Archaeology by period / region Books

Book SynopsisMarianne Eaton-Krauss is an Egyptologist who has taught at universities in Berlin, Muenster, and Marburg, Germany, and written more than 50 articles about Tutankhamun and the Amarna Period. Her publications on objects from the king's tomb include, most recently, The Thrones, Chairs, Stools, and Footstools from the Tomb of Tutankhamun (2008).Trade ReviewPacked with important information and attractively produced ... [This book] is an important critical review of many of the key topics and theories relating to the reign of Tutankhamun, and as such is a 'must have' for anyone with a serious interest in the Amarna Period and its aftermath. * Egyptian Archaeology *A useful discussion of the evidence relating to a pivotal figure in the history of ancient Egypt. * Ancient Egypt *[The book offers] careful interpretation of inscriptions and artistic trends. * AramcoWorld *Eaton-Krauss has provided a fine service by gathering together so much information [from foreign-language studies] ... She has produced a book that is extremely fascinating for anyone interested in Tutankhamun and at the same time, with copious notes, providing valuable material for professional Egyptologists. * Classics for All *A most welcomed monograph on the reign of king Tutankhaten/Tutankhamun. It provides both professional and general audiences with up-to-date information, detailed discussions that in some points do not lack Eaton-Krauss's necessary criticism, and well organised chapters. This work challenges deeply-ingrained associations of wealth, mystery and curses with the king by providing readers with a study of his parentage, childhood, accession, architectural and sculptural projects. * Orientalistische Literaturzeitung *As a leading expert on the monuments, texts, and images relating to Tutankhamun, Marianne Eaton-Krauss has provided a fascinating account of the young king’s reign that is both engaging and scholarly. Drawing on a wide range of material known only to specialists, the author goes far beyond the endlessly repeated and often sensationalised narratives about the young king and the discovery of his tomb to truly tell the story of the unknown Tutankhamun. -- Gay Robins, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Art History, Emory University, USADr Eaton-Krauss’s thoroughly researched book restores ‘King Tut’ to his true historical significance. It presents a complete picture of a fascinating personality which intrigues as well as charms. Young Tutankhamun was on the Egyptian throne during an exciting period when the country was recovering from the effects of a profound political, economic and ideological revolution instigated by the ‘heretic’ king Akhenaten. Tutankhamun’s childhood and the ‘restoration period’ during which he reigned are described and analysed. The King’s extensive building activities and the intensive production of sculptures of the traditional deities are discussed in detail. His premature death and the difficulties accompanying the preparation of his burial are explained. This is a book which will satisfy specialists as well as amateurs. -- Jaromir Malek, Senior Research Associate, Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, UK, and author of The Treasures of Tutankhamun (2012)Marianne Eaton-Krauss has been recognized as a scholar of Tutankhamun and a truth-teller for decades. When she applies her careful and incisive powers of reason to the hundreds of recently published books and articles on this king, the reader learns what is what, without the drama so frequently draped over everything Tutankhamun. -- Betsy M. Bryan, Alexander Badawy Professor of Egyptian Art and Archaeology, Johns Hopkins University, USATable of ContentsPreface Introduction Chapter 1 Prince Tutankhaten Chapter 2 King Tutankhaten Chapter 3 Tutankhamun and the Restoration Chapter 4 Statues for Amun Chapter 5 Tutankhamun’s Building Projects Chapter 6 Tutankhamun’s Funerary Temple, his Tomb and the Sarcophagus found in it Chapter 7 Tutankhamun’s Death and Burial Epilogue Map Chronology Abbreviations Endnotes Selected Bibliography

