Search results for ""Archaeopress""

The frontiers of the Roman Empire together form the largest monument of one of the world’s greatest ancient states. They stretch for some 7,500 km through 20 countries which encircle the Mediterranean Sea. The remains of these frontiers have been studied by visitors and later by archaeologists for several centuries. Many of the inscriptions and sculptures, weapons, pottery and artefacts created and used by the soldiers and civilians who lived on the frontier can be seen in museums. Equally evocative of the lost might of Rome are the physical remains of the frontiers themselves. The aim of this series of books is not only to inform the interested visitor about the history of the frontiers but to act as a guidebook as well. The remains of the Roman frontiers in Wales are unique in the Roman Empire. Unlike the well-known defensive linear boundaries such as Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall in northern Britain, the forts and fortresses in Wales formed a dynamic offensive frontier designed to deal with the fierce natives. More than 60 stone and timber fortresses, forts and fortlets are known, some of which seem to have been occupied for only a few years, while others remained in use for far longer. They tell the story of the long and brutal war against the Celtic tribes and, after their final and complete victory, the army’s policy of ‘occupation-in-depth’ when up to 25,000 legionaries and auxiliaries were stationed in Wales. We hope the readers of this book will enjoy discovering the fascinating story of the Roman conquest of Wales almost 2,000 years ago.

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Thin section petrography, geochemistry, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction are key scientific methods used to investigate the raw materials, origins and production technology of archaeological pottery, ceramic building materials, ancient refractories and plaster. Using over 400 colour figures of a diverse range of artefact types and archaeological periods from 50 countries worldwide, this book outlines the mineralogical, chemical and microstructural composition of ancient ceramics and provides comprehensive guidelines for their scientific study within archaeology. The core of the book is dedicated to the versatile approach of ceramic petrography. This is complimented by a detailed account of the principles of bulk instrumental geochemistry, as well as the SEM microanalysis and XRD characterisation of ceramics. The book is intended as a reference manual for research as well as a course text for specialist training on scientific ceramic analysis.

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The Alexandrian Corinthian Capital and its Role in the Evolution of the Corinthian Order in Hellenistic, Roman, and Late Roman Architecture discusses the evolution of the Corinthian capital in Antiquity and how this centred around Alexandria rather than Mainland Greece. It tackles the rise of the Corinthian capital in Classical Greece and its adaptation on in Hellenistic Alexandria. It describes the different designs of the Alexandrian capitals and later their adaptations throughout the Hellenistic world, the Roman Empire, and the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire and neighbouring countries. The book also shows how the Hellenistic versions of the Alexandrian capitals continued to be used in the Roman period both directly and indirectly.

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Down to Earth Archaeology collects sixteen archaeological papers by Professor William Y. Adams chosen by the author, who added introductory commentary to each. These articles were written at various times during his lengthy and productive academic career for different purposes and for different audiences. Most of those selected had been previously published only in a limited way, either as conference proceedings or contributions to various Festschriften, and as such he wanted to enable them to reach a wider readership than they had originally. He described this collection as his ‘dernières pensées’. The essays encompass a wide range of topics, from reflections upon the successes, failures and lessons learned from the UNESCO International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia in the 1960s, in which Bill was very much a leading figure and which he was uniquely positioned to critique, to discussions and criticisms of the theoretical framework of ‘New’ or ‘Processual Archaeology’ and its application of ‘scientific’ methods. Other papers included here are seminal works discussing the ideological concepts of typology and classification and their practical application to archaeological excavations, notably his own major excavations conducted at the large Nubian cityscapes of Meinarti, Kulubnarti and Qasr Ibrim, and the ceramic kilns at Faras.

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Khirbet el-Maqatir lies 16 km north of Jerusalem. The Associates for Biblical Research excavated 14 summer seasons and 5 winter seasons between 1995 and 2016. The remains range from Middle Bronze Age to Early Islamic and include a Bronze Age fortress, a Late Hellenistic/Early Roman village, and a Byzantine ecclesiastical complex. Volume 2 focuses on the later time periods.

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This book presents the results obtained in the archaeological excavations of the baptistery of the Late Antique site of Son Peretó (Manacor), located on the island of Mallorca in the Balearic Islands (Spain). The volume offers a review of what has been published on the baptismal space in the 20th century and provides some unpublished data on the discoveries made during that time. The focus of the monograph, however, is to present the results of excavations carried out between 2005 and 2016 and on the study of the movable and immovable finds made within the framework of the current research project on this site. This work has provided interesting new findings related to the material culture of the 5th to 8th centuries AD and, above all, in relation to the tombs, pools and baptismal buildings on the site. The results contribute to clarifying the diachronic evolution of the baptismal sector, located at the foot of the basilica, and provide information on the funerary customs and rituals used by the ancient Christian communities that frequented the site. The results obtained undoubtedly contribute to a better understanding of the important ecclesiastical complex of Son Peretó, a crucial site for the understanding of Late Antiquity on the island of Mallorca.

