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Abusir: The Necropolis of the Sons of the Sun

Miroslav Verner

At the center of the world-famous pyramid field of the Memphite necropolis lies a group of pyramids, temples, and tombs named after the nearby village of Abusir. Long overshadowed by the more ... More

At the center of the world-famous pyramid field of the Memphite necropolis lies a group of pyramids, temples, and tombs named after the nearby village of Abusir. Long overshadowed by the more familiar pyramids at Giza and Saqqara, this area has nonetheless been the site, for the last fifty years, of an extensive operation to discover its past. This thoroughly updated in-depth book documents the uncovering by a dedicated team of Czech archaeologists of a hitherto neglected wealth of ancient remains dating from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. This is Abusir, realm of Osiris, God of the dead, and its story is one of both modern archaeology and the long-buried mysteries that it seeks to uncover.Less

Aksum and Nubia: Warfare, Commerce, and Political Fictions in Ancient Northeast Africa

George Hatke

This book assembles and analyzes the textual and archaeological evidence of interaction between Nubia and the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum, focusing primarily on the fourth century CE. Although ancient ... More

This book assembles and analyzes the textual and archaeological evidence of interaction between Nubia and the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum, focusing primarily on the fourth century CE. Although ancient Nubia and Ethiopia have been the subject of a growing number of studies in recent years, little attention has been given to contact between these two regions. This book argues that ancient Northeast Africa cannot be treated as a unified area politically, economically, or culturally. Rather, Nubia and Ethiopia developed within very different regional spheres of interaction, as a result of which the Nubian kingdom of Kush came to focus its energies on the Nile Valley, relying on this as its main route of contact with the outside world, while Aksum was oriented towards the Red Sea and Arabia. In this way Aksum and Kush coexisted in peace for most of their history, and such contact as they maintained with each other was limited to small-scale commerce. Only in the fourth century CE did Aksum take up arms against Kush, and even then the conflict seems to have been related mainly to security issues on Aksum's western frontier. Although Aksum never managed to hold onto Kush for long, much less dealt the final death-blow to the Nubian kingdom, as is often believed, claims to Kush continued to play a role in Aksumite royal ideology as late as the sixth century. This book examines the extent to which relations between two ancient African states were influenced by warfare, commerce, and political fictions.Less

Alexander the Great

John Boardman

This book looks beyond the life of Alexander the Great in order to examine the astonishing range of Alexanders created by generations of authors, historians, and artists throughout the world, from ... More

This book looks beyond the life of Alexander the Great in order to examine the astonishing range of Alexanders created by generations of authors, historians, and artists throughout the world, from Scotland to China. Alexander's defeat of the Persian Empire in 331 BC captured the popular imagination, inspiring an endless series of stories and representations that emerged shortly after his death and continues today. The book reflects on the most interesting and emblematic depictions of this towering historical figure. Some of the stories relate to historical events associated with Alexander's military career and some to the fantasy that has been woven around him. From Alexander's biographers in ancient Greece to the illustrated Alexander “Romances” of the Middle Ages to operas, films, and even modern cartoons, this illustrated volume takes readers on a fascinating cultural journey.Less

Amheida I: Ostraka from Trimithis, Volume 1

Roger S. Bagnall and Giovanni R. Ruffini

This book presents 455 inscribed pottery fragments, or ostraka, found during New York University's excavations at Amheida in the western desert of Egypt. The majority date to the Late Roman period ... More

This book presents 455 inscribed pottery fragments, or ostraka, found during New York University's excavations at Amheida in the western desert of Egypt. The majority date to the Late Roman period (3rd to 4th century AD), a time of rapid social change in Egypt and the ancient Mediterranean generally. Amheida was a small administrative center, and the full publication of these brief texts illuminates the role of writing in the daily lives of its inhabitants. The subjects covered by the Amheida ostraka include the distribution of food, the administration of wells, the commercial lives of inhabitants, their education, and other aspects of life neglected in literary sources. The book provides a full introduction to the technical aspects of terminology and chronology, while also situating this important evidence in its historical, social, and regional context.Less