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Book SynopsisHoward Carter (1874-1939) was an artist and archaeologist, best known for his discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.Table of ContentsForeword Preface List of Plates Introduction: Remarks Upon Egyptian Art 1. Tut.Ankh.Amen 2. The Tomb and The Burial Chamber 3. Clearing the Burial Chamber and Opening the Sarcophagus 4. The State Chariots 5. The Opening of the Three Coffins (Season 1925-26) 6. Points of Interest in Egyptian Burial Customs 7. The Examination of the Royal Mummy Appendix I: Report Upon the Examination of Tut.Ankh.Amen's Mummy Appendix II: The Chemistry of the Tomb Appendix III: Report on the Floral Wreaths Found in the Coffins of Tut.Ankh.Amen Appendix IV: Notes on Objects from the Tomb Appendix V: Report on the Examination of Specimens from the Tomb of King Tut.Ankh.Amen Appendix VI: Description of the Objects Index

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Book SynopsisHoward Carter (1874-1939) was an artist and archaeologist, best known for his discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.Table of ContentsForeword Preface List of Plates Introduction: Facts and Theories Relating to the Kings Involved in the Aten Heresy 1. The Room Beyond the Burial Chamber (A Treasury) 2. The Funerary Equipment Found in the Room Beyond the Burial Chamber 3. The Annexe (A Store-Room) 4. The Objects Found in the Annexe (A Store Room) 4.1 Extraneous Objects Not Traditionally Belonging to the Annexe (A Store-Room) 4.2 The Contents Proper of the Annexe (A Store-Room) 5. The Main Cause of the Deterioration and Chemical Changes Among the Objects in the Tomb Appendix I: Report Upon the Two Human Foetuses Discovered in the Tomb of Tut.ankh.Amen Appendix II: The Chemistry of the Tomb Appendix III: Plates Index

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Book SynopsisWalter Crist is a leading expert on Cypriot board games and a PhD candidate in archaeology at Arizona State University.Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi is a Research Associate in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and is pursuing PhD research at Leiden University, the Netherlands, on the game of Hounds and Jackals.Alex de Voogt is an Assistant Curator at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and a leading researcher of board games in Africa and the Middle East.Trade ReviewRichly illustrated with photographs and line drawings, this volume is a welcome compendium in the field of board game studies, and indeed is a great encouragement to crack open a board game and get playing! * Ancient Egypt *In his very specialized book, Crist (Arizona State Univ.) achieves his purpose—to synthesize material evidence found in Egypt about board games and their uses from the predynastic through Islamic eras. He presents this information to facilitate identifying excavated board games and understanding their crossing of cultural borders. … Of interest to graduate students and scholars who are Egyptologists, archaeologists, and social anthropologists. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, professionals. * CHOICE *Egyptologists and scholars from other disciplines who wish to study board games in the ancient world will find this study to be a very useful research tool that provides a thorough description of the available material evidence, summaries of previous work on the topic, and astute suggestions of broader trends and questions. * Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections *An impressive summation of the widely dispersed evidence on Ancient Egyptian board games, including much additional material from graffiti boards and especially from outside Egypt. Board games are shown to represent a major token of ongoing cross-cultural interaction between Egypt and its neighbours in Pharaonic and post-Pharaonic times. The book adds a whole new chapter to the study of such interactions more broadly. * Andréas Stauder, Directeur d'études "égyptien", École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. *This innovative study of Egyptian games provides the most comprehensive overview to date, providing an essential guide for archaeologists wanting to identify games in the field and those interested more generally in ancient Egyptian play. The authors’ concern for gaming’s temporal, geographic and social contexts adds an important dimension to their study, making it an important source for those interested in gaming at all times and places. * Stuart Tyson Smith, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA *Meticulously researched … Crist, Dunn-Vaturi, and de Voogt have produced an appealing overview of board games in ancient Egypt … This volume compiles all relevant scholarship into a digestible size and makes new arguments for cultural exchange between Egypt and its neighbors. This book will be an invaluable tool for anyone seeking to identify board games in the field and a helpful resource for anyone interested in ancient board games, ancient Egypt, or cultural exchange. * Classical Journal *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Egyptian Chronology 1. Ancient Egyptians at Play: An Introduction 2. Mehen and men: The First Signs of Egyptian Board Games 3. Senet across Borders 4. The Game of Twenty: A Foreign Acquisition 5. The Game of Hounds and Jackals: From Thebes to Susa 6. Roman Board Games Crossing the Borders of Egypt 7. Arab and Ottoman Invaders Scratching the Surface 8. The Role of Board Games in Understanding the Ancient World Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume explores the earliest appearances and functions of the five major Egyptian goddesses Neith, Hathor, Nut, Isis and Nephthys. Although their importance endured throughout more than three millennia of ancient Egyptian history, their origins, earliest roles, and relationships in religion, myth, and cult have never before been studied together in detail. Showcasing the latest research with carefully chosen illustrations and a full bibliography, Susan Tower Hollis suggests that the origins of the goddesses derived primarily from their functions, as, shown by their first appearances in the text and art of the Protodynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom periods of the late fourth and third millennia BCE. The roles of the goddess Bat are also explored where she is viewed both as an independent figure and in her specific connections to Hathor, including the background to their shared bovine iconography. Hollis provides evidence of the goddesses' close ties with royalty and, in theTrade ReviewThe latest volume in the excellent Bloomsbury Egyptology series ... An important work for any scholar of Egypt's religious tradition – with extensive notes and bibliography taking up at least one third of the volume – while at the same time offering an enjoyable read for anyone with an interest in Egypt's great goddesses. * Ancient Egypt *This book is an excellent place for anyone looking to learn more about the major goddesses of ancient Egypt, and is particularly useful to Egyptologists as a baseline source when beginning new research. * Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt *Table of ContentsList of figures Map Chronology Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Neith Chapter 2: Hathor Excursus 1: Bat Excursus 2: Cattle Chapter 3: Nut Chapter 4: Isis and Nephthys Conclusion List of Abbreviations Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn the Wake of the Compendia examines the composition of technical literature in the ancient Semitic-speaking world. This volume offers new perspectives on the early history of these compendia and their subsequent transmission into later post-cuneiform compilations, curricula, and scholarly writings.

