Alan Sorrell's archaeological reconstruction drawings and paintings remain some of the best, most accurate and most accomplished paintings of their genre that continue to inform our understanding and appreciation of historic buildings and monuments in Europe, the Near East and throughout the UK. His famously stormy and smoky townscapes, especially those of Roman Britain, were based on meticulous attention to detail borne of detailed research in collaboration with archaeologists such as Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Sir Cyril Fox and Sir Barry Cunliffe, who excavated and recorded his subjects of interest. Many of his reconstructions were commissioned to accompany visitor information and guidebooks at historic sites and monuments where they continue to be displayed. But archaeological subjects were not his only interest. His output was prodigious: he painted murals, portraits, imaginative and romantic scenes and was an accomplished war artist, serving in the RAF in World War II. In this affectionate but objective account, Sorrell's children, both also artists, present a brief pictorial biography followed by more detailed descriptions of the genesis, research and production of illustrations that demonstrate the artist's integrity and vision, based largely on family archives and illustrated throughout with Sorrell's own works. So influential were Sorrell's images of Roman towns such as London, Colchester, Wroxeter, St Albans and Bath, buildings such as the Heathrow temple and the forts of Hadrian's Wall, that he became known as the man who invented Roman Britain.

In the spring, the ground of the Agora archaeological park is covered in poppies and daisies while poplars and oaks shade many of the pathways. Some of these plants are wild and some were deliberately introduced to Athens in classical times. This booklet presents evidence for ancient horticulture in the Agora (for example, structured antique gardens were uncovered around the Temple of Hephaistos). Its color plates also provide a useful guide to identifying modern Greek vegetation.

The metaphor of the palimpsest has been increasingly invoked to conceptualise cities with deep, living pasts. This volume thinks through, and beyond, the logic of the palimpsest, asking whether this fashionable trope slyly forces us to see contradiction where local inhabitants saw (and see) none, to impose distinctions that satisfy our own assumptions about historical periodisation and cultural practice, but which bear little relation to the experience of ancient, medieval or early modern persons. Spanning the period from Constantine's foundation of a New Rome in the fourth century to the contemporary aftermath of the Lebanese civil war, this book integrates perspectives from scholars typically separated by the disciplinary boundaries of late antique, Islamic, medieval, Byzantine, Ottoman and modern Middle Eastern studies, but whose work is united by their study of a region characterised by resilience rather than rupture. The volume includes an introduction and eighteen contributions from historians, archaeologists and art historians who explore the historical and cultural complexity of eastern Mediterranean cities. The authors highlight the effects of the multiple antiquities imagined and experienced by persons and groups who for generations made these cities home, and also by travellers and other observers who passed through them. The independent case studies are bound together by a shared concern to understand the many ways in which the cities' pasts live on in their presents.

Coinage is one of our key sources for the rich and fascinating history of the Hellenistic world (323-31 BC). This book provides students of the period with an up-to-date introduction to Hellenistic gold, silver and bronze coins in their cultural and economic contexts. It also offers new perspectives on four major themes in contemporary Hellenistic history: globalisation, identity, political economy and ideology. With more than 250 illustrations, and written in a lucid and accessible style, this book sheds new light on the diverse and multicultural societies of the Hellenistic world, from Alexander to Augustus. The author assumes no prior knowledge of Hellenistic history, and all Greek and Latin texts are translated throughout.

Early Renaissance humanists discovered the culture of ancient Greece and Rome mostly through the study of classical manuscripts. Cyriac of Ancona (Ciriaco de' Pizzecolli, 1391-1452), a merchant and diplomat as well as a scholar, was among the first to study the physical remains of the ancient world in person and for that reason is sometimes regarded as the father of classical archaeology. His travel diaries and letters are filled with descriptions of classical sites, drawings of buildings and statues, and copies of hundreds of Latin and Greek inscriptions. Cyriac came to see it as his calling to record the current state of the remains of antiquity and to lobby with local authorities for their preservation, recognizing that archaeological evidence was an irreplaceable complement to the written record.