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The Archaeological Excavations in the Castel Corno Caves presents the results of two different excavation campaigns in a prehistoric archaeological site in a deep cave in Trentino Alto Adige (Castel Corno, Isera, Trento, Italy). The excavations uncovered a number of tombs deep in the cave and, outside, the remains of a settlement. The site is significant for the excellent preservation of the artefacts and of the animal and human bones, a result of the depth of the cave. Despite damage caused by grave robbers, a considerable quantity of data was recovered enabling the partial reconstruction of human activity in this area. In the tombs the remains of seven individuals were excavated. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the tombs can be dated between the end of the Copper Age and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (25th–21st centuries BC), but the occupation of the site, for ritual and settlement purposes, continued at least until the end of the Early Bronze Age (18th–17th centuries BC).

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The Shaping of the English Landscape is an atlas of English archaeology covering the period from the middle Bronze Age (c. 1500 BC) to Domesday Book (AD 1086), encompassing the Bronze and Iron Ages, the Roman period, and the early medieval (Anglo-Saxon) age. It was produced as part of the English Landscape and Identities (EngLaId) project at the University of Oxford, which took place from 2011 to 2016, funded by the European Research Council. In this book, you will find maps (produced by Chris Green) and discussion of themes including landscape agency, settlement, foodways and field systems, belief and the treatment of the dead, mobility and defence, making things, and material culture. Alongside are artworks (produced by Miranda Creswell) dealing with similar themes and depicting archaeological sites from across England. The authors hope to inspire and encourage debate into the past history of the English landscape. Includes contributions from Anwen Cooper, Victoria Donnelly, Tyler Franconi, Roger Glyde, Chris Gosden, Zena Kamash, Janice Kinory, Sarah Mallet, Dan Stansbie, John Talbot, and Letty Ten Harkel.

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Colonial Geopolitics and Local Cultures in the Hellenistic and Roman East (3rd century BC – 3rd century AD) presents contributions taken in the main from a panel held during the Celtic Conference in Classics 2014 (Edinburgh, Scotland, June 25-28th 2014), but also incorporates a number of papers given previously at another panel which convened at Mamaia (Romania, September 23-27th, 2012). What changes in the material culture can we observe, when a state is overwhelming a local population with soldiers, katoikoi, and civil officials or merchants? One of the main concerns of local geopolitics was the central question of how agricultural land was distributed to the Greek or Roman colonists after it had been seized from the native population? In what way did the state watch over and administer the colonised territories? What were the exact social, legal, cultural and political relationships between the natives and the newcomers? Did the language of the colonists dominate the local vernacular language or not, and in what way? Did onomastics change or not in particular regions over centuries? What were the mutual influences between native and colonial cultures? This collection addresses these questions, focusing on the Hellenistic and Roman East.

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Much has been written about Roman Dorset Black-Burnished Ware (BB1) and its Late Iron Age Durotrigian origins since the industry was first recognised by Farrar, Gillam and Peacock at the end of the 1960s. However, most of this study has focused on the forms produced and distributed during the 1st to 3rd centuries. Late Roman Dorset Black-Burnished Ware (BB1) covers the late 3rd to early 5th centuries forms produced by the industry, with a corpus and phased distribution of the various products across South-Central and South-Eastern Britain, as well as the Channel Islands, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The various phases of BB1 production indicate that the distribution zone for the industry reached its maximum extent in Britain during the late 3rd century before a decline set in during the 4th and early 5th centuries. On the Continent, however, there was a considerable increase in supply to Northern French sites and those in Normandy and down the Seine valley in particular. The mechanisms behind late BB1 production, supply and the reasons for its disappearance are also discussed and evidence presented for the industry continuing to function on a much-reduced scale after the Roman abandonment of Britannia until the mid-5th century.

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Man and Bird in the Palaeolithic of Western Europe considers the nature of the interaction between birds and hunter-gatherers. It examines aspects of avian behaviour and the qualities that could be (and were) targeted at different periods by hunter-gatherers, who recognised the utility of the diversity of avian groups in various applications of daily life and thought. It is clear from the records of excavated sites in western Europe that during the evolution of both the Neanderthal period and the subsequent occupations of Homo sapiens, avian demographics fluctuated with the climate along with other aspects of both flora and fauna. Each was required to adapt to these changes. The present study considers these changes through the interactions of man and bird as evidenced in the remains attached to Middle and Upper Palaeolithic occupation sites in western Europe and touches on a variety of prey/predator relationships across other groups of plant and animal species. The book describes a range of procurement strategies that are known from the literature and artistic record of later cultures to have been used in the trapping, enticement and hunting of birds for consumption and the manufacture of weapons, domestic items, clothing, ceremony and cultural activities. It also explores how bird images and depictions engraved or painted on the walls of caves or on the objects of daily use during the Upper Palaeolithic may be perceived as communications of a more profound significance for the temporal, seasonal or social life of the members of the group than the simple concept of animal. Certain bird species have at different times held a special significance in the everyday consciousness of particular peoples and a group of Late Glacial, Magdalenian settlements in Aquitaine, France, appear to be an example of such specialised culling. A case study of the treatment of snowy owl at Arancou in the Atlantic Pyrenees seems to illustrate such a specialisation. Discussion of the problems of reconciling dating and research methods, of the last two hundred years of Palaeolithic research, and of possible directions for future research offer an open conclusion to the work.