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Book SynopsisIn this volume are collected all of the writings Moran devoted to the Amarna letters over more than four decades, including his doctoral dissertation, which has been one of the most widely cited unpublished works in ancient Near Eastern studies. A citation index makes Professor Moran's comments on individual texts readily accessible.

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Book SynopsisThe first two volumes on patrimonialism in Ugarit and the ancient Near East, this book opens with a lengthy introduction on the interpretation of social action and households in the ancient world. Following this foundation, Schloen embarks on a societal and domestic study of the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Ugarit in its wider Near Eastern context.

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Book SynopsisThe beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (MB IIA) in Canaan (ca. 1950-1740 B.C.E.) set the stage for many of the cultural, political, and economic institutions that shaped the ancient Near East. Particular theoretical models for the analysis of complex societies are used in this study to examine textual, pictorial, and archaeological evidence relating to the nature and organization of MB IIA Canaan. The written and pictorial evidence pertaining to Egyptian-Canaanite contact indicates a fluid relationship that changed over time in response to changing social, political, and economic developments in both cultures. As a result, Egyptian policy toward Canaan was multifaceted, including approaches ranging from the use of military force to magical rites. The analysis of MB IIA site-distribution indicates that Canaanite settlement first developed in areas on the coast most conducive to agricultural growth. It then progressed according to a dendritic pattern of organization along the east-west wadi systems into the interior in response to a growing demand for resources and raw materials, fueled in part by contact with Egypt and the international world of the eastern Mediterranean. Chronological correlations between the Canaanite settlement systems and Middle Kingdom Egypt also indicate that the beginning of the MB IIA in Canaan dates well into the Middle Kingdom, rather than being contemporary with its beginnings, as previously understood. Findings concerning the Canaanite-Egyptian relationship, Canaanite site-distribution, and chronological connections between these two regions all illustrate the development of Canaan from a society in the first stages of urbanization to a fully urbanized one, setting the stage for the rise of the Hyksos to power in Egypt.

