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At the end of the Pleistocene, hunters and gatherers in North-West Europe had to adapt themselves and their social systems to abrupt climate and significant environmental changes. This adaptation process is reconstructed in detail in this book, with reference to 25 archaeological sites, and to high-resolution climate and environmental archives. Based on this rigorous correlation, a chronological relation between climatic, environmental, and cultural change is established, which for the first time allows founded statements about cause and effect. This study reveals that the Pleistocene social systems could cope with the significant climate changes but that they were stretched beyond their limits by quickly changing environmental conditions.

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In this volume the concept of complex systems is used to discuss the interplay between social and environmental factors for the emergence and maintenance of maritime infrastructure and route systems in the ancient and medieval period. The approach is applied to various aspects of maritime history within the research programme ‘Harbours from the Roman Period to the Middle Ages’. Complexity theory and network analysis provide an analytical framework to describe social configurations (cities, maritime communities, polities) and environmental phenomena (hydrosphere, climate) as complex systems, entangled via mechanisms of feedbacks, adaptation or disruption.

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This richly-illustrated book presents the restoration of the intricate grave furnishings in the tomb of Li Chui, a descendant of emperor Gaozu, who had died in AD 736 in Chang’an. The grave was excavated in Xi’an in 2001, and this is the first time that the results have been made available to an English-speaking public. The Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907), China’s Golden Age, was a flourishing period teeming with fascinating cultural phenomena. At the centre of this cosmopolitan empire lay the capital city of Chang’an – one of the largest metropolises of its time and now hidden below present-day Xi’an. Aristocrats as protagonists of courtly life shaped the character of the city, their luxurious everyday life equally reflected in lavishly furnished tombs. Nowadays, most of these tombs are found to have been robbed. Evidence of the former splendour of these subterranean chambers only survives in the form of marvellous wall paintings and clay figurines ignored by the grave robbers. The undisturbed tomb of Li Chui who had died in AD 736, a descendant of emperor Gaozu, was excavated in Xi’an in 2001. It took a German-Chinese team six years to restore the intricate grave furnishings. For the first time, it was possible to reconstruct the opulent jewellery assemblage of a Tang period noblewoman. In conjunction with the results of scientific analyses by a team of specialists from various disciplines it was possible to obtain new insights into Tang period burial culture. This book presents these results to an English-speaking public for the first time. Illustrated appendices throughout the text provide further insights into Tang period everyday life.

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Reopened in 2010, having been closed since 1939, the world-famous Berlin Etruscan collection, one of the largest outside Italy, is now on permanent display again. This companion volume to the new exhibition in the Altes Museum provides exciting insights into this still fascinating culture of early Italy on the basis of the Berlin holdings - complete grave findings and excellent testimonies of Etruscan art production: history, architecture, sculpture and cabaret, cult and myth as well as writing and reception are presented in informative and richly illustrated articles.

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In 1955, Arnold Bode initiated the documenta in Kassel, thus laying the foundation for the internationally important exhibition series of contemporary art. The permanent exhibition "about: documenta" in the Neue Galerie uses artworks from the museum's own collection, visual material and documents to provide an overview of the development of documenta: from the initially one-off art event to the globally active discussion platform. "about: documenta" is a cooperation of the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel with documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH and the documenta archiv.

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In this multi-award-winning study, Joanna Olchawa sheds light on the extraordinary utensil type known as aquamanile, watering vessels for the religious hand-washing rite. The detailed research not only on Christian, but also on Islamic works leads to a new view of the bronze utensils of the Middle Ages. Lions, dragons or even women on horseback–figurative watering vessels for the hand-washing rite, which are referred to by the modern term as 'aquamaniles', have been enjoying great public attention for several years. They are admired for their shiny gold bronze, their technically sophisticated production and their unusual shapes. More astonishing is the lack of academic research into the form. With her dissertation, Joanna Olchawa presents basic research on aquamaniles. The catalogue includes detailed studies of the objects not only from West Central Europe and Hungary (12th–13th centuries), but also from the Islamic regions for the first time. Based on this catalogue, Joanna Olchawa approaches questions about the genesis of the form in West Central Europe, the dissemination of knowledge about its production and its significance in Islamic as well as Christian ceremonies and comes to new, surprising results.

