.
- Anderson, G., Fenwick, C. and Rosser-Owen, M. (eds.) (2017). The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-century North Africa. Leiden.
- Fenwick, C. (2013), 鈥楩rom Africa to Ifr墨qiya: Settlement and Society in Early Medieval North Africa (650鈥�800)鈥�, 础濒-惭补蝉腻辩 25: 9-33.
Funding
- AHRC-DFG聽Joint German-UK Project Proposals in the Humanities, incl. Law and Linguistics