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Book SynopsisThe ancient myth of a battle between a Divine Warrior and a primordial monster undergoes significant development in postbiblical and rabbinic literatures. This development is the focus of the present study. In particular, it examines the monsters Leviathan and Behemoth, showing that the postbiblical and rabbinic traditions about them are derived from ancient sources that are not all preserved in the biblical texts. In the Apocalypse of Abraham and the Ladder of Jacob, the monster Leviathan is placed at the juncture of heaven and the underworld. This cosmological focus appears in rabbinic literature in traditions concerning Behemoth, Leviathan, and the world rivers, and concerning Leviathan as the foundation of the axis mundi. These originate in the Divine Warrior's enthronement upon the vanquished chaos dragon. A second role in which Leviathan and Behemoth appear in postbiblical literature is as food for the eschatological banquet. Whitney studies this in a variety of sources, among them 4 Ezra 6:47-52, 2 Apocalypse of Baruch 29:4, and 1 Enoch 60:7-9, 24, and a number of rabbinic texts. In one tradition, the battle between God and monster becomes an angelic hunt, described by the Greek word kynegesia. This sometimes referred to battles between beasts in the arena, and in a variant tradition Leviathan battles Behemoth in a fight to the death before the banquet. The "food for the righteous" motif possibly stems from the introduction of hunting imagery into the combat myth: the prevalence of hunting banquets gave rise to the expectation that these monsters, the prey in a divine hunt, would feed the righteous at the end of time.

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Book SynopsisIn this comprehensive study, Professor Tappy rounds out the study of the Iron Age strata at Samaria that he began with the first volume of this work, published in 1992 (The Early Iron Age through the Ninth Century, HSS 44). Tappy's goal is to provide a thorough-going analysis of prior archaeologists' work at this important north Israelite site, with a view to providing a complete reconstruction of the depositional history of the site during the Iron Age. The two volumes together are important, not only for the history of the city of Samaria, but for the archaeological sequences of the Iron Age in northern Israel.

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Book SynopsisAs the first comprehensive study of fortification systems and defensive strategies in the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1900 to 1500 B.C.E.), Walled up to Heaven is an indispensable contribution to the study of this period and of early warfare in the ancient Near East. Although archaeologists and ancient historians alike have discussed a variety of theories regarding the origin and cultural significance of the construction of earthen ramparts during the Middle Bronze Age, only this work addresses these questions in detail. In a tour de force, Burke traces the diachronic evolution and geographic distribution of the architectural features and settlement strategies connected with the emergence of Middle Bronze Age defenses in the Levant. By synthesizing historical and archaeological data from Mesopotamia and Egypt as well as the Levant, he reveals the interconnectedness of the Near Eastern world during the first half of the second millennium to an extent not recently considered. The result is a detailed employment of cognitive, social, and dirt archaeology to reconstruct the political, social, military, and cultural implications of the construction of monumental defenses and the development of defensive networks during the period of Amorite hegemony in the Levant.

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Book SynopsisThe city of Emar, modern Tell Meskene in Syria, is one of the most important sites of the western ancient Near East during the Late Bronze Age that have yielded cuneiform tablets. The discovery of more than one thousand tablets and tablet fragments assures Emar's position, along with Bogazkoy-Hattusa and Ras-Shamra-Ugarit, as a major scribal center. Ephemeral documents such as wills or sale contracts, texts about rituals and cultic festivals, school texts and student exercises, and inscribed seals and their impressions enable reconstruction of the Emar scribal school institution and provide materials for investigation into the lives of more than fifty scribes whose works were found in the city. The aim of this book is to place Emar's scribal school institution within its social and historical context, to observe the participation of its teachers and students in the study of the school curriculum, to investigate the role of the scribes in the daily life of the city (in particular within the administration), and to evaluate the school's and its members' position within the network of similar institutions throughout the ancient Near East.