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The Hippos of Troy: Why Homer Never Talked About a Horse deals with one of the most famous episodes of the whole of Classical mythology, the Wooden Horse of Troy. Thanks to the analysis of words, images and wrecks, the author proposes a new interpretation of what Homer actually intended when he spoke of the hippos used by the Greeks to conquer the city of Troy. The archaeological, iconographic and philological evidence discussed by the author leads to the conclusion that Homer never talked about a giant wooden horse, nor a war machine. In fact, Homer referred to the use of a particular ship type, a merchant ship of Levantine origin in use in the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Mediterranean, used to pay tribute to Levantine kings, as well as to trade precious metal around the Mediterranean coast.

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The Watlington Hoard was discovered in southern Oxfordshire in 2015 by a metal-detectorist, and acquired by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2017. A nationally-important find of coinage and metalwork, and the first major Viking-Age hoard from the county, it dates from the late 870s, a fundamental and tumultuous period in Britain’s history. The contents of the hoard include a highly significant collection of over 200 silver pennies, mostly of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, and Ceolwulf II, king of Mercia, transforming our understanding of the coinage in this period, and 23 silver and gold pieces of contemporary metalwork much of which was derived from Scandinavia. Presenting the complete publication of the objects and coins in the Watlington Hoard – including an important re-assessment of the coinage of the late 870s – the authors discuss its wider implications for our understanding of hoarding in late 9th-century southern Britain, interactions between the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, and the movements of the Viking Great Army after the Battle of Edington in 878. The book also relates another side to the hoard’s story, beginning with its discovery and excavation, charting its path through the conservation work and acquisition by the Ashmolean Museum to the public outreach projects which ran alongside the scholarly research into the hoard.

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Old Oswestry is considered to be one of England's most precious archaeological jewels, described by Sir Cyril Fox in the 1930s as 'the outstanding work of the Early Iron Age type on the Marches of Wales', and its design is unique amongst hillforts in the UK. Located on the edge of the Shropshire Plain and just a kilometre north of the market town of Oswestry, the hillfort (and its hinterland landscape) can trace activity through artefactual evidence back at least 5000 years, with the last 3000 years evident as earthworks. The reader will notice that little in the way of archaeological investigation has occurred within the hillfort, and indeed, more excavation took place when its internal space became a training ground for trench warfare during World War I than through any academic endeavour. Old Oswestry Hillfort and its Landscape: Ancient Past, Uncertain Future, organised into 14 well-crafted chapters, charts the archaeology, folklore, heritage and landscape development of one of England's most enigmatic monuments, from the Iron Age, through its inclusion as part of an early medieval boundary between England and Wales, to its role during World War I when, between 1915 and 1918, over 4000 troops (including Oswestry's own great war poet Wilfrid Owen), were being trained at any one time for the Western Front. This book also discusses in detail the recent threats to the monument's special landscape from insensitive development and its alternative potential to act as a heritage gateway for the recreational and economic benefit of Oswestry and surrounding communities.

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In Context: the Reade Festschrift is a collection of invited and peer-reviewed essays by friends and colleagues of Julian Edgeworth Reade, sometime Mesopotamia curator at the British Museum from 1975 to 2000. Its coverage is designed to reflect the breadth of the recipient’s professional interests, from Assyria and Mesopotamia in general, to the relations between Mesopotamia and other regions and the impact of nineteenth-century discoveries on the field of Assyriology. They include both syntheses and archaeological research, as well as reports on archival discoveries. Context is always crucial. Here is fresh work from which any reader can gain a new appreciation of the importance of the ancient Near East.

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Much of what is known about Malta’s ancient material culture has come to light as a result of antiquarian research or early archaeological work—a time where little attention was paid to stratigraphic context. This situation has in part contributed to the problem of reliably sourcing and dating Maltese Roman-period pottery, particularly locally produced forms common on nearly all ancient Maltese sites. This book presents a comprehensive study of Maltese pottery forms from key stratified deposits spanning the first century BC to mid-fourth century AD. Ceramic material from three Maltese sites was analysed and quantified in a bid to understand Maltese pottery production during the Roman period, and trace the type and volume of ceramic-borne goods that were circulating the central Mediterranean during the period. A short review of the islands’ recent literature on Roman pottery is discussed, followed by a detailed contextual summary of the archaeological contexts presented in this study. The work is supplemented by a detailed illustrated catalogue of all the forms identified within the assemblages, presenting the wide range of locally produced and imported pottery types typical of the Maltese Roman period.

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Engraved Gems and Propaganda in the Roman Republic and under Augustus deals with small, but highly captivating and stimulating artwork – engraved gemstones. Although in antiquity intaglios and cameos had multiple applications (seals, jewellery or amulets), the images engraved upon them are snapshots of people's beliefs, ideologies, and everyday occupations. They cast light on the self-advertising and propaganda actions performed by Roman political leaders, especially Octavian/Augustus, their factions and other people engaged in the politics and social life of the past. Gems can show both general trends (the specific showpieces like State Cameos) as well as the individual and private acts of being involved in politics and social affairs, mainly through a subtle display of political allegiances, since they were objects of strictly personal use. They enable us to analyse and learn about Roman propaganda and various social behaviours from a completely different angle than coins, sculpture or literature. The miniaturism of ancient gems is in inverse proportion to their cultural significance. This book presents an evolutionary model of the use of engraved gems from self-presentation (3rd-2nd century BC) to personal branding and propaganda purposes in the Roman Republic and under Augustus (until 14 AD). The specific characteristics of engraved gems, their strictly private character and the whole array of devices appearing on them are examined in respect to their potential propagandistic value and usefulness in social life. The wide scope of this analysis provides a comprehensive picture covering many aspects of Roman propaganda and a critical survey of the overinterpretations of this term in regard to the glyptic art. The aim is the incorporation of this class of archaeological artefacts into the well-established studies of Roman propaganda, as well as the Roman society in general, brought about by discussion of the interconnections with ancient literary sources as well as other categories of Roman art and craftsmanship, notably coins but also sculpture and relief.