Ancient Egypt: State and Society

Alan B. Lloyd

This book attempts to define, analyse, and evaluate the institutional and ideological systems which empowered and sustained one of the most successful civilizations of the ancient world for a period ... More

This book attempts to define, analyse, and evaluate the institutional and ideological systems which empowered and sustained one of the most successful civilizations of the ancient world for a period in excess of three and a half millennia. The book adopts the premise that all societies are the product of a continuous dialogue with their physical context — understood in the broadest sense — and that, in order to achieve a successful symbiosis with this context, they develop an interlocking set of systems, defined by historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists as culture. Culture, therefore, can be described as the sum total of the methods employed by a group of human beings to achieve some measure of control over their environment. Covering the entirety of the civilization, including translations of original Egyptian texts, the book focuses on the main aspects of Egyptian culture which gave the society its particular character, and endeavours to establish what allowed the Egyptians to maintain that character for an extraordinary length of time, despite enduring cultural shock of many different kinds.Less

Ancient Jewish Sciences and the History of Knowledge in Second Temple Literature

Seth L. Sanders

Jonathan Ben-Dov (ed.)

Since the 1990s, Early Modern and Medieval Science in Jewish sources has been actively studied, but the consensus was that no real scientific themes could be found in earlier Judaism. This book ... More

Since the 1990s, Early Modern and Medieval Science in Jewish sources has been actively studied, but the consensus was that no real scientific themes could be found in earlier Judaism. This book points them out in detail, and posits a new field of research: the scientific activity evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Jewish Pseudepigrapha. The publication of new texts and new analyses of older ones reveals crucial elements that are best illuminated by the history of science, and may have interesting consequences for it. The book attempts to account for scientific themes in Second Temple Judaism. It investigates the meaning and purpose of scientific explorations in an apocalyptic setting. An appreciation of these topics paves the way to a renewed understanding of the scientific fragments scattered throughout rabbinic literature. The book first places the Jewish material in the ancient context of the Near Eastern and Hellenistic worlds. While the Jewish texts were not on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, they find a meaningful place in the history of science, between Babylonia and Egypt, in the time period between Hipparchus and Ptolemy. The book uses recent advances in method to examine the contacts and networks of Jewish scholars in their ancient setting. Second, the book tackles the problematic concept of a national scientific tradition. It explores the tension between the hegemony of central scientific traditions and local scientific enterprises.Less

Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape

Guillermo Algaze

The alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia are widely known as the “cradle of civilization”; owing to the scale of the processes of urbanization that took place ... More

The alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia are widely known as the “cradle of civilization”; owing to the scale of the processes of urbanization that took place in the area by the second half of the fourth millennium bc. This book draws on the work of modern economic geographers to explore how the unique river-based ecology and geography of the Tigris–Euphrates alluvium impacted the development of urban civilization in southern Mesopotamia. It argues that these natural conditions granted southern polities significant competitive advantages over their landlocked rivals elsewhere in Southwest Asia, most importantly the ability to transport easily commodities. In due course, this resulted in increased trade and economic activity and higher population densities in the south than were possible elsewhere. As southern polities grew in scale and complexity throughout the fourth millennium, revolutionary new forms of labor organization and record keeping were created, and it is these socially created innovations, the author argues, that ultimately account for why fully developed city-states emerged earlier in southern Mesopotamia than elsewhere in Southwest Asia or the world.Less

Ancient Perspectives: Maps and Their Place in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome

Richard J. A. Talbert

This book encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient ... More

This book encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In each society, maps served as critical economic, political, and personal tools, but there was little consistency in how and why they were made. Much like today, maps in antiquity meant very different things to different people. The book presents an ambitious, fresh overview of cartography and its uses. The seven chapters range from broad-based analyses of mapping in Mesopotamia and Egypt to a close focus on Ptolemy's ideas for drawing a world map based on the theories of his Greek predecessors at Alexandria. The remarkable accuracy of Mesopotamian city-plans is revealed, as is the creation of maps by Romans to support the proud claim that their emperor's rule was global in its reach. By probing the instruments and techniques of both Greek and Roman surveyors, the book uncovers how their extraordinary planning of roads, aqueducts, and tunnels was achieved. Even though none of these civilizations devised the means to measure time or distance with precision, they still conceptualized their surroundings, natural and man-made, near and far, and felt the urge to record them by inventive means that this book reinterprets and compares.Less