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Book SynopsisThe orthodox view of the Mississippian social world hinges on the idea that chiefdoms—dominance- based hierarchical societies in the Eastern Woodlands of North America—vied for power, often violently but at times cooperatively, through political and economic avenues. These chiefdoms represented something of a feudal state in prehistoric North America, which lasted up to the contract period with Europeans around 1500 AD. In From Cahokia to Larson to Moundville, noted archaeologist A. Martin Byers challenges these assumptions and offers a contrasting view by deconstructing the chiefdom model and offering instead an autonomous social world that focused on spiritual renewal and sacred rituals. Byers presents his case through the archaeological record of Cahokia, Larson, and Moundville’s monumental earthworks and, in doing so, reveals the Mississippian social community to be more complex, and more cooperative, than previously envisioned.

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Book Synopsis“Smoking and Culture is an outstanding example of what is possible when new methods and theoretical frameworks are applied to tobacco pipes.” —Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

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Book SynopsisAlthough scholars have long recognized the mythic status of bears in Indigenous North American societies of the past, this is the first volume to synthesize the vast amount of archaeological and historical research on the topic. Bears charts the special relationship between the American black bear and humans in eastern Native American cultures across thousands of years.These essays draw on zooarchaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence from nearly 300 archaeological sites from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico. Contributors explore the ways bears have been treated as something akin to another kind of human—in the words of anthropologist Irving Hallowell, "other than human persons"—in Algonquian, Cherokee, Iroquois, Meskwaki, Creek, and many other Native cultures. Case studies focus on bear imagery in Native art and artifacts; the religious and economic significance of bears and bear products such as meat, fat, oil, and pelts; bears in Native worldviews, kinship systems, and cosmologies; and the use of bears as commodities in transatlantic trade. The case studies in Bears demonstrate that bears were not only a source of food, but were also religious, economic, and political icons within Indigenous cultures. This volume convincingly portrays the black bear as one of the most socially significant species in Native eastern North America. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen SeriesTable of Contents Introduction—Heather A. Lapham Chapter 1 Ethnohistorical and Ethnographic Overview of Bear-Human Relationships in Native Eastern North America—Gregory A. Waselkov Chapter 2 "Dear, Honored Guest": Bear Ceremonialism in Minnesota—David Mather Chapter 3 The Great White Bear in Cosmology, Myth, Imagery, and Ritual—Thomas E. Berres Chapter 4 The Multifaceted Bear: Spiritual and Economic Roles of Bears in Meskwaki Society—Ralph Koziarski Chapter 5 Use of Black Bears in the Western Great Lakes Region, and the Riddle of the Perforated Bear Mandibles—Terrance J. Martin Chapter 6 Black Bears and the Iroquoians: Food, Stories, and Symbols—Christian Gates St-Pierre, Claire St-Germain, and Louis-Vincent Laperrière-Désorcy Chapter 7 In Feast and Famine: New Perspectives on Black Bear in the Southern Appalachians and Piedmont, AD 1000–1800—Heather A. Lapham Chapter 8 Better than Butter: Yona Go'i‚ Bear Grease in Cherokee Culture—Heidi M. Altman, Tanya M. Peres, and J. Matthew Compton Chapter 9 Bears, Bear-Grounds, and Bovines in the Lower Southeast—Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman Chapter 10 Re-Examining the Evidence for Bear Ceremonialism in the Lower Mississippi Valley—Ashley Peles and Megan C. Kassabaum Chapter 11 Menageries and Bearskin Caps: Experiencing North American Bears in Post-Medieval Britain—Hannah J. O'Regan Chapter 12 Bear-Human Relationships in Eastern Native North America: An Overview of Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Evidence—Gregory A. Waselkov and J. Lynn Funkhouser Contributors