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Using archaeological sites and historic landscapes to promote mental health well-being represents one of the most significant advances in archaeological resource management for many years. Its potential contribution to health-care and wellness initiatives is boundless. Prompted by the Human Henge project working within the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, this volume provides an overview of work going on across Britain and the near Continent at many different scales. Contributors share experiences, and discuss the outcomes, implications, and theoretical underpinnings of heritage-based well-being projects.

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‘Archaic and Classical Harbours of the Greek World’ explores the archaeology and history of ancient harbours and focuses on the Greek world during the Archaic and Classical eras. Its objective is to establish a consensus on three fundamental questions: What locations were the most propitious for the installation of harbours? What kinds of harbour-works were built and for what purpose? What harbour forms were documented? These subjects have been addressed by evaluating multiple forms of evidence (archaeological, geographical, nautical, textual, iconographic and geological) in the context of the Aegean and Eastern Ionian maritime settings.

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The ancient cathedral of Old Minster and the abbey church of New Minster once stood at the heart of Anglo-Saxon Winchester. Buildings of the first importance, honoured by Anglo-Saxon and Norman kings, these great churches were later demolished and their locations lost. Through an extensive programme of archaeological excavation begun in 1961, and as a result of years of research, the story of these lost minsters can now be revealed. Written by Martin Biddle, Director of the Winchester Excavations Committee and Research Unit, and marvellously illustrated by Simon Hayfield, The Search for Winchester’s Anglo-Saxon Minsters traces the history of these excavations from 1961 to 1970 and shows how they led to the discovery of the Old and New Minsters, bringing back to life the history, archaeology and architecture of Winchester’s greatest Anglo-Saxon buildings.

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This analysis is concerned with the dating of megaliths in Europe and is based on 2410 available radiocarbon results from pre-megalithic and megalithic sites, and to the megaliths contemporaneous contexts and the application of a Bayesian statistical framework. It is, so far, the largest existing attempt to establish a supra-regional synthesis on the emergence and development of megaliths in Europe. Its aim is to assist in the clarification of an over 200-year-old, ongoing research debate.

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The sites of Teviec and Hoedic, located in Brittany and excavated from 1928 to 1934 by Marthe and Saint-Just Péquart, have yielded twenty-odd graves dating to the end of the Mesolithic and containing almost forty individuals. Nearly a century later, they remain the most important funerary groups ever discovered in France for this period, and two major French Mesolithic sites. Until these days though, despite previous re-examinations of part of the unearthed material, no general review of the field data or of the human remains had ever been carried out, and all the debates concerning the functioning of both cemeteries relied on the interpretations once made by the Péquart and on the anthropological studies by Marcellin Boule and Henri Victor Vallois. This book presents the long lacking bioarchaeological review study of the Teviec and Hoedic graves: the field data have been reconsidered, relying in particular on a large series of pictures taken by the excavators, and the number of dead individuals, their age and sex have been reevaluated using anthropological techniques in accordance with our current knowledge. This review also gives us the occasion to carry out a global reflection on the circumstances under which the dead were grouped during the Mesolithic period and on the society of Atlantic Europe’s last hunters-gatherers as perceived through the filter of their funerary practices.

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Although there have been numerous studies of individual cities or groups of cities, there has never been a study of the urbanism of the Roman world as a whole, meaning that we have been poorly informed not only about the number of cities and how they were distributed and changed over time, but also about their sizes and populations, monumentality, and civic status. This book provides a new account of the urbanism of the Roman world between 100 BC and AD 300. To do so, it draws on a combination of textual sources and archaeological material to provide a new catalogue of cities, calculates new estimates of their areas and uses a range of population densities to estimate their populations, and brings together available information about their monumentality and civic status for the first time. This evidence demonstrates that, although there were relatively few cities, many had considerable sizes and populations, substantial amounts of monumentality, and held various kinds of civic status. This indicates that there was significant economic growth in this period, including both extensive and intensive economic growth, which resulted from an influx of wealth through conquest and the intrinsic changes that came with Roman rule (including the expansion of urbanism). This evidence also suggests that there was a system that was characterized by areas of intense urban demand, which was met through an efficient system for the extraction of necessity and luxury goods from immediate hinterlands and an effective system for bringing these items from further afield. The disruption of these links seems to have put this system under considerable strain towards the end of this period and may have been sufficient to cause its ultimate collapse. This appears to have been in marked contrast to the medieval and early modern periods, when urbanism was more able to respond to changes in supply and demand.

