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Cover von: The Kitchen in the Church Complex
Dana Robinson

The Kitchen in the Church Complex

Rubrik: Articles
Jahrgang 10 (2024) / Heft 1, S. 127-148 (22)
Publiziert 31.05.2024
DOI 10.1628/rre-2024-0009
Veröffentlicht auf Englisch.
Beschreibung
The fourth-century church complex at 'Ain el-Gedida, in the Dakhleh Oasis, provides a striking case study for the integration of kitchen work into social and religious space in late antiquity. Its unique features - both sociological and archaeological - reflect a dynamic, rough-and-tumble integration that both protects the sacred space of the nave and centres the productive labour of cooking. This article analyses the anteroom/kitchen B6 from the perspectives of space syntax, the communicative landscape of labour, and the sociology of graffiti. While it may have been designed as a transitional zone or service auxiliary for the primary public spaces of church and gathering hall, B6 becomes, in its socio-spatial effects, an alternate pole of symbolic density that exerts a counterforce to the sacred space of nave and sanctuary. This analysis also provides a preliminary model for thinking about the role played by visible labour in the religious experience of Christians in the later Roman Empire, particularly non-elite Christians.