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Book SynopsisGun-guwelamagapa: Gun-nerranga gun-nerranga rrawa, An-barra gun-nika describes the An-barra Archaeological Project, which investigated the archaeological sites around the mouth of the Blyth River (An-gartcha Wana literally Big River) in central Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia. This volume delves into the pre-colonial settlement patterns and subsistence strategies of the An-barra community, set against the backdrop of significant environmental changes during the mid to late Holocene. The authors provide a detailed analysis of the archaeological findings, comparing them with ethnographic evidence to uncover the history and cultural heritage of the An-barra people. The Traditional Owners, including Betty Ngurrpangurrpa and other community members, actively participated in the research, providing invaluable knowledge and insights. Their support enabled the collection of archaeological assemblages and facilitated the interpretation of findings through the lens of their cultural heritage. This volume is a companion piece to Betty Meehan's earlier work, Shell Bed to Shell Midden (1982), and extends the narrative by integrating archaeological data with ethnographic insights. Gun-guwelamagapa reveals the relationships between the An-barra community and their environment, highlighting the role of shell middens, earth mounds, and other archaeological features in understanding the past. The authors discuss the significance of these sites, the methods used in their investigation, and the broader implications for interpreting the archaeological record of northern Australia. Gun-guwelamagapa emphasises the importance of integrating ethnographic and archaeological data to provide a holistic understanding of past human behaviours. It also showcases the contributions of the An-barra community to the preservation and interpretation of their cultural heritage, offering new perspectives on the history and culture of the An-barra people.

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Book SynopsisSince then new texts have appeared (such as the Artemidoros palimpsest), and new editions of existing texts (by geographical authorities who include Agatharchides, Eratosthenes, Pseudo-Skylax and Strabo) have been produced. There has been much archaeological research, especially at the perimeters of the Greek world, and a more accurate understanding of ancient geography and geographers has emerged. The topic is therefore overdue a fresh and sustained treatment. In offering precisely that, Duane Roller explores important topics like knowledge of the world in the Bronze Age and Archaic periods; Greek expansion into the Black Sea and the West; the Pythagorean concept of the earth as a globe; the invention of geography as a discipline by Eratosthenes; Polybios the explorer; Strabo's famous Geographica; the travels of Alexander the Great; Roman geography; Ptolemy and late antiquity; and the cultural reawakening of antique geographical knowledge in the Renaissance, including Columbus' use of ancient sources.Trade Review'For the first time in several generations, Duane Roller offers readers a clear, comprehensive and authoritative survey of ancient geographical thought from its mythic origins in Homer right through to the fall of the Roman Empire. Ancient Geography is the distillation of decades of work on the subject by Roller, who is also a distinguished translator of the key books he discusses here. Ancient Geography immediately eclipses the introductions to the subject offered by previous scholars and should hold its place as the single key treatment of the topic for generations to come for classicists, geographers and historians alike.' -Robert Mayhew, Professor of Historical Geography and Intellectual History, University of Bristol, 'In this elegant and readable narrative, Duane Roller adroitly recreates the sense of wonder, excitement, and adventure that permeated Greek and Roman geographical initiatives. The result is a vivid tapestry of the many threads of ancient geographical thought that have been untangled from myriad layers of discord, transmission, redaction, and (mis)interpretation in the ancient sources. The book will be warmly and appreciatively welcomed by students of classical history and geography and indeed by anyone with an interest in how antiquity conceived of the world and its features.' - Georgia L Irby, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, 'What Duane Roller has achieved in this book is impressive and invaluable. The Greek and Roman grasp of geography, from both spatial and scientific perspectives, developed remarkably over more than half a millennium. So while the approach taken here of explaining this growth chronologically might seem a straightforward task, in fact it is no such thing. Most of the relevant geographical writings and maps are lost. Even some fundamentally important Greek ideas have to be reconstructed from references by later authors who did not always agree with them, let alone perhaps fully understand them. Roller's earlier studies of such giants in this story as Pytheas, Eratosthenes and Strabo make him uniquely qualified to craft an informed, balanced, up-to-date synthesis in defiance of the never-ending obstacles. He writes in a concise, accessible style. Anyone whose imagination is fired by the absorbing puzzle of how the Greeks and Romans envisioned and recorded their surroundings both near and far should read this important book.' - Richard J A Talbert, William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor of History and Classics, University of North Carolina, editor of Ancient Perspectives: Maps and Their Place in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome

