This work presents a comprehensive history of Antioch, a pivotal city in the eastern Mediterranean and a key point on the Silk Road. It traces Antioch's journey from its Seleucid foundation through Roman rule, the rise of Christianity, Islamic and Byzantine conquests, and the Crusades. Traditionally, Antioch has been viewed as a city whose classical glory diminished due to natural disasters and invasions in the sixth and seventh centuries C.E. This perspective has hindered an understanding of the city's dynamic transformations from classical to medieval to modern times. By integrating textual sources with newly analyzed archaeological data from Princeton's 1930s excavations and recent findings, the book reveals unprecedented insights into Antioch's history, highlighting the lives of its inhabitants and the factors influencing its urban evolution. While focusing on the built environment, it also employs landscape archaeology to connect the city with its surroundings and uses numismatic evidence to examine its economy. The outdated image of Antioch as a lost classical city is replaced by one that showcases its vibrancy during its medieval Islamic, Byzantine, and Crusader periods. This history serves as a valuable resource for research and teaching across various disciplines, while its clarity makes it accessible to a broader audience beyond academia.