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting

Steven Rutledge

In antiquity, Rome represented one of the world's great cultural capitals. The city constituted a collective repository for various commemoratives, cultural artefacts, and curiosities, not to mention ... More

In antiquity, Rome represented one of the world's great cultural capitals. The city constituted a collective repository for various commemoratives, cultural artefacts, and curiosities, not to mention plunder taken in war, and over its history became what we might call a ‘museum city’. This book considers how cultural objects and memorabilia both from Rome and its empire came to reflect a specific Roman identity and, in some instances, to even construct or challenge Roman perceptions of power and of the self. The book argues that Roman cultural values and identity are indicated in part by what sort of materials Romans deemed worthy of display and how they chose to display, view, and preserve them. Grounded in the growing field of museum studies, this book includes a discussion on private acquisition of cultural property and asks how well the Roman community at large understood the meaning and history behind various objects and memorabilia. Of particular importance was the use of collections by a number of emperors in the further establishment of their legitimacy and authority. Through an examination of specific cultural objects, the book questions how they came to reflect or even perpetuate Roman values and identity.Less

Arabs and Empires before Islam

Greg Fisher (ed.)

This book collects nearly 250 translated extracts from an extensive array of ancient sources, which, from a variety of different perspectives, illuminate the history of the Arabs before the emergence ... More

This book collects nearly 250 translated extracts from an extensive array of ancient sources, which, from a variety of different perspectives, illuminate the history of the Arabs before the emergence of Islam. These sources are drawn from a broad period from the eighth century BC to the Middle Ages, and include texts written in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic, inscriptions in a variety of languages and alphabets, and discussions of archaeological sites from across the Near East. More than 20 experts, drawn from the fields of archaeology, classics and ancient history, linguistics and philology, epigraphy, and art history, provide detailed commentary and analysis on this diverse selection of material. The book provides a comprehensive examination of what ancient sources had to say about the politics, culture, and religion of the Arabs in the pre-Islamic period. It offers a full consideration of the traces which the Arabs have left in the epigraphic, literary, and archaeological records, and sheds light on their relationship with their often more powerful neighbours—the states and empires of the ancient Near East.Less

Archaeology at La Isabela: America's First European Town

Kathleen Deagan and Jose Maria Cruxent

This book presents detailed technical documentation of the authors' ten-year archaeological excavation of La Isabela, America's first colony. The artifacts and material remains of the town offer rich ... More

This book presents detailed technical documentation of the authors' ten-year archaeological excavation of La Isabela, America's first colony. The artifacts and material remains of the town offer rich material for comparative research into Euro-American cultural and material development during the crucial transition from the medieval era to the Renaissance. The period when La Isabela was in existence witnessed great innovation and change in many areas of technology. The archaeological evidence of La Isabela's architecture, weaponry, numismatics, pottery, and metallurgy can be precisely dated, helping to chart the sequence of this change and revealing much that is new about late medieval technology. The authors' archaeological research also provides a foundation for their insights into the reasons for the demise of La Isabela.Less

The Archaeology of Coastal Bengal

Rupendra Kumar Chattopadhyay

Research work on coastal Bengal has mostly focused on maritime trading networks. In a clear departure from the existing scholarship, this volume questions the linearity of considering trade as the ... More

Research work on coastal Bengal has mostly focused on maritime trading networks. In a clear departure from the existing scholarship, this volume questions the linearity of considering trade as the sole determinant of creation of settlement in the coastal regions. Focusing on settlement strategies, Chattopadhyay unravels how human societies, through successive generations, have adapted to the coastal environment and bio-regime. First-hand data, procured through extensive fieldwork, forms the sound basis of this work. From structural remains, ceramic and bone implements, and stone tools, to terracotta figurines and inscriptions—a vast array of sources is analysed, including epigraphic and literary sources. Significantly, the volume also highlights the interconnection between the coastal geography and the hinterland. Chattopadhyay’s meticulously researched work offers a geographical and temporal frame which allows the research in coastal Bengal to be viewed as an integral part of the archaeological developments in the subcontinent, as well as in the adjoining region of the Southeast Asian countries.Less

