Espacio doméstico y estructura social en contextos púnicos

Abstract

The study of habitation structures from a social perspective offers ample information, since the house can be understood as a kind of “microcosm” that mirrors household behaviours from which we can deduce wider social implications. The notion of “Architectural culture” as a set of cultural meanings embodied in buildings is particularly useful in this case, because household structures reflect social, economic and symbolic meanings at the family level. Is seems clear that the house, in particular the Mediterranean house, understood as a family residence, works as a complex space for socialisation processes. Among these processes we find not only family relationships and essential human life acts (birth, growth, reproduction and death) but also production, consumption, processing and even ritual activities. Archaeology allows us to identify the different uses of these spaces (as social places) whose recreation and perpetuation ensures both the family continuity and the maintenance of social order. For that reason, the study of Punic houses, by jointly interpreting container and content or, in other words, structures and household material culture, can provide interesting ideas about families as reduced unities of wider communities. Over these pages we will show how some habits reflect similar cultural behaviours in different regions (mainly North Africa and Sicily). On the other hand, several regional variations and nuances which have been identified seem to clarify the traditional discourse representing colonial communities as faithful copies of the metropolis. Although the social reading of Punic domestic architecture is still one step behind other cultural periods covered in this publication, we intend to offer a preliminary archaeological interpretive proposal in these pages. Consequently, drawing on the Levantine origins of Punic domestic architecture, we will focus on the two types of domestic structures we can find in Punic cultural contexts between the 4th and 2nd century BC. Thus, we first will analyse the so-called “court houses” or “Hellenistic type” and later the “corridor houses”. Evidences of both models can be found in most archaeological sites from Central and West Mediterranean and, from our point of view, they can be attributed to different social groups. In any case, despite the incomplete information concerning the material record, by means of a detailed analyse of structures and their increasing complexity and segmentation, we can already identify correlations between domestic spatial patterns and the organisation of Punic society as a whole.