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Book SynopsisThere is a long-held feeling in Russia that Moscow is the true heir to the Christian Byzantine Empire. In 1894, Imperial Russia opened one of the world’s leading centres for Byzantine archaeology in Istanbul, the Russian Archaeological Institute – its purpose was to stake the claim that Russia was the correct heir to ‘Tsargrad’ (as Istanbul was referred to in Russian circles). This then is the history of that institute, and the history of Russia’s efforts to reclaim its Middle East – events since in the Crimea, Syria and Georgia are all, to some extent, wrapped up in this historical framework. Ure looks at the founding of the Russian Archaeological Institute, its aims, and its place in the ‘digging-race’ which characterised the late Imperial phase of modern history. Above all, she shows how the practise of history has been used as a political tool, a form of "soft power".Trade ReviewReclaiming Byzantium is a compelling and sophisticated book. Pinar Üre examines how both imperial Russia and the Ottoman empire approached the archaeological past, in an age of imperial competition and nationalist mobilization. This book is a model of entangled history, examining not only the relationship between the Russian and Ottoman empires over the Byzantine and Slavic past in Ottoman territories, but equally how both states and their scholarly communities had also to confront, on the one hand, the challenge of Western empires and knowledge projects (the British and French empires and their archaeological endeavors)—but also the growing claims of nationalizing states in the Balkans: Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece. It is a nuanced study of the relationships between power and knowledge, one conducted on several planes: inter-imperial competition; the relationship between the Russians and the Ottomans; and finally the role of emerging national states. Üre’s ability to tell this story from both the Russian and the Ottoman perspective provides unexpected and important insights into how both states sought to mobilize the past for political and scholarly ends—and how both had to contend with unexpected and unwelcome challenges. This well-written, well-argued book will be of interest to scholars of both late imperial Russia and the Ottoman empire, people interested in the political roles archaeology played in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and anyone interested in the interplay of power and knowledge. * Peter Holquist, Ronald S. Lauder Endowed Term Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, USA *The book offers a thoroughly researched, well organized, and highly readable examination of imperial Russia’s involvements in recovering the material culture of Byzantium during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Thee ideological motivations and cultural biases that influenced and guided these scientific endeavors, especially evident in the mission of the RAIC in the Balkans, are treated as matters of fact, and there is no hint of interpretation or judgment on the part of the author. Thee book exemplifies the highest quality scholarship in carrying out exactly what it sets out to do. * Review of Ecumenical Studies, Sciendo *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Regenerating Distant Past: Nationalist and Imperialist Uses of Ancient History in the 19th Century Chapter 1: Double-Headed Eagle Over Russia: Russian Appreciation of the Byzantine Heritage 1.1. Fyodor Ivanovich Uspenskii: The Making of a Russian Byzantinist 1.2. The Development of Archaeology and Byzantine Studies in the Russian Empire 1.3. From Russian to Ottoman Shores: The Attraction of the Black Sea as a Repository of Byzantine Monuments 1.4. The Image of Byzantium in Russian Thought in the Late 19th Century Chapter 2: Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire: Cultural Property as a Symbol of Sovereignty 2.1. Byzantine Studies in the Ottoman Empire Chapter 3: At the Intersection of Science and Politics: Russian Archaeological Institute in the Ottoman Empire 3.1. Russians in the Holy Land: Imperial Palestinian Orthodox Society (IPPO) 3.2. The Establishment of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople (RAIK) Chapter 4: Expeditions of the Russian Archaeological Institute and Contacts with Ottoman Authorities 4.1. Studies in Istanbul Chapter 5: On the Eve of the Balkan Wars: Archaeology in the Midst of Political Unrest 5.1. The Establishment of the Slavic Department within RAIK Chapter 6: The Doom of Empires: The Fate of the Russian Archaeological Institute After 1914 Conclusion Suggestions for Further Reading Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis

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