VIA-TARIQ: Analysing the long-term change and persistency of the Roman road system in the Levant

The ‘VIA-TARIQ’ is an interdisciplinary project that aims to explore key topic among the archaeologists and historians of the Near East: what is the level of persistency/discontinuity of the Roman road system in the longue durée and what influences it had on the social and economic developments in the Medieval and modern period.

The project will approach these issues through analysis of large aggregated archaeological datasets and advanced spatial modelling methods, enabled through training in these methods at the host institution.

The project will significantly add to our understanding of the centuries-long change and development of the road and transport networks in the Levant.

It will illuminate the long-term effects of the Roman road infrastructure on the economic developments in the Medieval and Ottoman periods.

The training and research offered by the project will position the applicant as an expert in archaeological computational modelling for the study of the past and will enable him to influence paradigms and inform debates in the history and archaeology of the Near East.