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During the short interwar period of the early 20th century, Athens entered into a process of meteoric urban transformation which gave her a unique place among European capital cities of the time. The implementation of a settlement programme for hundreds of thousands of refugees, following the 1922 Smyrna catastrophe, effected social and economic metamorphoses, which, in their early steps, were not devoid of patterns of social and spatial segregation. During the 1930s, notwithstanding manifold adversities, the capital city encountered modernity, but she did so on her own terms. On the ideological level, the place acquired a world-wide reputation for two reasons. First, by the ambitious venture of unearthing antiquities in the ancient agora and revealing the glory of ancient Greece, even if a whole neighbourhood standing on the spot, which for centuries had teemed with social exchange and commercial transactions, had to be erased for that purpose. Second, by imprinting her name on the ‘Charter of Athens’, the document concluding the results of the 4th Congress of Modern Architecture which she hosted, intrinsically linking her with the avant-garde architectural theory and practice of the time. Furthermore, state/governmental involvement in the production of the built environment, occasionally supporting the private sector and landowners in particular in their speculative intentions, provided Athens with the infrastructure she demanded for exercising her role as the capital city of Greece. The Marathon Dam, the underground railway, the steam-powered electric plants, and many other projects, implied advances through which the average man and woman in the street could rejoice that modernization had taken deep roots within Athenian daily life. Yet, it seems Athens walked alongside modernism not within it. Very much like Narcissus, the handsome young man from Boeotia, it might be that Athens looked at her beautiful face mirrored as if in the still water of a lake; overwhelmed by a strong feeling of exaltation and delight, she stood there until she died.

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The frontiers of the Roman Empire together form the largest monument of one of the world’s greatest ancient states. They stretch for some 7,500 km through 20 countries which encircle the Mediterranean Sea. The remains of these frontiers have been studied by visitors and later by archaeologists for several centuries. Many of the inscriptions and sculptures, weapons, pottery and artefacts created and used by the soldiers and civilians who lived on the frontier can be seen in museums. Equally evocative of the lost might of Rome are the physical remains of the frontiers themselves. The aim of this series of books is not only to inform the interested visitor about the history of the frontiers but to act as a guidebook as well. In this important and beautifully illustrated book, David Breeze elucidates the context of the most famous frontier, Hadrian’s Wall. The zone to north and south of the Wall was a heavily militarised landscape of roads, bridges, forts, fortlets and towers, but also the towns, settlements and supply infrastructure on which the army depended. As the invaluable gazetteer shows, the area is now rich in superb sites and museums, allowing modern people countless rich insights into the world of the soldiers and civilians of the period.

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The Circular Archetype in Microcosm is the culmination of seven years research into the Carved Stone Balls of Late Neolithic Scotland. It is the first study of these enigmatic artefacts since that undertaken by Dorothy Marshall in 1977 and includes all currently known examples in both museums and private hands, described and analysed in considerable detail. For the first time, visual geological characterisation has been undertaken on approximately a third of carved stone balls, which has enabled a more detailed analysis of their potential origin and the landscapes in which they were found. The book offers a revised classification/typology of these artefacts which, following careful analysis, suggests that it is possible to determine individual craftspeople with a wide range of skills. It suggests that carved stone balls were used as unique and distinctive gestalts that represented the ideology of the core area of Aberdeenshire and enabled disparate groups to recognise one another.

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The present volume reunites most of the papers that were presented at the second meeting of the Homines, Funera, Astra Symposium on Funerary Anthropology that took place at ‘1 Decembrie 1918’ University, Alba Iulia, between 23rd and 26th September 2012. The theme of the volume is Life beyond Death in Ancient Times. The intention was to create a forum for discussing Prehistoric, Roman and Migration Period burial practices from Central and South-Eastern Europe, focusing on elements that might suggest belief in afterlife. The interdisciplinary character of the volume is provided by the varied approaches to the archaeology by the contributors, resulting in exploring the subject from multiple perspectives: archaeological, anthropological, geological, architectural, landscape, and epigraphic. Seven studies are dedicated to prehistoric burial practices, discussing discoveries dating from the Palaeolithic (one study), Neolithic and Copper Age (four studies), and Bronze Age (one study). A study focusing on methodology proposes a non-invasive method of analysis for burial mounds, with examples from the Bronze and Iron Ages. Two studies focusing on the Roman Period and another on the Migration Period complete our vision of funerary archaeology for this part of Europe. The editor’s wish to express their joy that the editorial project, which started with the publication of the first HFA volume (R. Kogălniceanu, R.-G. Curcă, M. Gligor and S. Stratton (eds.), Homines, Funera, Astra. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Funerary Anthropology, 5-8 June 2011, ‘1 Decembrie 1918’ University, Alba Iulia, Romania. Oxford, Archaeopress, BAR International Series 2410), is followed by the present book. The basis for the series dedicated to burial archaeology with the intention to be a useful, modern, interdisciplinary instrument, is thus laid.

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In the years 1983-2013, an archaeological expedition under the auspices of the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology of Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, was active on Mount Carmel, Israel. The expedition comprised archaeologists, team members, students and other professionals, as well as pupils from schools in the Sharon and Daliyat el-Carmel. This book describes ten rural mountain sites through which it seeks to reconstruct the character of all the settlements on the mountain and at its foot, from the Persian through the Byzantine periods.

