A radical reexamination of the textual and archaeological evidence about Augustus and the Palatine Caesar Augustus (63 BC-AD 14), who is usually thought of as the first Roman emperor, lived on the Palatine Hill, the place from which the word "palace" originates. A startling reassessment of textual and archaeological evidence, The House of Augustus demonstrates that Augustus was never an emperor in any meaningful sense of the word, that he never had a palace, and that the so-called "Casa di Augusto" excavated on the Palatine was a lavish aristocratic house destroyed by the young Caesar in order to build the temple of Apollo. Exploring the Palatine from its first occupation to the present, T. P. Wiseman proposes a reexamination of the "Augustan Age," including much of its literature. Wiseman shows how the political and ideological background of Augustus' rise to power offers a radically different interpretation of the ancient evidence about the Augustan Palatine. Taking a long historical perspective in order to better understand the topography, Wiseman considers the legendary stories of Rome's origins-in particular Romulus' foundation and inauguration of the city on the summit of the Palatine. He examines the new temple of Apollo and the piazza it overlooked, as well as the portico around it with its library used as a hall for Senate meetings, and he illustrates how Commander Caesar, who became Caesar Augustus, was the champion of the Roman people against an oppressive oligarchy corrupting the Republic. A decisive intervention in a critical debate among ancient historians and archaeologists, The House of Augustus recalibrates our views of a crucially important period and a revered public space.

The past few years have witnessed a revolution in our ability to obtain DNA from ancient humans. This important new data has added to our knowledge from archaeology and anthropology, helped resolve long-existing controversies, challenged long-held views, and thrown up remarkable surprises. The emerging picture is one of many waves of ancient human migrations, so that all populations living today are mixes of ancient ones, and often carry a genetic component from archaic humans. David Reich, whose team has been at the forefront of these discoveries, explains what genetics is telling us about ourselves and our complex and often surprising ancestry. Gone are old ideas of any kind of racial apurity.' Instead, we are finding a rich variety of mixtures. Reich describes the cutting-edge findings from the past few years, and also considers the sensitivities involved in tracing ancestry, with science sometimes jostling with politics and tradition. He brings an important wider message: that we should recognize that every one of us is the result of a long history of migration and intermixing of ancient peoples, which we carry as ghosts in our DNA. What will we discover next?

In this book, Sabine R. Huebner explores the world of the protagonists of the New Testament and the early Christians using the rich papyrological evidence from Roman Egypt. This gives us unparalleled insights into the everyday lives of the non-elite population in an area quite similar to neighboring Judaea-Palestine. What were the daily concerns and difficulties experienced by a carpenter's family or by a shepherd looking after his flocks? How did the average man or woman experience a Roman census? What obstacles did women living in a patriarchal society face in private, in public, and in the early Church? Given the flight of Jesus' family into Egypt, how mobile were the lower classes, what was their understanding of geography, and what costs and dangers were associated with travel? This volume gives a better understanding of the structural, social, and cultural conditions under which figures from the New Testament lived.

The chaotic events of A.D. 395-400 marked a momentous turning point for the Roman Empire and its relationship to the barbarian peoples under and beyond its command. In this masterly study, Alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long propose a complete rewriting of received wisdom concerning the social and political history of these years. Our knowledge of the period comes to us in part through Synesius of Cyrene, who recorded his view of events in his De regno and De providentia. By redating these works, Cameron and Long offer a vital new interpretation of the interactions of pagans and Christians, Goths and Romans. In 394/95, during the last four months of his life, the emperor Theodosius I ruled as sole Augustus over a united Roman Empire that had been divided between at least two emperors for most of the preceding one hundred years. Not only did the death of Theodosius set off a struggle between Roman officeholders of the two empires, but it also set off renewed efforts by the barbarian Goths to seize both territory and office. Theodosius had encouraged high-ranking Goths to enter Roman military service; thus well placed, their efforts would lead to Alaric's sack of Rome in 410. Though the authors' interest is in the particularities of events, Barbarians and Politics at the Court Of Arcadius conveys a wonderful sense of the general time and place. Cameron and Long's rebuttal of modern scholarship, which pervades the narrative, enhances the reader's engagement with the complexities of interpretation. The result is a sophisticated recounting of a period of crucial change in the Roman Empire's relationship to the non-Roman world. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.