An Archaeology of Interaction: Network Perspectives on Material Culture and Society

Carl Knappett

Think of a souvenir from a foreign trip, or an heirloom passed down the generations — distinctive individual artefacts allow us to think and act beyond the proximate, across both space and time. ... More

Think of a souvenir from a foreign trip, or an heirloom passed down the generations — distinctive individual artefacts allow us to think and act beyond the proximate, across both space and time. While this makes anecdotal sense, what does scholarship have to say about the role of artefacts in human thought? Surprisingly, material culture research tends to focus on individual artefacts. But objects rarely stand independently from one another; they are interconnected in complex constellations. This book asserts that it is such ‘networks of objects’ that instil objects with their power, enabling them to evoke distant times and places for both individuals and communities. Using archaeological case studies from the Bronze Age of Greece throughout, the book develops a long-term, archaeological angle on the development of object networks in human societies. The book explores the benefits such networks create for human interaction across scales, and the challenges faced by ancient societies in balancing these benefits against their costs. In objectifying and controlling artefacts in networks, human communities can lose track of the recalcitrant pull that artefacts exercise. Materials do not always do as they are asked. We never fully understand all their aspects. This we grasp in our everyday, unconscious working in the phenomenal world, but overlook in our network thinking. And this failure to attend to things and give them their due can lead to societal ‘disorientation’.Less

An Archaeology of the Troubles: The dark heritage of Long Kesh/Maze prison

Laura McAtackney

Long Kesh/Maze prison was infamous as the major holding centre for paramilitary prisoners during the course of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Some of the major events of the recent conflict ... More

Long Kesh/Maze prison was infamous as the major holding centre for paramilitary prisoners during the course of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Some of the major events of the recent conflict centred on, emanated from, and were transformed by it, including the burning of the internment camp in 1974, the protests and hunger strikes of 1980–1981, the mass escape of PIRA prisoners in 1983, and the role of prisoners in facilitating and sustaining the peace process of the 1990s. Now, over a decade after the signing of the Belfast Agreement (1998), Long Kesh/Maze remains one of the most contentious remnants of the conflict and has become central to debates about what we do with such sites, what they mean, and how they relate to contemporary rememberings of the difficult recent past. The only independent archaeological investigation of Long Kesh/Maze prior to its partial demolition, this volume reveals the seminal role of material culture in understanding the prison. It moves from traditional uses of solely documentary and oral evidence to exploring the full range of material remains of the prison as they have been abandoned in situ or been dispersed and re-contextualised into wider society.Less

The Aristocratic Temper of Greek Civilization

Chester G. Starr

This is both a defense of the importance of aristocrats in Greek society and a reassessment of their social, cultural and political roles. The author provides a concise portrait of the aristocratic ... More

This is both a defense of the importance of aristocrats in Greek society and a reassessment of their social, cultural and political roles. The author provides a concise portrait of the aristocratic way of life, the roots and nature of aristocrats' economic power, their patronage of the arts, and the influence they had on the way the Greeks visualized their gods. A concluding chapter examines the lasting influence of the aristocratic ideal in late Western history.Less

At Empire's Edge: Exploring Rome`s Egyptian Frontier

Robert B. Jackson

This book examines the history of the most important sites that constitute Rome's Egyptian frontier, and provides a summary of what is currently known or theorized about the Roman occupation of these ... More

