EPIGRAPHIC ATTESTATIONS OF CONSTRUCTION RELATED CRAFTS IN ROMAN ASIA MINOR AND PROTO- BYZANTINE: SPECIALIZATIONS AND SOCIAL ROLE

Crafts and other activities related to construction works are well attested in epigraphic sources in Asia Minor, even if they are so in an uneven and not always representative manner. These inscriptions give us important information about building processes. The small number of honorary inscriptions almost exclusively commemorates the highest professional levels of the hierarchy (architects and technitai), whereas the much more numerous funerary monuments often include references to the professional activities of the deceased, even if these were not particularly noble. The systematic analysis of the epigraphic documents thus makes it possible to de ne different categories of professions associated with building works, including some with very specialized connotations. This, in turn, enables us to suggest, with more or less precision, the distribution of skills during the different stages of construction. On this basis it is then possible to reconstruct the social position and the role played by individual professionals within the internal organization of the building sites, from the initial stage of finding or importing the necessary building materials to the carpentry, from the processing of the blocks to their assembly and the finishing.