This study uses artefact distribution analyses to investigate the activities that took place inside early Roman imperial military bases. Focusing especially on non-combat activities, it explores the lives of families and other support personnel who are widely assumed to have inhabited civilian settlements outside the fortification walls. Spatial analyses, in GIS-type environments, are used to develop fresh perspectives on the range of people who lived within the walls of these military establishments, the various industrial, commercial, domestic and leisure activities in which they and combat personnel were involved, and the socio-spatial organisation of these activities and these establishments. The book includes examples of both legionary fortresses and auxiliary forts from the German provinces to demonstrate that more material-cultural approaches to the artefact assemblages from these sites give greater insights into how these military communities operated and demonstrate the problems of ascribing functions to buildings without investigating the full material record.

Startling discoveries and impassioned debates have emerged from the Chaco Phenomenon since the publication of New Light on Chaco Canyon twenty years ago. This completely updated edition features seventeen original essays, scores of photographs, maps, and site plans, and the perspectives of archaeologists, historians, and Native American thinkers. Key topics include the rise of early great houses; the structure of agricultural life among the people of Chaco Canyon; their use of sacred geography and astronomy in organizing their spiritual cosmology; indigenous knowledge about Chaco from the perspective of Hopi, Tewa, and Navajo peoples; and the place of Chaco in the wider world of archaeology. For more than a century archaeologists and others have pursued Chaco Canyon's many and elusive meanings. In Search of Chaco brings these explorations to a new generation of enthusiasts.

A comprehensive, authoritative account of the development Greek Art through the 1st millennium BC. * An invaluable resource for scholars dealing with the art, material culture and history of the post-classical world * Includes voices from such diverse fields as art history, classical studies, and archaeology and offers a diversity of views to the topic * Features an innovative group of chapters dealing with the reception of Greek art from the Middle Ages to the present * Includes chapters on Chronology and Topography, as well as Workshops and Technology * Includes four major sections: Forms, Times and Places; Contacts and Colonies; Images and Meanings; Greek Art: Ancient to Antique

Archaeology of Louisiana provides a groundbreaking and up-to-date overview of archaeology in the Bayou State, including a thorough analysis of the cultures, communities, and people of Louisiana from the Native Americans of 13,000 years ago to the modern historical archaeology of New Orleans. With eighteen chapters and twenty-seven distinguished contributors, Archaeology of Louisiana brings together the studies of some of the most respected archaeologists currently working in the state, collecting in a single volume a range of methods and theories to offer a comprehensive understanding of the latest archaeological findings.

In the past two decades alone, much new data has transformed our knowledge of Louisiana's history. This collection, accordingly, presents fresh perspectives based on current information, such as the discovery that Native Americans in Louisiana constructed some of the earliest-known monumental architecture in the world -- extensive earthen mounds -- during the Middle Archaic period (6000--2000 B.C.) Other contributors consider a variety of subjects, such as the development of complex societies without agriculture, underwater archaeology, the partnering of archaeologists with the Caddo Nation and descendant communities, and recent research in historical archaeology and cultural resource management that promises to transform our current appreciation of colonial Spanish, French, Creole, and African American experiences in the Lower Mississippi Valley.

Accessible and engaging, Archaeology of Louisiana provides a complete and current archaeological reference to the state's unique heritage and history.

The eighth volume in the award-winning Popular Archaeology series introduces a key historical period in pre-Columbian eastern North America - the "Mississippian" era - via a series of colorful essays on places, practices, and peoples written from Native American and non-Native perspectives on the past. The volume lays out the basic contours of the early centuries of this era (AD 1000-1300) in the Mississippian heartland, making connections to later centuries and contemporary peoples. Cahokia the place and Cahokian social history undergird the book, but Mississippian material cultures, landscapes, and descendants are highlighted, presenting a balanced, colorful, and accessible view of the Mississippian world.

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This first English translation of Leontius of Neapolis's Life of Symeon the Fool brings alive one of the most colorful of early Christian saints. In this study of a major hagiographer at work, Krueger fleshes out a broad picture of the religious, intellectual, and social environment in which the Life was created and opens a window onto the Christian religious imagination at the end of Late Antiquity. He explores the concept of holy folly by relating Symeon's life to the gospels, to earlier hagiography, and to anecdotes about Diogenes the Cynic. The Life is one of the strangest works of the Late Antique hagiography. Symeon seemed a bizarre choice for sanctification, since it was through very peculiar antics that he converted heretics and reformed sinners. Symeon acted like a fool, walked about naked, ate enormous quantities of beans, and defecated in the streets. When he arrived in Emesa, Symeon tied a dead dog he found on a dunghill to his belt and entered the city gate, dragging the dog behind him. Krueger presents a provocative interpretation of how these bizarre antics came to be instructive examples to everyday Christians. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996.