This volume presents letters and diaries from 1443 to 1449, the period of his final voyages, which took him from Italy to the eastern shore of the Adriatic, the Greek mainland, the Aegean islands, Anatolia and Thrace, Mount Athos, Constantinople, the Cyclades, and Crete. Cyriac's accounts of his travels, with their commentary reflecting his wide-ranging antiquarian, political, religious, and commercial interests, provide a fascinating record of the encounter of the Renaissance world with the legacy of classical antiquity. The Latin texts assembled for this edition have been newly edited and most of them appear here for the first time in English. The edition is enhanced with reproductions of Cyriac's sketches and a map of his travels.

The frontiers of the Roman empire together form the largest monument of one of the world's greatest states. They stretch for some 7,500km through 20 countries which encircle the Mediterranean Sea. The remains of these frontiers have been studied by visitors and later by archaeologists for several centuries. Many of the inscriptions and sculpture, weapons, pottery and artefacts created and used by the soldiers and civilians who lived on the frontier can be seen in museums. Equally evocative of the lost might of Rome are the physical remains of the frontiers themselves. The aim of this series of books is not only to inform the interested visitor about the history of the frontiers but to act as a guidebook as well. The Roman military remains of Egypt are remarkable in their variety and in their state of preservation. They deserve to be better known. They include forts, quarries under the authority of the army and whose materials were used in the monumental buildings of Rome, as well as the roads which crossed the desert landscape and brought the Mediterranean into contact with the Indian Ocean. It is hoped that each reader of this book will enjoy learning more about the remarkable Roman inheritance of Egypt. The full text is presented side-by-side dual-language in English and French.

How do archaeologists and artists reimagine what life was like during the Greek Bronze Age? How do contemporary conditions influence the way we understand the ancient past? This innovative book considers two imaginative restorations of the ancient world that test the boundaries of interpretation and invention by bringing together the discovery of Minoan culture by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851-1941) and the work of the Turner Prize-winning video artist Elizabeth Price (b. 1966). Featured essays examine Evans's interpretation and restoration of the Knossos palace and present fresh photography of Minoan artifacts and archival photographs of the dig alongside beautiful, previously unpublished watercolors and drawings by the archaeological illustrators and restorers who worked on the site: Emile Gillieron pere(1850-1924), Emile Gillieron fils (1885-1939), Piet de Jong (1887-1967), and others. An interview with Price explores how her attraction to the Sir Arthur Evans Archive became the basis for her commissioned video installation at the University of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum and offers insight into her creative practice. Exhibition dates: October 5, 2017-January 7, 2018

This book tells the fascinating story of Roman Britain, beginning with the late pre-Roman Iron Age and ending with the province's independence from Roman rule in AD 409. Incorporating for the first time the most recent archaeological discoveries from Hadrian's Wall, London and other sites across the country, and richly illustrated throughout with photographs and maps, this reliable and up-to-date new account is essential reading for students, non-specialists and general readers alike. Writing in a clear, readable and lively style (with a satirical eye to strange features of past times), Rupert Jackson draws on current research and new findings to deepen our understanding of the role played by Britain in the Roman Empire, deftly integrating the ancient texts with new archaeological material. A key theme of the book is that Rome's annexation of Britain was an imprudent venture, motivated more by political prestige than economic gain, such that Britain became a 'trophy province' unable to pay its own way. However, the impact that Rome and its provinces had on this distant island was nevertheless profound: huge infrastructure projects transformed the countryside and means of travel, capital and principal cities emerged, and the Roman way of life was inseparably absorbed into local traditions. Many of those transformations continue to resonate to this day, as we encounter their traces in both physical remains and in civic life.

Roman coinage represents the largest single category of object recorded through the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), with over 300,000 single finds in addition to several thousand hoards. This dataset, unparalleled anywhere else in the world, provides a unique perspective on the province of Roman Britain and its interaction with the larger Roman Empire. By exploring 50 key finds of Roman coinage it is possible to shed light on all aspects of Roman Britain from the conquest in AD 43 through to the Roman withdrawal by c. AD 410. Unusually for a Roman numismatic dataset, the PAS examples provide wide coverage of the entire province, revealing evidence for early military activity, the development of the rural landscape, as well as the socio-political and cultural evolution of the province. Approaching the material thematically, it will be possible to examine key elements of Roman Britain such as religion, the economy, British 'identity', the 'Britannic Empire', and the archaeological application or implications of the PAS data. Dr Andrew Brown is Deputy National Finds Advisor for Iron Age and Roman coinage at the Portable Antiquities Scheme/British Museum.