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While many sources have been lost, scholars have devoted much time and effort to unearthing and analyzing the surviving material in Roman and European archives and libraries, allowing for a reassessment of Rome as a long-devalued place of university study. The term place of study (Studienort) is also intended to direct our attention beyond university institutions as such to the considerable range of locations for acquiring education that Renaissance Rome offered. The second section of the essay collection is dedicated in particular to a comparative, European view of two of the universities founded in the Holy Roman Empire north of the Alps within the context of a more general educational renewal: Trier and Mainz in 1473 and 1477, respectively. Taking the example of critiques of Rome and the pope, the volume’s closing essay illuminates selected controversies that also point to transalpine processes of perception and transfer on both sides of the Alps. The “national” and confessional discourses that developed above all from the sixteenth century on generated narratives that would have a lasting impact.

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The concept of »transformation« or simply »reshaping« contains the elements of what remains, the conservative, the kernel of what continues, as well as the elements of what changes, the innovative. In the framework of this publication of articles from a conference in 2016 on »Transformations of City and Countryside in the Byzantine Period«, we draw attention to this dichotomy and investigate the social dynamics behind changes in urban and rural life in the Byzantine period that can be detected by archaeology, history and art history. The Byzantine Empire is an ideal subject for studying how social transformation proceeds, what triggers transformation, what factors underlie it and what the processes involved are. Who were the agents of transformation and how did they and their environment change? How flexible were the state or its citizens in handling external and internal pressures of innovation? In what manner and to what extent were the Byzantines able to preserve their identity and the internal cohesion of their empire in the course of these processes of adaptation?

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Grotte des Pigeons, Taforalt (Morocco), is one of the most famous cave sites in North Africa. This book presents new findings on the Iberomaurusian hunter-gatherer inhabitants who faced the major challenges of a rapidly changing climate. In this volume we describe archaeological evidence covering the period 23,000 to 12,500 years ago. We examine the nature of environmental and behavioural changes, culminating in a major broadening of the food spectrum at around 15,000 years ago, linked to technological innovation in some aspects but conservatism in others. The cave also came to be used as a substantial human cemetery, enabling us to explore burial practices and recover additional information on diet and lifestyles.

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An introduction to the dispute about religious art conducted in France from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century. The debate involved not only Catholic and Protestant theologians, but also lay writers who tried to replace dogmatic Christianity with the ‘religion of reason’ invented by the philosophes. A recurrent theme in the majority of statements in this discussion is a contention that religious images must not be perceived as ‘portraits of God’, but that they should be seen merely as ‘separated signs’, detached from their invisible prototype; signs that only remind the faithful about God. French writers favoured restraint in shaping paintings and sculptures, fearing that otherwise works of art might excessively fascinate viewers with their sophisticated appearance, or might too profoundly move the emotions of the faithful. Christianity was for these writers above all a religion of the Word, and they considered images merely as a pastoral aid intended for ‘simpletons’ who either could not read or were unable to grasp the teachings of the catechism or the message of simple homilies. So, these writers approached religious art with reservations. Yielding to the above theoretical assumptions, the makers of religious art in seventeenth-century France achieved a high level of workmanship, characterized by noble simplicity and purity, only to succumb to the banality of schematic solutions in the following century, as they were unwilling to exert themselves in a domain that was becoming increasingly disregarded by the elites.

