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Our knowledge of Phoenicia during the Achaemenid period has made important progresses during the last thirty-five years thanks to new epigraphic discoveries and researches: the succession of several kings has been précised as well as the chronology of their reigns and the extent of their kingdoms. Although all of them used the Phoenician language and writing in their administration, each kingdom kept its originality within the huge Achaemenid empire with various orientations of their political, economic and religious spheres. Their political, economic and cultural influence was very strong on Persian period Cisjordan, especially in Galilee, the Sharon plain and Ashkalon.

Ceramic texts and imagery have been critically important tools in the study of Maya iconography and epigraphy. However, how these narratives coordinate with those in other media as coherent, media-specific compositions has been little explored. This chapter presents a single case study to address issues of intertextuality. In particular, it focuses on the iconography and textual composition of the Regal Rabbit Vase (K1398) with the imagery found on Naranjo Stela 22. That the royal house of Naranjo commissioned both objects makes this a useful comparison, because it provides historical links between the vessel and the stela. Taking advantage of this fortuitous pairing of contemporaneous objects, we look to the visual rhetoric through which K’ahk Tiliw Chan Chahk’s (688–726? A.D.) military and youth rites were presented in each medium. Then, these rites are placed in conversation with the extensive iconographic and textual record at Palenque to contextualize the pan-Maya significance of youth rites involving the deity B’olon Okte’ K’uh and their mythological underpinnings. Through this example, we explore why ceramics were a preferred medium for the presentation of certain genres of imagery (e.g. mythological narratives) that are rarely presented in the monuments and how this choice is itself meaningful.

3–5 sentences, or around 120 words and no more than 200 words Published accounts by Fioravante Martinelli in 1655 and the prior of S. Prassede, Dom Benigno Davanzati in 1725 regarding the ministries of Praxedes and Pudentiana, introduce this chapter. Circumstantial evidence from epigraphy, texts, and works of art is studied in detail and historiographically to develop a picture of women's officially deputed pastoral offices in Rome, a church which traditionally has been thought to have had no women in official pastoral office. These offices paralleled those already found in the previous chapter on women's ministries outside Rome.

This chapter integrates ceramics, stratigraphy, epigraphy, and careful readings of ethnohistoric sources to propose a historical reconstruction of Chichen Itza, focused particularly on the ninth century. The authors reject the partial and total overlap models for Chichen Itza construction and settlement and argue for the sequential construction of architecture in the Late Classic, Puuc, and International styles. Focusing on the individual named K’ak’ Upakal, the authors reconstruct the activities of this early ruler, his relatives and his court and the rituals at the core of Chichen’s ceremonial life.

Excavations and mapping of the small site of Akte, located 7.2 km northwest of Motul de San José, near the confluence of the Rio Akte and the Rio K'ante't'u'ul, documented an extensive occupational history, seven stela monuments, and several features suggesting that the site played a complex role in regional sociopolitical interactions. This chapter by Suzanna C. Yorgey and Matthew D. Moriarty summarizes the results of the research, pointing to both site planning and ceramic differences and similarities between Akte and Motul, in order to contextualize the nature of the role of minor sites in the Motul de San José polity and on the larger Central Peten geopolitical scene.

This chapter offers an introduction to the study of the funerary archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia from ca. AD 400 to 1100. After introducing the sources and taking account of the history of research, theoretical approaches and dating criteria are considered. This is followed by a chronological overview drawing upon key sites and publications that seeks to trace major developments in cemetery and tomb typologies, as well as the social and religious dimensions of tomb locations, burial styles, and objects. The chapter concludes with some general observations on the development of burial practices between the sixth and eleventh centuries and argues that funerary archaeology is an essential source for the study of Byzantine Anatolia.

Binbirkilise means thousand and one churches in Turkish and includes various sites on the slopes of Mount Karadağ, an ancient volcano ca. 29 km north of Karaman, in south-central Anatolia. The mountain is littered with stone buildings including ca. 40 churches as well as fortresses, houses, and cisterns. The available data were generated mostly over a century ago when fieldwork prioritized monumental architecture and epigraphy. In spite of evidence for collapse and repair in some early basilicas, the evidence may suggest continuous occupation at Madenşehir from late antiquity into the second millennium. At Değle, located high in the mountain, large building complexes that may have been monastic or elite houses, developed mostly after the early Byzantine period. Numerous small chapels and associated structures on the hilltops seem to have had a memorial function.

Germia was famous for its thermal springs and a church dedicated to the archangel Michael. There were several other churches and monasteries, but little space for ordinary residential buildings. The Christians seem to have established their healing shrine half way between two pre-existing Roman poleis of Mantalos and Goeleon, because Mantalos was already the centre of a pagan cult and Goeleon lacks thermal springs. Otherwise, there was no need for an additional, third polis, and Germia never developed into a sizable settlement, although it became an autocephalous archbishopric and metropolis. The case of Germia confirms that in the Byzantine period the status of polis and metropolis as well as that of diocese and archdiocese were not necessarily indicative of any degree of urbanization. The site is also outstanding for surviving the Invasion Period without fortifications and for continuing throughout the middle Byzantine period without any apparent sign of decline.