House 409

This exhibit is focused primarily on C409, but what exactly does this mean?

House 409 is in a smaller section that escaped the destruction by farmers. It is not exactly on the outskirts of town, but nor is it in the center. It is roughly eighty meters from the northern temple. 

The C attached to the house number indicates the level that the finds are on. Levels in archaeology are used to date finds in relation to each other. This is called stratigraphy; the higher the level, the more recent the find. In Karanis, there are six layers, each differentiated by a letter. Level C was formed somewhere from 50 C.E. to 250 C.E. Some scholars do, however, find problems with this schema of dating. Thomas Landvatter in particular believes that the stratigraphy is too based on architectural change rather than soil stratigraphy, and that they were applied site-wide rather than on a case-by-case basis.

Despite complications with dating, the rooms in House 409 do have finds from the same chronological period. There were five rooms with finds inside of it. From these five rooms, we have chosen three to concentrate on. Within these three rooms (C409C, C409H, and C409J), the finds are a mix of religious and household goods, with each room slightly differing.

In C409C, there was a surprising amount of statuary. In C409J, there was an abundance of household goods and votive figurines. In C409H, there was multiple religious goods mixed in with possibly ritualistic make up.