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The decorated tombs of the Egyptian Old Kingdom offer detailed knowledge of a society that in all probability was the first nation state in history. Yet scholars continue to find it difficult to access the full potential of this great body of data because so few of the tombs can be dated with sufficient precision to provide a relative chronology for the evidence they offer. The system of dating these monuments presented here builds on the work of previous scholars. In this volume the author explains how the dating method was devised. This required establishing ‘life-spans’ for 104 criteria, features drawn from tomb iconography. The system is then applied to Memphite and provincial monuments spanning the Fourth to the Sixth Dynasties. The findings are that the more criteria a monument contains, the closer the system can narrow its date, certainly to a particular reign and within a generation in some cases. The final chapter analyses and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the system.

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Andrew Rogerson is one of the most important and influential archaeologists currently working in East Anglia. The various essays in this volume, presented to him by friends and colleagues from both the university sector and public archaeology, closely reflect his diverse interests and his activities in the region over many decades. They include studies of ‘small finds’ from many periods; of landscapes, both urban and rural; and of many aspects of medieval archaeology and history. This important collection will be essential reading for all those interested in the history and archaeology of Norfolk and Suffolk, in the interpretation of artefacts within their landscape contexts, and in the material culture of the Middle Ages.

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The special session in 2013, Languages of Southern Arabia, was the fifth in the Seminar for Arabian Studies special session series.

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In the mid 1990s, the site of the Roman city of Viroconium Cornoviorum at Wroxeter, Shropshire, was subjected to one of the most intensive campaigns of geophysical survey ever carried out on a Roman town. The result was a complete plan of the city using magnetometry but also significant deployment of other technologies including resistance, GPR and more experimental technologies. Since that time, geophysical survey has continued intermittently, using the site as a geophysical laboratory. This volume reports on the archaeological interpretation of this work, marrying the extensive and nuanced geophysical data with a detailed analysis of the existing aerial photographic record created by Arnold Baker during the 1950s to 1980s. The resulting work is the first insula by insula description of all the visible buildings in the town, the first time that this has been attempted for a Romano-British town, and one of the few attempted anywhere in the Empire. The analysis has enabled a complete reinterpretation of the historical development of the town that links it to its surrounding hinterland and to wider concerns about Roman Urban development. The volume also contains detail of small-scale excavations that have been carried out since 1999 on the site, many in previously unexplored areas, and completes the publication of all outstanding archaeological work on the monument

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CONTENTS: Abdol Rauh Yaccob, British policy on Arabia before the First World War: an internal argument; Adrian G. Parker &. Jeffrey I. Rose, Climate change and human origins in southern Arabia; Alexandrine Guérin & Faysal Abdallah al-Na’imi, Nineteenth century settlement patterns at Zekrit, Qatar: pottery, tribes and territory; Anthony E. Marks, Into Arabia, perhaps, but if so, from where?; Audrey Peli, A history of the Ziyadids through their coinage (203– 442/818–1050); Aurelie Daems & An De Waele, Some reflections on human-animal burials from pre-Islamic south-east Arabia (poster); Brian Ulrich, The Azd migrations reconsidered: narratives of ‘Amr Muzayqiya and Mālik b. Fahm in historiographic context; Christian Darles, Derniers résultats, nouvelles datations et nouvelles données sur les fortifications de Shabwa (Hadramawt); Eivind Heldaas Seland, The Indian ships at Moscha and the Indo-Arabian trading circuit; Fabio Cavulli & Simona Scaruffi, Stone vessels from KHB-1, Ja’lān region, Sultanate of Oman (poster); Francesco G. Fedele, Wādī al-Tayyilah 3, a Neolithic and Pre-Neolithic occupation on the eastern Yemen Plateau, and its archaeofaunal information; Ghanim Wahida, Walid Yasin al-Tikriti & Mark Beech, Barakah: a Middle Palaeolithic site in Abu Dhabi Emirate; Jeffrey I. Rose & Geoff N. Bailey, Defining the Palaeolithic of Arabia? Notes on the Roundtable Discussion; Jeffrey I. Rose, Introduction: special session to define the Palaeolithic of Arabia; Julie Scott-Jackson, William Scott-Jackson, Jeffrey Rose & Sabah Jasim, Investigating Upper Pleistocene stone tools from Sharjah, UAE: Interim report; Krista Lewis & Lamya Khalidi, From prehistoric landscapes to urban sprawl: the Masn’at Māryah region of highland Yemen; Michael J. Harrower, Mapping and dating incipient irrigation in Wadi Sana, Hadramawt (Yemen); Mikhail Rodionov, The jinn in Hadramawt society in the last century; Mohammed A.R. al-Thenayian, The Red Sea Tihami coastal ports in Saudi Arabia; Mohammed Maraqten, Women’s inscriptions recently discovered by the AFSM at the Awām temple/Mahram Bilqīs in Marib, Yemen; Nasser Said al-Jahwari & Derek Kennet, A field methodology for the quantification of ancient settlement in an Arabian context; Rémy Crassard, The “Wa’shah method”: an original laminar debitage from Hadramawt, Yemen; Saad bin Abdulaziz al-Rāshid, Sadd al-Khanaq: an early Umayyad dam near Medina, Saudi Arabia; Ueli Brunner, Ancient irrigation in Wādī Jirdān; Vincent Charpentier & Sophie Méry, A Neolithic settlement near the Strait of Hormuz: Akab Island, United Arab Emirates; Vincent Charpentier, Hunter-gatherers of the “empty quarter of the early Holocene” to the last Neolithic societies: chronology of the late prehistory of south-eastern Arabia (8000–3100 BC); Yahya Asiri, Relative clauses in the dialect of Rijal Alma’ (south-west Saudi Arabia); Yosef Tobi, Sālôm (Sālim) al-Sabazī’s (seventeenth-century) poem of the debate between coffee and qāt; Zaydoon Zaid & Mohammed Maraqten, The Peristyle Hall: remarks on the history of construction based on recent archaeological and epigraphic evidence of the AFSM expedition to the Awām temple in Mārib, Yemen