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Thanks to a fortunate and rare circumstance, throughout the centuries her tomb was never robbed and numerous, precious grave goods survived. In 2001 an unusually rich and filigree assemblage of jewellery was lifted together with the deceased's skeleton in two blocks by a team of Chinese archaeologists in a far-sighted way and brought to the archaeological laboratory in Xi'an. There specialists of the German-Sino co-operation project of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (Mainz) and the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology (Xi'an) worked together on the uncovering, documentation and presentation of the finds and contexts. For the first time such a multipartite and fine jewellery assemblage could be analysed and reconstructed within its archaeological context. The result is of impressive singularity. In the publication presented here an interdisciplinary team of academics deal in many individual studies with the complex investigations into the Tang period burial of Li Chui. Apart from archaeology, art and cultural history, as well as sinology, it is not only the scientific restoration and conservation, but also various fields of the natural sciences, which worked together towards one goal: to convey a unique and realistic insight into the world of Li Chui and her times.

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Between 1200 and 750 BC, the Mediterranean world saw the breakdown of Bronze Age civilizations, and the rise of Iron Age cultures. These chronological stages which unfortunately are often taken into consideration separately, have been bridged. The editors’ introduction and a picture of the theoretical framework of Mediterranean studies, are followed by five geographical parts. By commenting on cultural changes and interculturality in the sub-regions of the Mediterranean, new important insights into interregional mobility, connectivity, and decentering phenomena are provided. The vision of the Mediterranean parts as equally important for understanding the significance of contacts represents a special feature of the volume.

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The lavishly decorated Ishtar Gate was one of ancient Babylon’s city gates. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II built it in the 6th century BCE. During the annual New Year festival, the processions of the gods passed through this gate as they entered the city centre. But how did the Babylonians make the glazed bricks used in the gate’s construction? What was the significance of the lions, dragons, and bulls that adorned the gate? How and why did pieces of the gate end up in Berlin, where the Ishtar Gate was reconstructed from thousands of fragments in the 1920s? And how authentic is this reconstruction?

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Kremsmünster Abbey houses one of the most precious liturgical vessels of the early Middle Ages: a lavishly decorated and magnificently inscribed communion chalice. This illustrated book provides for the first time a comprehensive descriptive and pictorial documentation of the chalice. The chalice was donated by Bavarian Duke Tassilo III and his wife, the Lombard princess Liutpirc. Created about 1250 years ago in the Salzburg area, splendour has surrounded this singular work of art for centuries. Researchers consider the Tassilo-Liutpirc chalice to be a symbol of ancient Bavaria and a short-lived symbiosis of Mediterranean-insular post-antiquity. But little was known about its production, authenticity and original function. Despite many efforts, the message of the mysterious images and ornaments remained a mystery that this volume aims to solve. For the first time, as a result of a five-year research project, a comprehensive descriptive, photographic and graphic documentation as well as in-depth archaeometric and goldsmith investigations according to the latest state of the art can now be presented. The historical environment and the artistic heyday of that time are illuminated against the backdrop of Tassilo's glorious reign and his intriguing overthrow by Charlemagne in 788. In detective meticulousness, the lost art treasure of Tassilo III is brought back to life and the enigmatic pictorial program of the Tassilo Liutpirc chalice is deciphered as an allegorical visualization of the celestial city. Language of text: German

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This beautifully illustrated book points to ways in which a sense of social responsibility can be applied in the preservation and use of historic gardens. It offers diverse international examples of the value of these cultural monuments in tackling current sustainability challenges—ranging from climate change to the contemporary relationship between humankind and nature. The spectrum of types and purposes and uses of these gardens and parks with their diverse range of functional and formal designs derives from the evolution of urban lifestyles and specific needs. Historic gardens have always been places of pleasurable interaction, education and leisurely relaxation. They are also extremely valuable from the point of view of biodiversity, providing benefits in terms of recreation, human well-being, leisure, environmental education and interdependence with the climate. As part of the cultural heritage, historic gardens can act as a stable driving force in the context of contemporary civilisation processes, helping to formulate and implement sustainable goals for action geared towards a humane outlook and lifestyle in our society. For thousands of years, the design, cultivation and preservation of gardens and cultural landscapes as fine arts and as useful arts have been among the most striking expressions of human culture. As vehicles of meaning, historic gardens are important not just aesthetically but also historically, allegorically and symbolically.