Andras Bodor and the history of classical studies in Transylvania in the 20th century is the first comprehensive work focusing on the life of a classicist from Transylvania, presenting in detail the life and academic heritage of Andras Bodor (1915-1999). Based on 1348 newly identified letters, 209 photographs (including 25 portraits), Andras Bodor's complete bibliography and his unpublished memoir from 1915-1959, the work offers also the first publication of Bodor's academic correspondence (107 letters) and also extracts from his unpublished journal. Based on a large number of unpublished documents and the major works of Bodor, the book tries to reconstruct the life and academic heritage of a classicist from the periphery of Europe, a region that changed so many times over the long course of the 20th century. Andras Bodor appears as a student torn between theology and classical studies, a Transylvanian Hungarian who ended up at Oxford, a lecturer at the Hungarian University of Cluj, a researcher who had the idea of establishing a new school of classics, marginalised and compromising, a quiet teacher of the newly established Babes-Bolyai University and also a senior professor engaged in education policy. The personality and work of Bodor is presented through the short history of classics in Transylvania, Romania, reflecting on the European and global changes of the discipline.

The languages of the ancient world and the mysterious scripts, long undeciphered, in which they were encoded have represented one of the most intriguing problems of classical archaeology in modern times. This celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris was written by his close collaborator in the momentous discovery. In revealing the secrets of Linear B it offers a valuable survey of late Minoan and Mycenaean archaeology, uncovering fascinating details of the religion and economic history of an ancient civilisation.

The Greek military victories at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataia during the Persian Wars profoundly shaped fifth-century politics and culture. By long tradition, the victors commemorated their deliverance by dedicating thank-offerings in the sanctuaries of their gods, and the Athenians erected no fewer than ten new temples and other buildings. Because these buildings were all at some stage of construction during the political ascendency of Perikles, in the third quarter of the fifth century, modern writers refer to them collectively as the Periklean building program. In Trophies of Victory, T. Leslie Shear, Jr., who directed archaeological excavations at the Athenian Agora for more than twenty-five years, provides the first comprehensive account of the Periklean buildings as a group. This richly illustrated book examines each building in detail, including its archaeological reconstruction, architectural design, sculptural decoration, chronology, and construction history. Shear emphasizes the Parthenon's revolutionary features and how they influenced smaller contemporary temples. He examines inscriptions that show how every aspect of public works was strictly controlled by the Athenian Assembly. In the case of the buildings on the Acropolis and the Telesterion at Eleusis, he looks at accounts of their overseers, which illuminate the administration, financing, and organization of public works. Throughout, the book provides new details about how the Periklean buildings proclaimed Athenian military prowess, aggrandized the city's cults and festivals, and laid claim to its religious and cultural primacy in the Greek world.

The relentlessly self-promoting amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann took full credit for discovering Homer's Troy over one hundred years ago, and since then generations have thrilled to the tale of his ambitions and achievements. But Schliemann gained this status as an archaeological hero partly by deliberately eclipsing the man who had launched his career. Now, at long last, Susan Heuck Allen puts the record straight in this fascinating archaeological adventure that restores the British expatriate Frank Calvert to his rightful place in the story of the identification and excavation of Hisarlik, the site now thought to be Troy as described in the Iliad. Frank Calvert had lived in the Troad - in the northwest corner of Asia Minor - excavating there for fifteen years before Schliemann arrived and learning the local topography well. He was the first archaeologist to test the hypothesis that Hisarlik was the Troy of Hector and Helen. So that he would have unrestricted access to the site, he purchased part of the mound and was the first archaeologist to conduct excavations there. Running out of funds, he later interested Schliemann in the site. The thankless Schliemann stole Calvert's ideas, exploited his knowledge and advice, and finally stole Calvert's glory, in part by slandering him and denigrating his work. Allen corrects the record and does justice to a man who was a victim of his own integrity while giving a balanced treatment of Schliemann's true accomplishments. This meticulously researched book tells the story of Frank Calvert's development as an archaeologist, his adventures and discoveries. It focuses on the twists and turns of his turbulent relationship with the perfidious Schliemann, the resulting gains for archaeology, and the successful conclusion of their common quest. Allen has brought together a wide range of relevant published material as well as unpublished sources from archives, diaries, letters, and personal interviews to tell this gripping story.

