Catherine T. Keane

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED) at Koç University, Istanbul, researching the intersections between late antique religion and economy. After a BA in Anthropology and Classical Archaeology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (IL, USA) and a M.Sc. in Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh (UK), I completed a PhD at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Munich, Germany), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Franz Alto Bauer and Prof. Dr. Albrecht Berger. My doctorate explored the archaeology of 4^th-9^th century Cyprus, specifically the roles of the church with agricultural/artisanal production, focusing on dynamics between economically productive spaces and sacred architecture (olive oil, wine, flour, bread, ceramic, and copper industries). Currently, I am continuing research into this phenomenon, and compiling a database of late antique churches with archaeological evidence of productive installations.

My fields of research within late antique archaeology and Byzantine art history include ecclesiastical architectural analysis, industrial and agricultural archaeology, urban infrastructure, monumentality, and landscape archaeology. With interests in theoretical approaches in Byzantine archaeology, I’m also pursuing research on resilience theory in the eastern Mediterranean by scrutinising the data of overlapping invasions and environmental, epidemic, and natural disasters – all universally human crises. This project is a comprehensive study of archaeological information for church complexes of the coastal regions of southern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, to provide a foundational study for answering the question of the late antique church’s role in trade, and transform our understanding of resilience. Using microcosms of this dual liturgical and productive functionality as representative of the macrocosm will identify essential workings of resilience.