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This richly illustrated volume invites you to dip into Germany’s endless variety of stately homes and parks between Lake Constance and the Baltic Sea. Germany is a country of palaces and castles, of abbeys, parks and gardens. They define our regions, give our cultural landscapes their unmistakable character, and create a sense of home and belonging, of regional rootedness and touristic flair. They offer leisure and regeneration; they are centres of culture and communication; and for the cultural historian they are an indispensable, tangible archive. From celestially inspired Gothic to proud Renaissance, from exultant Baroque to gardens of earthly paradise, this book presents a journey of discovery through epochs, styles, and thematic worlds. It is a journey to enjoy, and one that may inspire you to personally explore one or other of these worlds—the choice is overwhelming.

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The Trier City Library preserves bibliophilic treasures of the highest value, dating back to the 7th century. The Codex Egberti, the Trier Apocalypse, the Ada Evangelia or the Gutenberg Bible are particular treasures. This catalogue presents in words and images 100 of the most significant items from the collection. The library, which was created at the beginning of the 19th century, quickly developed into a huge depository of the abandoned manuscripts and prints of the secularized monasteries of the Trier area. In addition to magnificent manuscripts from the entire Middle Ages, there are numerous works from the early days of printing. Highlights of the collection include the Gutenberg Bible, the Schedelsche Weltchronik or the Catholicon created by Fust and Schöffer. Texts and fragments from the Old and Middle High German periods are also of great appeal, as are maps, atlases and autographs. This publication offers a representative cross-section of the collection and encourages you to visit the treasure-house that is the library at Trier.

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Excavations at the Early Pleistocene vertebrate site of Untermassfeld took place over a total of 127 months, resulting in the recovery of an abundance of 18,000 identifiable paleontological finds. Led by R.-D. Kahlke, this incredible collection has been preserved and evaluated by an interdisciplinary team of scientists. Part 4 of the Untermassfeld monograph details the research history of the site from 1997 to 2015. New results on the geological evolution of the Werra valley in the area of the fossil deposit are discussed along with the absolute age of the finds. This volume also contains studies on insect-generated bone modifications and new discoveries on fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, and bison skull finds. Current knowledge on the extensive collection of Untermassfeld cervid fauna and pathological results on hippo remains has been extended and the volume concludes with additional descriptions of new equid and rhinocerotid finds. All contributions are richly illustrated and written in English.

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This volume contains thirteen papers from a conference held in the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz in 2015. The contributions primarily deal with the material culture of goldsmiths’ works, such as crosses, reliquary caskets, jewellery, enamel works, and precious stones, spanning the wide geographical area of Byzantium and many of its neighbours, from Russia via Trebizond and Serbia to Crete. Furthermore, written sources on Byzantine goldsmiths, their craft and the provenance of precious metals provide evidence for goldsmithing in Byzantium throughout its history.

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The Caucasus as a bridge of cultures is at the centre of the transfer of innovation between Mesopotamia and Europe in the 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. The 4th millennium BC saw the transfer of knowledge and technical innovations, such as the wheel and the wagon, new metals like silver, copper alloying, the domestication of the horse, and the outbreeding of woolly sheep. All these innovations had far-reaching consequences well into historical times. The contributions contained in this volume, first presented at an international conference, cover the period from the Chalcolithic to the Bronze Age and deal with the geographical area from the Levant to the Pontic steppe and Carpathian Basin.