This book is a comprehensive study of the coins minted by Apamea, Larissa, Raphanea, Emesa and Laodicea ad Libanum in Syria during the late Hellenistic and Roman periods. It offers a historical overview of the individual cities, followed by in-depth discussions of the production, circulation, metrology and iconography of the coins. The text is supplemented with numerous die studies providing a structural framework of the various issues. A catalogue of 1,367 coins is also provided. Detailed discussions of the coinages and comparisons with contemporaneous issues of neighbouring mints reveal the diverse nature of the coins. The volume bridges the gaps in our understanding of coinage in the Orontes Valley and surrounding regions.

The son of an Italian historian, Paul-Emile Botta (1802-70) served France as a diplomat and archaeologist. While posted as consul to Mosul in Ottoman Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), he excavated several sites, becoming in 1843 the first archaeologist to uncover an Assyrian palace at Khorsabad, where Sargon II had ruled in the eighth century BCE. As nobody could yet read the cuneiform inscriptions, Botta thought he had discovered Nineveh, and an enthused French government financed the recording and collecting of numerous artefacts. Many of the marvellous sculptures were put on display in the Louvre. Botta devoted himself to studying the inscriptions, and this 1848 publication, a contribution towards the later deciphering of the Akkadian language, presents a tentative catalogue of cuneiform characters that appear to be used interchangeably. Of related interest, Henry Rawlinson's Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria (1850) is also reissued in this series.

Acta Hyperborea is a periodical by a group of classical archaeologists associated with Danish universities and museums. Although primarily a journal of classical archaeology, it also covers other fields in classical scholarship. One of the main objectives of the periodical is the interdisciplinary approach to promote a dialogue between historians, philologists and archaeologists.

This book advances our understanding of the place of Latin inscriptions in the Roman world beyond the vague concept of 'the epigraphic habit'. It enables readers to appreciate both the potential and the limitations of inscriptions as historical source material, by considering the diversity of epigraphic culture in the Roman world, and how it has been transmitted to the 21st century. The first chapter offers an epigraphic sample drawn from the Bay of Naples, illustrating the dynamic epigraphic culture of that region. The second explores in detail the nature of epigraphic culture in the Roman world, probing the limitations of traditional ways of dividing up inscriptions into different categories, and offering examples of how epigraphic culture developed in different geographical, social, and religious contexts. It examines the 'life-cycle' of inscriptions how they were produced, viewed, reused, and destroyed. Finally, the third provides guidance on deciphering inscriptions face-to-face and handling specialist epigraphic publications.

Imprisoned in 1849 for organising a Carbonari cell among the workers at Pompeii, numismatist and archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823 96) was eventually appointed Director of Excavations, as well as Professor of Archaeology at Naples, in 1860. He introduced systematic excavation to the site and meticulous record-keeping, including the creation of a general map and a 1:100 model, as well as the use of plaster casts to capture the forms of ancient bodies. Published in 1875, as Fiorelli left Naples to take up the position of Director General of Italian Antiquities and Fine Arts, this guide, in Italian, gives a description of Pompeii ordered by region, insula, and building - a system devised by Fiorelli and still in use today. As such, the work illuminates the development of modern archaeological methods and the history of this remarkable site.

Synthesizing some 30 years of archaeological research in south-east Italy, this book discusses a millennium that witnessed breathtaking changes: the first millennium BC. In nine to ten centuries the Mediterranean societies changed from a great variety of mostly small entities of predominantly tribal nature into the enormous state currently indicated as the Roman Empire. This volume is a case study discussing the pathway to complexity of one of the regions that contributed to the formation of this large state:south-east Italy. It highlights how initially small groups developed into complex societies, how and why these adapted to increasingly wide horizons, and how and why Italic groups and migrants from the eastern Mediterranean interacted and created entirely new social, economic, cultural and physical landscapes. This synthesis is based on research carried out by many Italian archaeologists and by research groups from quite a variety of other countries. Amsterdam Archaeological Studies is a series devoted to the study of past human societies from the prehistory up into modern times, primarily based on the study of archaeological remains. The series will include excavation reports of modern fieldwork; studies of categories of material culture; and synthesising studies with broader images of past societies, thereby contributing to the theoretical and methodological debates in archaeology.

