Hybridity, Innovation, and Exchange in the Earthwork Theatres of Roman Gaul

In this presentation, Dr. Sigmier will discuss the use of earthwork substructures in Roman theatre buildings, an architectural approach that was distinctive to Rome’s northwestern provinces during the first two centuries CE.  Scholars have historically treated the decision to build with earth rather than with stone or concrete as an architectural simplification, motivated by costs of materials and a lack of technical expertise at provincial construction sites.  Based on a comparative analysis of mound building in pre-Columbian North America and Iron Age Europe, he argues instead that earthworks were a sophisticated structural solution that applied an established local tradition of monumental construction to an imported Mediterranean architectural form.