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This exhibition catalogue provides insight into the spectacular conservation of this masterpiece from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. The Crucified Thief fragment, by the "Master of Flémalle", shines in new splendour. The book documents the spectacular results of the restoration, and describes and comprehensively contextualises the painting. This book is the catalogue for an exhibition in 2017-18 at the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung in Frankfurt. The exhibition highlights a single painting, the Master of Flémalle’s The Crucified Thief, a key work of European art history, created by one of the most enigmatic artists of early Dutch painting. The recently restored fragment of the painting, painted on both sides, is the only surviving part of a large-format triptych of the Descent from the Cross, which was one of the most important and influential works of its time. In addition to the results of the technological investigation and restoration of the painting, thirteen selected works of art are presented, including the eponymous "Flémaller Panels", the "Medici Madonna" by Rogier van der Weyden as well as mounted and unmounted sculptures by the Master of the Rimini Altarpiece and Hans Multscher. They exemplify the reciprocal references between painting and sculpture and thus contribute to a deeper understanding of the breathtaking detail realism and the suggestive effect of the altarpiece on the contemporary viewer. The gruesome picture of a crucified man, which was once the top half of the right wing of a monumental altarpiece the rest of which has long been lost without trace. That Deposition Triptych from around 1430¬ is considered a founding work of early Dutch painting, comparable to the Ghent Altarpiece. The exhibition catalogue provides insight into the spectacular conservation of this masterpiece from the Städel Museum, reconstructs the original appearance of the lost ensemble with the aid of copies, and explains the context of its creation by means of international loans and gems of the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung.

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This book presents selected findings that are representative of the archaeological wealth of Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as up to date information on findings from current research. The Rhine and Moselle make today’s Rhineland-Palatinate region both a hub and a transit area, at times a centre of power, at times a contested border region. The history of this region is one of cultural diversity and cultural encounters, in which the flows of people, goods and ideas – often still visible today – have shaped the region over the millennia.

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In 1799, one of the most important hoards of gold from the European early Middle Ages was discovered near the village of Nagyszentmiklós (then in the Kingdom of Hungary, now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania). It consists of 23 gold vessels with a total weight of almost 10 kg. What makes the treasure so valuable is the high quality of workmanship and the exotic beauty of some of the vessels. Above all, however, it represents a unique resource for the study of cultural connections between the Mediterranean world and the nomadic societies of Eurasia. The contributions in this volume—results of a conference held in Vienna in 2010—deal, among other things, with techniques of goldsmithing and the possible connections between the treasure and the culture of the Sasanian Empire.

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Contributions in this volume from archaeology and history deal with the question of what effect external pressure might have had in decentralised political structures with personalised rule in the European empires of the 10th century. One of the most important findings is that the concrete effects of external threats are hard to grasp, and the archaeological findings do not give a clear picture. The traditionally assumed causal links between external incursions and crisis phenomena are obviously just as unacceptable as the assumption that the Hungarian incursions would have had a lasting impact on existing structures.

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Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli, 1876-1958) was one of the most prominent personalities of the Catholic Church in the 20th century. Under the sponsorship of Archbishop Reinhard Cardinal Marx, a highly acclaimed Series of lectures was held in 2009, whose individual contributions are now made available to a wider reading public. Leading scholars address a wide range of important topics, including: “Pius XII and Modernity,” “Pius XII and the Jews,” “Pius XII and Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber,” and “Pius XII in the Judgment of Posterity.” Eugenio Pacelli – Pius XII (1876-1958): In the View of Scholarship provides an overview of the most current research on this important but also controversial pope. This volume makes that significant new scholarship available to English readers.

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The so-called Cappenberger Barbarossakopf is one of the most famous and well-known monuments of 12th century art. It is now kept in the former monastery church of the Premonstratensian monastery of Cappenberg, the collegiate church of St. John the Evangelist. This book sheds new light on the importance of Cappenberg for the spread of the Premonstratensians, but above all it explains the origin, function and significance of the Cappenberg head. The head raises many questions: Who does the head actually represent? What is its liturgical function? How can the head be historically contextualized? How can the identification of the head with the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick Barbarossa be explained? Does this attribution still hold true? A conference in Cappenberg in 2019 attempted to answer these questions; this book publishes the papers presented at that conference. The head has long been regarded as a portrait of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (1122–1190). However, previously unpublished results of a material engineering investigation from 1977/78 require a new definition of the context in which the work was created. What are the consequences for the understanding of the head? In addition to the consistent reference to the object, the foundation of the Premonstratensian monastery of Cappenberg is the focus of many of the contributions to the book. What influence did Otto von Cappenberg’s godparenthood of Friedrich Barbarossa have on the furnishings of the monastery? The contributions shed new light on the importance of Cappenberg for the spread of the Premonstratensians.

