Even if the chaîne opératoire of molk-style rites may have changed little between the eighth century BCE and the second century CE, how worshippers and communities wove significance around these ritualized gestures underwent a marked transformation. Focusing on the tophet of Hadrumetum, this chapter shows how stelae shifted emphasis from the molk as part of an individual, verbal relationship between worshipper and deity to a communal act that foregrounded and elevated a single sacrificant at an altar. Although these scenes of sacrifice-at-altar have been seen as simple calques on the iconography of Roman historical reliefs, worshippers in North Africa instead created new imagery that shared social dynamics and priorities rather than iconographies.

While many terms are used interchangeably, ‘recycling’, ‘spolia’, ‘reuse’, and ‘reprocessing’ have distinct definitions and histories. This introduction situates previous studies in the areas of ancient recycling and reuse and provides a summary of thirty-eight villa case study sites with archaeological evidence for material salvage and recycling.

Materials collection and organization was an essential part of recycling operations, as it allowed owners and workers to plan their operations and trade. This chapter offers a model for understanding organization and stockpiling and how it relates to recycling at villas and in other contexts.

Both the decline in supply of new materials and sustained recycling practices that were culturally embedded drove villa material salvage and recycling. Economic models emphasize the importance of extant trade routes, especially riverine routes, for the recycled materials markets.

Archaeological evidence of reprocessing installations (hearths, kilns, and other fire-powered operations) has been discovered at thirty-one villa case study sites, working lead, iron, bronze, gold, copper, glass, and converting limestone into quicklime. The spatial relationship between the installations and the rooms in the former villa indicates both that these workshops reprocessed salvaged architectural materials and utilized the footprint of the villa to undertake the operations.

Evidence of the removal of desired architectural components has been archaeologically detected at villa sites ranging in chronology from the second century CE to the medieval period. Alongside common patterns of material salvage from late antiquity, there was also evidence of ritual practices undertaken as part of demolition and recycling operations, providing a window into the cultural or religious beliefs of these workforces.

This concluding section emphasizes that in late antiquity, materials held monetary value that was higher than their use-value and this value was capitalized upon by landowners and groups of specialized professionals involved in recycling. Furthermore, villas were ideally positioned for the movement of materials within local networks, which ultimately preserved the manufactured value of architectural glass, metals, and stone.

The Roman description of value in architecture is positioned against other value propositions, including value in ruins, historical-value, use-value, and age-value, to arrive at a pyramidal value structure for Roman villa architecture. A summary of common villa building materials enables a greater understanding of cultural and monetary values of architectural materials.

In addition to the economic factors influencing recycling, the cultural context of villas, as properties of the now-Christian aristocracy, placed them ideally for supplying materials for new church construction.