In this iconoclastic and provocative work, leading scholars Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman draw on recent archaeological research to present a dramatically revised portrait of ancient Israel and its neighbors. They argue that crucial evidence (or a telling lack of evidence) at digs in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon suggests that many of the most famous stories in the Bible -- the wanderings of the patriarchs, the Exodus from Egypt, Joshua's conquest of Canaan, and David and Solomon's vast empire -- reflect the world of the later authors rather than actual historical facts.

Challenging the fundamentalist readings of the scriptures and marshaling the latest archaeological evidence to support its new vision of ancient Israel, The Bible Unearthed offers a fascinating and controversial perspective on when and why the Bible was written and why it possesses such great spiritual and emotional power today.

The concept of pharaonic Egypt as a unified, homogeneous, and isolated cultural entity is misleading. Ancient Egypt was a rich tapestry of social, religious, technological, and economic interconnections among numerous cultures from disparate lands. This volume uniquely examines Egypt's relationship with its wider world through fifteen chapters arranged in five thematic groups. The first three chapters detail the geographical contexts of interconnections through examination of ancient Egyptian exploration, maritime routes, and overland passages. The next three chapters address the human principals of association: peoples, with the attendant difficulties differentiating ethnic identities from the record; diplomatic actors, with their complex balances and presentations of power; and the military, with its evolving role in pharaonic expansion. Natural events, too, played significant roles in the pharaonic world: geological disasters, the effects of droughts and floods on the Nile, and illness and epidemics all delivered profound impacts, as is seen in the third section. Physical manifestations of interconnections between pharaonic Egypt and its neighbors in the form of objects are the focus of the fourth set: trade, art and architecture, and a specific case study of scarabs. The final section discusses in depth perhaps the most powerful means of interconnection: ideas. Whether through diffusion and borrowing of knowledge and technology, through the flow of words by script and literature, or through exchanges in the religious sphere, the pharaonic Egypt that we know today was constantly changing-and changing the cultures around it.

First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this revised and all-colour edition of her indispensable guide to the ancient Games, Judith Swaddling traces their mythological and religious origins, and describes the events, the sacred ceremony and the celebrations that were an essential part of the Olympic festival. A large, detailed model based on modern research and excavation reconstructs the site of ancient Olympia, where alongside religious and civic buildings there grew an elaborate sports complex with a stadium for 40,000 spectators, indoor and outdoor training facilities, hot and cold baths, a swimming pool and a race-course. Later chapters cover the diet and medical treatment of athletes, sponsorship, patronage, propaganda and revivals of the Games and a brand new chapter, based on the lateste research discusses the literary sources for the Olympic Games. The expanded final chapter on the modern Games is written in collaboration with Stewart Binns, an expert in this field who has worked closely with the International Olympic Committee over many years, and has been revised to bring the story up to the preparations for the London 2012 Games. Illustrated with gorgeous, full-colour photography and covering thousands of years of Olympic history, this fascinating book is essential reading for anyone interested in the Olympic Games.

The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, whilst revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations. In this Very Short Introduction Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the very latest fossil finds. In this new edition he discusses how Ancient DNA studies have revolutionized how we view the recent (post-550 ka) human evolution, and the process of speciation. The combination of ancient and modern human DNA has contributed to discoveries of new taxa, as well as the suggestion of 'ghost' taxa whose fossil records still remain to be discovered. Considering the contributions of related sciences such as paleoclimatology, geochronology, systematics, genetics, and developmental biology, Wood explores our latest understandings of our own evolution. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

No satisfactory explanation has been given for the burial of a large Saxon gold hoard found in Hammerwich, Staffordshire in 2009. Speculation on who buried the treasure has led to many ideas based on battles, warriors and plundering kings. An alternative vision is given with greater emphasis placed on the religious items, the early church at Lichfield and the amassing of artwork in religious houses from the seventh century onwards. The Christian pieces are explained in new ways and the gold is discussed from the point of view of a Churl, Monk, Bishop, Warrior and King. An argument is presented based on available evidence to suggest why the hoard was buried and who possibly might have buried the precious items in despair. Archaeology, local history, Saxon beliefs and historical events are brought together to give a new way of seeing the Staffordshire Hoard.