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This Tandem Festschrift pays tribute to Elaine Turner and Martin Street, to celebrate all they have both contributed to the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, in ensuring high research standards, and for your contributions to Palaeolithic Archaeology in Germany and beyond. It should be understood as a big “CHEERS” from the MONREPOS staff and many other friends and colleagues from all over the world, who contributed to this Festschrift. This double volume covers a broad spectrum of topics from the Lower Palaeolithic to the early Holocene and even to the Medieval period – touching upon the vast array of topics Elaine and Martin have dealt with over the last more than 30 years. It starts with the discussion of the oldest evidence for fire and addresses many other key-topics of scientific debate at fascinating levels of detail. "There is no doubt that Elaine Turner and Martin Street are to be especially acknowledged as the trailblazers for the internationalisation of Pleistocene Archaeology in Germany. The diversity of topics reflected by these contributions is due in large part to their rock-solid research, which is based on their exceptionally broad expertise and reflected in their highly interdisciplinary research projects.” (The Editors)

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The Vogtland is an old cultural landscape that includes parts of today’s German states of Thuringia, Saxony, and Bavaria, as well as parts of Bohemia in the Czech Republic. Over a period of centuries the dynasty of the Reeves of Weida, Gera and Plauen left its mark on the region, developing it economically and culturally on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor. Copiously illustrated, The Reeves’ Progress traces routes through the largely unresearched territory of late medieval Vogtland. In a topographic journey it explores the old domains of the reeves before drawing the strands together in a thematic treatment. The book takes in the estates and churches, religious houses and sacred art of the region, examines the impact of the Teutonic Order, and introduces the reader to key monuments of pre-modern municipal and economic history.

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The contributors to this volume examine the complex dynamics which arose between the Byzantine Empire and the Near East. Moving beyond the tradition of histoire événementielle, the contributions collected here highlight the passing of artistic practices, ideas and interlocutors between Byzantium and the Islamicate world. In this way, the book seeks to nuance and contextualize our understanding of the relationship between these two medieval cultural spheres.

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The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is one of the few medieval monuments whose decoration, preserved, even if partially, in its original state until recently, can be almost completely reconstructed on behalf of surviving mosaics and wall paintings, in situ inscriptions, and rich written evidence from the Middle Ages and early modern times. The decorative program, dating back to the third quarter of the twelfth century, represents a unique testimony of its time, in its historical, theological, and art-historical aspects. The crusader lining of one of the most important monuments of early Christianity takes up local, Byzantine, and European traditions, eastern and western impulses to emphasize a locus sanctus that supports the Christian claim to universality. It is close to a miracle that such a diverse network of sometimes contradictory requirements and traditions as the one extant in crusader Holy Land merged into an exceptionally consistent programme.

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The study of sanctuaries and sacred contexts in Magna Graecia and southern Italy has undergone profound changes in recent years. The discoveries of weapons in some sanctuaries (e.g. Caulonia) in museum magazines (e.g. Paestum) together with monographic studies on specific weapons (e.g. tanks) today allow systematic research of weapons in votive contexts. Especially important is the possibility of comparing ritual practice in different cultures. This volume collects contributions on the complexity, prevalence and significance of war in votive contexts of southern Italy between the Archaic and Roman periods.

