Victoria C. Moses - Gabii

Victoria C. Moses

Samuel H. Kress Foundation/Helen M. Woodruff/Archaeological Institute of America Rome Prize
September 10, 2018–April 3, 2020
Profession
PhD Candidate, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona
Project title
The Zooarchaeology of Early Rome: Meat Distribution and Urbanization (8th–6th Centuries BCE)
Project description

My dissertation uses zooarchaeological analysis (the study of animal bones from archaeological contexts) of five sites from the eighth to sixth centuries BCE in and around Rome to investigate urbanization, power, and religion through access to meat in public and private spaces. During this period, the food system in Rome and nearby urban centers would have been completely reorganized because of urbanization. At large-scale animal sacrifices, elites would have been tasked with providing the animals, thus establishing their status and using the food distribution as a form of social control. This research investigates the nature of these sacrifices as well as how meat reached private contexts during urbanization to understand the supply of meat in public and private settings as Rome formed. The sites include the Area Sacra di Sant’Omobono, the Regia, a small excavation at the Quirinal Hill, Veii, and Gabii.