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This volume is a basic introduction to rock art studies. It marks the starting point of the new methodology for rock art analysis, based on typology and style, first developed by the author at the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici. This book demonstrates the beginnings of a new discipline, the systematic study of world rock art. This edition is a revised and updated version of Anarti’s classic text, first published in English in 1993. Additions have been made and a major new category of rock art has been included.

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“If my fellow-traveller had lived, he intended to have put together in book form such information as we had gathered about Southern Arabia. Now, as he died four days after our return from our last journey there, I have had to undertake the task myself. It has been very sad to me, but I have been helped by knowing that, however imperfect this book may be, what is written here will surely be a help to those who, by following in our footsteps, will be able to get beyond them, and to whom I so heartily wish success and a Happy Home-coming, the best wish a traveller may have.” So Mabel Bent (Mrs J. Theodore Bent) begins her Preface to Southern Arabia, one of the classic travel books written in English about this ever-fascinating region, in which she details the couple’s travels over a ten-year period. A testimony to the book’s high regard is that, since publication in 1900, it has rarely been out-of-print. Mabel Bent continues in her Preface to inform the reader that her volume is drawn in part from the note-books of her husband, her fellow-traveller, the redoubtable J. Theodore Bent (1852-97), and also “…from the ‘Chronicles’ that I always wrote during our journeys”. After more than a hundred years, and for the first time, these personal Chronicles on ‘South Arabia’ are published in World Enough, and Time: The Chronicles of Mabel Bent. Vol. III and are of significant interest to Arabists and those enthusiasts who will want to have Mabel’s on-the-spot account of their adventures and archaeological and ethnographical discoveries. Also included in this present volume is Mabel Bent’s previously unpublished Chronicle of their long journey through Persia, from south to north in 1889. Contents: Bahrein and Persia, 1889: The Hadhramaut, 1893–5; Socotra and the lands of the Fadhli and Yafai, 1896–7. Personal letters, documents, maps, and Mabel Bent’s own photographs contribute to this important insight into the lives of two of the great British travellers of the nineteenth century.

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This collective work reports on the studies and archaeological work carried out at the megalithic ruined necropolis of Wanar, Senegal, between 2008 and 2017. Along with Sine Ngayene in Senegal, and Wassu and Ker Batch in Gambia, the Wanar sanctuary is one of four sites classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2006. The first part sets out the general framework for the study of paleoenvironments as well as historical and archaeological data, and concludes with a brief summary of megaliths in Africa.The second part reports on all the observations made, starting with a presentation of the Wanar site in the context of human settlements along the Bao Bolon valley, followed by an account of the main study methods used. This is followed by a detailed presentation of the six monuments studied, three to the north of the necropolis with short, squat monoliths, and three to the south with narrow, elongated monoliths, built between the 11th and 13th centuries AD. The sanct

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A dual approach, combining social anthropology and archaeology, reveals the banquet or ceremonial feast as a fully social phenomenon. In extraordinary circumstances, banquets - usually held in stratified societies with a sacrificial religion - bring together large numbers of guests, who are fed and watered on rare and expensive foods in large quantities, in order to honor someone or something, and to ostentatiously assert the power of the organizers. While this practice has been recognized in many societies around the world, living, ancient or extinct, it had not yet been the subject of a large-scale synthesis. It was therefore appropriate to take an interdisciplinary look at the ins and outs of the festive banquet in relation to the cosmogonies and social practices of the social spaces concerned. The nine essays collected here, from papers given at study days held in Strasbourg, contribute to the debate on important questions relating to the banquet, such as its temporality (cultur

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Ideas and Images argues that the development of symbols and signs informing scripts, mainly the idea of coding thoughts through symbols and images, has always been uniquely historical.' Rock art abuts and occupies long periods of time, from the Mesolithic, Neolithic-Chalcolithic, and Iron Age, to the medieval and colonial, in which the translation of indigenous thoughts was perfected through numerous mnemonic practices, some of them evidently to record in a surprisingly sophisticated historical oeuvre. These are ordered and direct representations of the ontological, philosophical, thought-object world of prehistoric or pre- or non-scripted communities. Such representations are better understood as so many graphic archives, and their temporality is broadly sequential, authentic, unique and historically contextualized since they record exceptional and everyday events, but also sometimes emotionally or humorously charged stories. The genre called rock art' is a successful and

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From Safin to Roman investigates the Central Adriatic Apennines (roughly the modern region of Abruzzo), occupied in antiquity by Italic populations variously termed Sabelli', Sabellics' or Sabellians'. For too long the region has been seen merely as a mountainous and isolated terra di pastori', sparsely populated with shepherds from prehistory to the late Hellenistic period, thus overestimating the role of the Romans in the organisation and exploitation of the landscape. The region in general has received little scholarly attention internationally compared with Tyrrhenian Italy, although the last three decades have been very rich in excavations and finds. The role of stock-raising itself needs to be reinterpreted, because it changed greatly from period to period and certainly did not exclude other economical resources, already in early periods. The topography of the area and recent finds, show that agriculture was also important for the l