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The Magdalenian open air site of Gönnersdorf (Rhineland, Germany) continues to provide new insights into the organisation of Upper Palaeolithic human societies. This analysis of the faunal remains at the site goes far beyond a mere presentation of primary archaeozoological data to investigate the ways in which the Magdalenian site occupants incorporated hunting and subsistence into their daily life and social organisation. Methods including targeted strategies of radiocarbon dating, analyses of mortality patterns of horse, the main prey animal, meticulous recording of evidence for butchery, and the plotting and interpretation of spatial patterning of animal remains place the faunal data in context. Integrating these approaches, the authors have produced a convincing description of a Magdalenian settlement occupied seasonally in response to environmental opportunities and constraints, organised according to a strict spatial template and functioning as a semi-permanent »village«, thus foreshadowing the full sedentarism emerging in the contemporary Near East.

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The volume "Humans, environment and Chronology of the Late Glacial of the North European Plain" assembles papers presented during a workshop for the 15th Congress of the Union International des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques held in Lisbon in September 2006. The workshop was organised under the remit of U.I.S.P.P. Commission XXXII, which focuses on the "The Final Palaeolithic of the Great European Plain", and the present volume continues the series of conference proceedings that have been published at regular intervals during the past decade. This most recent contribution underlines the geographical spread and chronological depth of research into this topic, with papers ranging from those in the British Isles to the eastern Baltic and from the Paris Basin to southern Scandinavia, and covering a period of time extending from the late Magdalenian to the early Mesolithic.

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Altar and Church: Principles of Liturgy from Early Christianity is the first English edition of a book (Altar und Kirche: Prinzipien christlicher Liturgie) first published very successfully in German in 2019. It is a translation of the revised third German edition. The central themes of Stefan Heid’s book are the early Christian altar and the building of churches. It is about the beginnings of the Christian liturgy; but it is also about the principles behind the liturgy. In his Preface, the author states that the book is concerned with “those things that are so fundamental and important for Christian worship that up to the Middle Ages they were found in all churches and to this day continue to exert an influence, especially in the communities of the East. In many cases, however, the praxis has meanwhile diverged a long way from what it once was and is now increasingly subject to ideological decisions.” Whether or not what Christians use during service today is considered to be an altar is a point of contention between the denominations. However, since the liturgical reform of the Vatican Council 2, the altar has been at the centre of many redesigns of Catholic church spaces, with the early Church frequently taken as the model. But how can this be reconciled with the widespread opinion that Christianity initially knew no cult and no sacrifices? It was not until later, from the time of Emperor Constantine, that a real state-supported cult with sacrifices, altars and magnificent sacred spaces developed; the Church suffers from this historical burden to this day. This volume carves a few paths through the liturgucal jungle and arrives at results that are as surprising as they are stimulating.

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The Cathars: not the largest heretical movement of the Middle Ages, but a modern invention? Richly illustrated and supplemented by the translations of central sources, the book introduces into their complex history the idea that these famous heretics were constructed as an enemy image in the High Middle Ages and then became a myth in modern times. The Cathars are considered the largest heretical movement of the Middle Ages, a kind of counter-church, ultimately destroyed by crusaders and inquisitors. This traditional image of the famous heretics has been fundamentally questioned by international research over the past quarter of a century. Instead of a historical mass phenomenon, the Cathars seem to be a modern myth, essentially based on an enemy image created in the High Middle Ages for the struggle for heresy, developed by historians in the 19th century and now closely linked to the regional identity of today's southern France, which is also marketed as "Cathar country" for tourism. Richly illustrated and supplemented by the translations of central sources, the volume introduces the complex history of this "invention" for the first time. Language of text: German

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Among the German Staufen castles, the architecture and architectural sculpture of the Gelnhausen pfalz, with its Upper Rhine-Alsatian and Southern French forms, is the most artistically noble. However, with the end of the Staufen dynasty and the system of pfalzen in the 13th century, the complex lost its importance. A period of decay set in. What is now only in ruins was once a seat of administration and hosted a farmyard, a place of adjudication, receptions, festivities and imperial diets. Thomas Biller explains the significance of the building, which was used as a seat of government, on the basis of individual building elements and ornaments and sheds light on various reconstruction attempts.