This book examines the history of the most important sites that constitute Rome's Egyptian frontier, and provides a summary of what is currently known or theorized about the Roman occupation of these sites. It describs the period spanning 29 bc to the end of the fifth century ad, including the two centuries of the late Roman period, ending at approximately the start of the Byzantine period. The book aims to attract the attention of Egyptian government officials, archaeological funding organizations, and adventure tour companies, so that they might take further steps to protect not only Greco-Roman sites, but also all of the ancient sites in Egypt's deserts. Although Egypt continued to develop and prosper well into the middle of the third century, when the rest of the Roman Empire experienced a series of political and economic crises, the province ultimately could not remain immune to the gradual decline in Roman stability. This book, however, focuses on issues relating to the remote desert regions of Roman Egypt. Today, archaeologists from nearly a dozen nations are at work in many of these areas, and every year they uncover additional evidence that sheds new light on old theories concerning the role of Rome's Egyptian frontier and the nature of its administration.Less

Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC: Crossing the Divide

Tom Moore and Xosê-Lois Armada (eds)

European first millennium BC studies have witnessed an increasing theoretical divide between the approaches adopted in different countries. Whilst topics such as ethnicity, identity, and agency have ... More

European first millennium BC studies have witnessed an increasing theoretical divide between the approaches adopted in different countries. Whilst topics such as ethnicity, identity, and agency have dominated many British studies, such themes have had less resonance in continental approaches. At the same time, British and Iberian first millennium BC studies have become increasingly divorced from research elsewhere in Europe. While such divergence reflects deep historical divisions in theory and methodology between European perspectives, it is an issue that has been largely ignored by scholars of the period. This book addresses these issues. Initial chapters introduce major themes (landscape studies, social organisation, historiography, dynamics of change, and identity), providing overviews on the history of approaches to these areas, personal perspectives on current problems, and possible future research directions. Subsequent chapters develop these topics, presenting case studies and in-depth discussions of particular issues relating to the first millennium BC in the Atlantic realm of Western Europe.Less

Before and After Muhammad: The First Millennium Refocused

Garth Fowden

Islam emerged amid flourishing Christian and Jewish cultures, yet students of antiquity and the Middle Ages mostly ignore it. Despite intensive study of late antiquity over the last fifty years, even ... More

Islam emerged amid flourishing Christian and Jewish cultures, yet students of antiquity and the Middle Ages mostly ignore it. Despite intensive study of late antiquity over the last fifty years, even generous definitions of this period have reached only the eighth century, whereas Islam did not mature sufficiently to compare with Christianity or rabbinic Judaism until the tenth century. This book suggests a new way of thinking about the historical relationship between the scriptural monotheisms, integrating Islam into European and West Asian history. The book identifies the whole of the First Millennium—from Augustus and Christ to the formation of a recognizably Islamic worldview by the time of the philosopher Avicenna—as the proper chronological unit of analysis for understanding the emergence and maturation of the three monotheistic faiths across Eurasia. It proposes not just a chronological expansion of late Antiquity but also an eastward shift in the geographical frame to embrace Iran. The book looks at Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alongside other important developments in Greek philosophy and Roman law, to reveal how the first millennium was bound together by diverse exegetical traditions that nurtured communities and often stimulated each other.Less

Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism

Tim Whitmarsh

What happened to Greek literature after the classical period—when Sophocles, Plato, and Demosthenes were just a memory? Postclassical Greek culture has usually been thought of as dominated by ... More

What happened to Greek literature after the classical period—when Sophocles, Plato, and Demosthenes were just a memory? Postclassical Greek culture has usually been thought of as dominated by aristocratic elites obsessed with preserving links to the past. This book proposes a very different model. Covering popular fiction, poetry, and Greco-Jewish material, it argues for a rich, dynamic, and diverse culture that cannot be reduced to a simple model of continuity. Shining new light on a series of playful, imaginative texts that are left out of the traditional accounts of Greek literature—texts such as Euhemerus’s Sacred Inscription, Lucian’s paratragedy Gout, and Theodotus’s biblically themed epic—it models a more adventurous, exploratory approach to later Greek culture. Beyond the Second Sophistic offers not just a new way of looking at Greek literature from 300 BCE onward but also a challenge to the Eurocentric, aristocratic constructions that have traditionally been placed on the Greek heritage. The book consists of five new and ten revised essays. Accessible and lively, it will appeal to students and scholars of Greek literature and culture, Hellenistic Judaism, world literature, and cultural theory. All foreign languages are translated.Less