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Tauric Chersonesos was one of the prominent ancient Greek centres on the north coast of the Black Sea. Founded by the Herakleians, with a small group of Delians, Chersonesos was the only Dorian city in the region. This is reflected in many events and phenomena from its history and culture; it is especially apparent in its religion, related to all aspects of the private and public lives of the population. Depending on their differing historic development, each polis obtained its own peculiar ideological situation which influenced not only public religious life, but also the religious outlook of each separate family or individual. The worship of the gods within the pantheon of the polis was a key factor in the community’s consolidation, while the beliefs surrounding these deities formed a significant role in the concrete events of civic life. This comprehensive study of the cults of the gods of the Chersonesan polis, firmly based on the available sources (written, epigraphic, images of gods and their iconography on coins and in sculpture, as well as archaeological remains of cult structures), sheds new light on the religious life of this ancient Greek centre at various stages in its development.

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To Aleppo Gone ... is a festschrift offered in honour of Jonathan Tubb, former Levant curator and Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. It includes 44 contributions invited from Jonathan’s friends and colleagues from across the world, with each short essay exploring a single idea and its wider ramifications. The assembled volume also reflects the development of Jonathan’s own career and professional interests, with a focus on the Jordan Valley and southern Levant, but also extending to north Syria, Mesopotamia, the protection of endangered cultural heritage, and the lives of early archaeological pioneers. The editors are all former colleagues of Jonathan, and curators in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum.

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This book presents an in-depth analysis of the Southern Necropolis of Cyrene. Numerous tombs surround this ancient Greek city located in Eastern Libya. Many of these monumental structures feature elaborate ornamental patterns and complex architectural elements. Yet, most graves have been plundered in the past, hence they appear as beautifully decorated, but empty spaces that seem to provide little information to archaeologists.This volume aims at overcoming this problem. While the book provides an exploration of the architecture of Cyrenean tombs, it avoids a purely descriptive, art-historical approach. Instead, the analysis focuses on issues of funerary competition, display strategies, spatial organization, and the possible role of lost, unknown rituals in shaping the material record over a period of more than a thousand years, from the Archaic phase to Late Roman times. In so doing, it reconstructs the social history of ancient Cyreneans through the evolution of their ostentatious

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2022 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of one of the crucial studies in the definition of the pottery of the Iberian culture (7th to 1st centuries BC). The work of C. Mata and H. Bonet (1992) La cerámica ibérica: Ensayo de tipología both synthesized and at the same time brought to fruition a long trajectory of studies related to the material culture of this paradigmatic pre-Roman culture of the Iberian Peninsula, bequeathing to future generations a typological guide that remains valid. However, one of the ceramic types that this culture produced, Iberian grey ware, was not studied individually in the aforementioned research. With this work and through the characterization of more than 6000 ceramics from 55 Iberian sites, our typological knowledge of the pottery productions of these protohistoric populations is completed. It is intended not only to expose the typological, but also the technological characteristics of Iberian grey ware, its functionality and even its origin and symbolism for the people who made it.

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Crisis y muerte en la Antigüedad, desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar e internacional, analiza los periodos de crisis en el Mundo Antiguo desde un punto de vista histórico y arqueológico. Para ello, los distintos autores han prestado atención a los periodos de crisis sanitaria y medioambiental, así como a las persecuciones y situaciones de hambruna e inanición durante la Antigüedad. Los dos primeros trabajos analizan estas cuestiones desde un enfoque global, proporcionando un marco perfecto introductorio al lector de los temas que se desarrollan a lo largo del volumen. Las siguientes contribuciones no solo estudian zonas concretas como la región del Bajo Guadalquivir (Andalucía) o Tierras de Barros (Extremadura) en la península ibérica, sino también otros lugares históricos emblemáticos como la ciudad egipcia de Oxirrinco. A continuación, primando un criterio cronológico, se aborda el fenómeno martirial y la persecución de personas de fe cristiana. Estos últimos temas, a pesar de estar ampliamente tratados por la historiografía contemporánea, se aportan nuevos datos a través del análisis filológico e histórico de autores como Orosio, Lactancio, Prudencio y Agustín de Hipona, así como de periodos más generales de épocas concretas como los gobiernos de Septimio Severo, Caracalla o Teodosio. El volumen finaliza con un argumento concreto centrado, en este caso, en la península ibérica, la llamada Plaga de Justiniano desde el punto de vista arqueológico, aportando una visión novedosa a lo que señalaron los autores clásicos.

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Since 2007, the conferences organized under the title ‘Broadening Horizons’ have provided a regular venue for postgraduates and early career scholars in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Three volumes present the proceedings of the 6th Broadening Horizons Conference, which took place at the Freie Universität Berlin from 24–28 June, 2019. The general theme, ‘Bridging the Gap: Disciplines, Times, and Spaces in Dialogue’, is aimed at encouraging communication and the development of multidisciplinary approaches to the study of material cultures and textual sources. Volume 3 contains 14 papers from Session 4 — Crossing Boundaries: Connectivity and Interaction; and Session 6 — Landscape and Geography: Human Dynamics and Perceptions.

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