Spolia in Fortifications: Turkey, Syria and North Africa

From the Introdiction: "This book enquires into what classes of artefacts, from gems to villas, wereavailable in the West for all or part of the Middle Ages - a period which Itake to be from roughly 500 AD to 1400 AD. It is partly an interpretative`biography' of various classes of antiquities during that period, and partly anexamination of the circumstances leading to their survival, destruction orrediscovery. In this context antiquities are defined as structural remains andobjects which have an `artistic' context - that is, sculptural friezes or coinsrather than ploughshares or other utilitarian objects. The survey is notconfined to pagan objects: paleochristian works are included, not simplybecause of the revivals of Early Christian work in later centuries (e.g.Bergman 1974, 171ff.), but also because the Middle Ages sometimes made no cleardistinction between pagan and Christian. Each observation the book contains issupported by only a few examples (based on documents and other publishedmaterial) which could, of course, easily be multiplied by anyone wishing topursue particular topics in greater depth than is appropriate in such a broadsurvey as this. Background to the earlier Middle Ages is provided byWard-Perkins (1984), who discusses changes in the tradition of public building- one essential measure against which to view the survival of the antique..."