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This study reveals the artistic and cultic multiplicity of arrangements, consisting of archaism and modernization, ahead of the crystallization of the Iconostasis as the »distinctive feature of churches of the Byzantine rite«. Thus it demonstrates a material proof of cultural identity and religious consciousness of the Orthodox populace in an area (Crete) and a period (Venetian rule) that is characterized by both osmosis and conflict. The book researches the Bema display of Cretan churches in a time period spanning from the Byzantine re-conquest of the island (11th century) until the middle of the Venetian dominance (15th century). It focuses on the apparition and distribution of the Templon-barrier, the function of a certain group of frescoes as prostration images and the (partial) establishment of fresco-painted masonry screens at the Orthodox churches of the island, just before the prevalence of the »wooden wall of icons« – known as Iconostasis.

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Based on the research project the project "Metal finds as testimony to the interaction between Greeks and indigenous people in Sicily between the 8th and 5th centuries BC", the nineteen contributions to this volume deal with the interactions between archaeological legacies and identities both from a theoretical-methodological point of view and on the basis of concrete case studies. The focus is on ancient Sicily and its extensive connections and interdependencies, but the geographical framework extends from Asia Minor and Greece via Sicily and Lower Italy to France and Central Europe.

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A comprehensive account of Protestant church building in the early modern period throughout Europe. 26 German- and English-language contributions by renowned experts present a wide range of topics that open up the form and content of church building in its peculiarities as well as theological and socio-political issues. The volume is the result of a workshop that took place in Vienna at the end of 2013 as part of the research project of the same name under the direction of Prof. Dr. Jan Harasimowicz. The contributions show the efforts made by the denominations that emerged from the Reformation movement to create a ‘preaching space’ adapted to their needs. Western European, especially Dutch and French solutions soon found their way to Northern and Central Europe, where they were modified differently as needed. A feature of the post-Reformation era, however, was the emergence of new ways of cultural transfer. An important role was played by the countries in the Baltic Sea region, which, thanks to the Reformation, gained their own cultural identity.

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Behind the intriguing title of this volume is a compilation of many of the papers presented during a session of the 15th Congress of the Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques held in Lisbon in 2006. The session reviewed the current state of research into the spatial analysis of western Eurasian Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites. Covering a broad temporal and geographical range, these studies reflect the enormous variety of spatial evidence preserved in the archaeological records of these periods.

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Since Antiquity, the routes of the so-called Silk Road formed an important network for commercial, cultural and technological exchange. Far-reaching and criss-crossing the Asian continent they connected eastern and south-eastern parts of Asia to the Mediterranean world via both maritime and overland routes. Named after the lucrative silk trade, which developed during Han Dynasty, one tends to think of the Silk Road as a one-way road starting in China and ending at the Mediterranean. However, goods, technologies and ideas were travelling in both directions, and glass is an excellent example for a trade-good that arrived in the East from the West. The key developments of glass, which had its origins in the Middle and Near East, mainly took place in the Mediterranean and in the Arab World during Antiquity and Islamic times. Although known in the Far East since at least the Han Dynasty and treated as equivalent to precious stones, glass never played a significant role in Far Eastern cultures. Therefore, glass finds from Far Eastern sites provide evidence for far-reaching trade-relationships and imply cross-fertilization with other cultures. Thus, the contributions to this conference dealt with a geographical area between Western Europe, the Balkans, the Near East, Central Asia, as well as Eastern and Southeastern Asia and covered a chronological range from 200 BC to AD 1000. The conference focused on the one hand on recent results of scientific analyses of glass and on the other hand on archaeological questions. The possibility of interdisciplinary research was one of the focal points of the conference and hence this volume, as well as questions on workshops, raw material, technology and trade. The current state of research on glass along the Silk Road was the subject of an international conference within the scope of the "Sino-German Project on Cultural Heritage Preservation" of the RGZM and the Shaanxi Provincal Institute of Archaeology, hosted in 2008 in Mainz. The book contains the contributions to that conference.

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