The Mani peninsula is a semi-arid landscape with few natural sources of fresh water, yet it supported a dense population during the Late Byzantine and Ottoman periods. This paper reviews the archaeological and historical evidence for watermanagement practices in Mani, concentrating on its domestic-scale hydraulic infrastructure (cisterns and saltpans) and the ports and harbours along its coasts. The data point to a critical shift in household-level social organization at the turn of the 18th

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... tury, underscoring the fact that people living in supposedly 'peripheral' regions like Mani nevertheless engaged in far-reaching networks of contact and exchange.