Investigates physical evidence, history, and myths to reveal the lost race of giants that once dominated the world * Reveals suppressed archaeological and scientific discoveries supporting the existence of a worldwide race of giants * Examines giant myths and legends from ancient religious texts and literature from around the world * Includes findings from throughout Europe (Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia), the Middle East (Israel, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran), Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the Far East (China, Japan, Malaysia, and the Philippines) From the Nephilim and Goliath in the Bible to the Titans in Greek mythology and the Fomorians and Frost Giants in Celtic and Nordic lore, almost every culture around the world has spoken of an ancient race of giants. Giant footprints left in the geological bedrock, tens of thousands of years old, have been discovered in India, China, and the war-torn lands of Syria. Giant bones and full skeletons have been found in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Asia. Yet despite mounting evidence, mainstream science continues to consign these findings to the fringe. Examining global myths, historical records, megalithic ruins, and archaeological findings, Xaviant Haze provides compelling evidence for a lost race of giants in Earth's prehistory. Covering legends and finds from throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the Far East, Haze also presents--in its entirety--The Book of Giants, a portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls suppressed due to its overwhelming support for the existence of giants in antiquity.

On 5 July 2009 a metal-detectorist started to unearth gold objects in a Staffordshire field. Thus began the discovery of the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found. Consisting of over 1600 items - including fittings from the hilts of swords, fragments from helmets, Christian crosses and magnificent pieces of garnet work - the Staffordshire Hoard has begun to rewrite history. This new and extended edition of the successful title by Kevin Leahy and Roger Bland delves deeper into the story behind the hoard, using the latest research to fill previous gaps in knowledge and turn some of the original ideas about the discovery on their head. Complete with new photography of the cleaned and conserved objects, showing off the stunning and intricate decoration, this book provides a fascinating account of the history and the discovery of this remarkable hoard.

This study explores the organization, scale, complexity, and integration of Aztec commerce across Mesoamerica at Spanish contact. The aims of the book are threefold. The first is to construct an in-depth understanding of the economic organization of precolumbian Aztec society and how it developed in the way that it did. The second is to explore the livelihoods of the individuals who bought, sold, and moved goods across a cultural landscape that lacked both navigable rivers and animal transport. Finally, this study models Aztec economy in a way that facilitates its comparison to other ancient and premodern societies around the world. What makes the Aztec economy unique is that it developed one of the most sophisticated market economies in the ancient world in a society with one of the worse transportation systems. This is the first book to provide an updated and comprehensive view of the Aztec economy in thirty years.

During the last forty years, South-West England has been the focus of some of the most significant work on the early modern house and household in Britain. Its remarkable wealth of vernacular buildings has been the object of much attention, while the area has also seen productive excavations of early modern household goods, shedding new light on domestic history. This collection of papers, written by many of the leading specialists in these fields, presents a number of essays summarizing the overall understanding of particular themes and places, alongside case studies which publish some of the most remarkable discoveries. They include the extraordinary survival of wall-hangings in a South Devon farm, the discovery of painted rooms in an Elizabethan town house, and a study of a table-setting mirrored on its ceiling. Also considered are forms of decoration which seem specific to particular areas of the West Country houses. Taken together, the papers offer a holistic view of the household in the early modern period. John Allan is Consultant Archaeologist to the Dean & Chapter of Exeter Cathedral; Nat Alcock is Emeritus Reader in the Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick; David Dawson is an independent archaeologist and museum and heritage consultant. Contributors: Ann Adams, Nat Alcock, John Allan, James Ayres, Stuart Blaylock, Peter Brears, Tania Manuel Casimiro, Cynthia Cramp, Christopher Green, Oliver Kent, Kate Osborne, Richard Parker, Isabel Richardson, John Schofield, Eddie Sinclair, John R.L. Thorp, Hugh Wilmott,

This ground-breaking volume explores a series of inter-related key themes in Saharan archaeology and history. Migration and identity formation can both be approached from the perspective of funerary archaeology, using the combined evidence of burial structures, specific rites and funerary material culture, and integrated methods of skeletal analysis including morphometrics, palaeopathology and isotopes. Burial traditions from various parts of the Sahara are compared and contrasted with those of the Nile Valley, the Maghreb and West Africa. Several chapters deal with the related evidence of human migration derived from linguistic study. The volume presents the state of the field of funerary archaeology in the Sahara and its neighbouring regions and sets the agenda for future research on mobility, migration and identity. It will be a seminal reference point for Mediterranean and African archaeologists, historians and anthropologists as well as archaeologists interested in burial and migration more broadly.