Lichtenberger, A. & Raja, R. (2020). "Antioch on the Chrysorrhoas, Formerly Called Gerasa: Perspectives on Biographies of a Place", Journal of Urban Archaeology 2: 151-172. DOI: doi.org/10.1484/J.JUA.5.121534.  

Abstract

Biographies of urban sites have been written for centuries, often following one overarching linear narrative of rise and decline. This contribution investigates the urban biography of Gerasa/Jerash, one of the famous Decapolis cities located in what is modern northern Jordan. It does so from a variety of perspectives in order to lay open the ways in which bringing together several and diverse perspectives might give converging, conflicting, or simply more nuanced views on the biography of a city. It is asked in what ways we might bring together such diverging narratives and correlate archaeological and historical narratives, which is one of the challenges that archaeologists and historians have to tackle. Here, the perspective brought by high-definition archaeology might also bring to the forefront new ways of tackling such biographies, giving visibility to the invisible, for example, by bringing in soil sciences.