Working from Home: The Archaeology of Mercantile Households in the Phoenician Mediterranean

This dissertation presents a systematic review of Phoenician domestic space and architecture between 900-600 BCE across the wider Mediterranean region. This study was prompted by recent excavations at the site of Cerro del Villar, Spain by the University of Chicago and the need to identify comparable examples to the structures being unearthed there. No previous research has conducted a comparative analysis within these parameters, and thus this dissertation fills a research gap and presents new analyses of recently excavated remains. The domestic remains at eleven sites were reviewed with a focus on space use analysis and spatial organization of Phoenician homes. Seven of the sites in this corpus have homes that reflect a building pattern I have identified as the Mercantile Household Model. This is a model that reflects a Phoenician practice of building domestic space in close proximity to workspace and/or excess storage. This model invokes important questions regarding Phoenician household and settlement demography and colonization, and this dissertation investigates the possible reasons for its presence and absence at various sites and settlements. The results of this study impact our understanding of Phoenician domestic archaeology and the role of the house and household as economic units in the Phoenician world.