Chickens in the Late Byzantine Empire

Date

2014-09-22

Author

Pişkin, Evangelia

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Chickens spread from East Asia to Europe perhaps as early as the Neolithic times. Nevertheless, the “natural” bridge of transition, Anatolia has rather poor records of the bird. Most of the finds come from Roman sites. Little evidence exists from earlier and later periods and when the bird is testified this is usually by a few bone fragments with the exception of the very large assemblage from Roman – Early Byzantine Sagalassos. Chickens have been rarely reported from Byzantine sites nevertheless the bird should have been a common sight in the Byzantine backyards. It must have played an important role in household economy and could have been an “everyday” item of consumption. A clear indication of this is the frequent mentioning of the bird as a tax item to be given to tax collectors and the bishop. In the Late Byzantine layers of Komana, Turkey, favourable conditions of preservation in pits allowed for the recovery of a large assemblage of chicken bones. Based on these, a reconstruction of the chicken husbandry in this small town is presented. An overall evaluation of the role of chicken in Late Byzantine Empire is then attempted by bringing together the zooarchaeological evidence from other Byzantine sites as well as information from historical sources.

Subject Keywords

Chicken husbandry, Byzance, Anatolia

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/77517

Conference Name

12th International Conference of Archaeozoology

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Conference / Seminar

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Citation Formats

E. Pişkin, “Chickens in the Late Byzantine Empire,” presented at the 12th International Conference of Archaeozoology, San Rafael, Arjantin, 2014, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/77517.