The Flows of Late Antiquity: Managing Water in a Changing World

Name: The Flows of Late Antiquity: Managing Water in a Changing World
Start: 2026-02-07T10:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-02-07T17:00:00-05:00
Location: College Hill

Schedule

Sat Feb 07 2026 at 10:00 am to 05:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

College Hill | Providence, RI

The Flows of Late Antiquity: Managing Water in a Changing World
Saturday, February 7, 2026 | 10:00am - 5:00pm
go.brown.edu/water2026
While much attention has been given to the development of water management systems (aqueducts, baths, canals, cisterns, etc.) in earlier Roman periods, much less attention has been paid to what happens to this infrastructure in the later years of Roman rule. Designing, building, and maintaining these systems required significant funding and organization that often relied upon either a strong State-funded system or generous benefactions by wealthy private citizens. Neither of these foundational elements were necessarily guaranteed in later Antiquity, as Roman State power and finances waned and private wealth was either reduced or moved to other foci, such as church construction. In this changing socio-economic landscape, what happens to the flowing water that once supported so much of the Roman world?
This one-day workshop brings together experts on ancient water to investigate the legal, economic, and environmental contexts of hydraulic and hydrological infrastructure from roughly AD 300-600 and demonstrate the heterogeneity of ancient approach and importance of further modern research in this period.
More information, including the full workshop schedule, can be found at go.brown.edu/water2026.
The workshop is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf9iVvVkTBXYqGd0K-VL8UhwAVsvltOArAw8aWR75zwYXVioQ/viewform

This workshop is sponsored by the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, with additional support from the Center for Global Antiquity.