ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN—According to a Newsweek report, Laura Motta of the University of Michigan and her colleagues radiocarbon dated plant remains recovered from the site of Karanis and found that this Roman agricultural settlement in Egypt's Fayum Oasis was probably abandoned later than previously thought. Thousands of people are thought to have lived in Karanis, based upon the residential neighborhoods, production facilities, granaries, temples, and the bath complex that have been unearthed at the site. The dates obtained from 13 plant samples, which were taken from different areas of Karanis, indicate that the settlement was not in complete decline in the fourth century A.D., and had not been abandoned by the fifth century. Rather, the new dates suggest that people were still inhabiting areas of Karanis in the sixth century, and some may have continued to live there until the Islamic conquest of the region in the seventh century A.D. The new chronology for the site could contribute to the study of the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the medieval period, the researchers concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read about Roman-era mummy portraits unearthed in the Fayum, go to "At Face Value."