The Romans ruled Britannia for more than 350 years, leaving an indelible mark on our landscape. Town and countryside were transformed by innovations in comfort and culture - albeit shot through with a uniquely British twist - glimpses of which can still be seen at numerous splendid sites and museums in England, Wales and Scotland. Roman Britain and Where to Find It provides the history of the best Roman villas, forts, walls and bathhouses, as well as the hidden gems which the uninitiated might pass by. It also explains how these remnants of the past fit into the bigger story, pointing out details which have their own tale to tell, connecting us with the people who lived here 2,000 years ago.

The themes of sedentarisation, urbanisation and state formation are fundamental ones in the archaeology of many diverse parts of the world but have been little explored in relation to early societies of the Saharan zone. Moreover, the possibility has rarely been considered that the precocious civilisations bordering this vast desert were interconnected by long-range contacts and knowledge networks. The orthodox opinion of many of the key oasis zones within the Sahara is that they were not created before the early medieval period and the Islamic conquest of Mediterranean North Africa. Major claims of this volume are that the ultimate origins of oasis settlements in many parts of the Sahara were considerably earlier, that by the first millennium AD some of these oasis settlements were of a size and complexity to merit the categorisation 'towns' and that a few exceptional examples were focal centres within proto-states or early state-level societies.

**NOW A HIT STAGE PRODUCTION** Take a journey around the archaeological and cultural remains of Roman Britain with the award-winning author of Greek Myths. This is a book about the encounter with Roman Britain: about what the idea of 'Roman Britain' has meant to those who came after Britain's 400-year stint as province of Rome - from the medieval mythographer-historian Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edward Elgar and W.H. Auden. What does Roman Britain mean to us now? How were its physical remains rediscovered and made sense of? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse? Charlotte Higgins has traced these tales by setting out to discover the remains of Roman Britain for herself, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a splendid, though not particularly reliable, VW camper van. Via accounts of some of Britain's most intriguing, and often unjustly overlooked ancient monuments, Under Another Sky invites us to see the British landscape, and British history, in an entirely fresh way: as indelibly marked by how the Romans first imagined, and wrote, these strange and exotic islands, perched on the edge of the known world, into existence. 'Mesmerising... Sophisticated and passionate' Guardian '[A] lyrical, haunting look at Roman Britain and its echo in our culture' Sunday Times

The civitas Batavorum was a settlement on the north-western frontier of the Roman Empire, and it is now the site of numerous archaeological excavations. This book offers the most up-to-date look yet at what has been discovered, using the newest archaeological techniques, about the town and its economy, its military importance, and the religious and domestic buildings it held. It will be essential reading for anyone studying the economy of the Roman provincial countryside or the details of food supply for the Roman army and town.

A Classical Archaeologists's Life: The Story so Far shows that a scholar's life is not all scholarship, though much of this book is devoted to the writing of books and, especially, travel to classical and other lands. Boardman is a Londoner, born in Ilford and attending school in Essex (Chigwell). His teenage years were spent often in air raid shelters rather than with 'mates' (all evacuated). There are distinctive 'aunties', the rituals of daily life in a London suburb. The non-scholarly figures live large in this account of his life, marriage, children, new houses. At Cambridge he learned about classical archaeology as a necessary addition to reading Homer and Demosthenes, even being obliged to recite the latter. And those were the days of Bertrand Russell's lectures in a university reawakening after the war. Thence to the British School at Athens to learn about excavation (Smyrna, Knossos, later Libya). His return from Greece was to Oxford, not Cambridge, at first in the Ashmolean Museum, then as Reader and Professor. A spell in New York gives an account of the city before the troubles, when Petula Clark's Down Town was dominant. There is much here to reflect on university life and teaching, and on the reasons for and problems with the writing of his many books (some 40), with reflection on the university, colleges and their ways. Travels are well documented - a notable trip through Pakistan and China, in Persia, Egypt, Turkey - with comment on what he saw and experienced beyond archaeology. A lecture tour in Australia provides comment beyond the academic. He visited Israel often, lecturing and publishing for the Bible Lands Museum. Several tours in the USA took him to most of their museums and universities as well as many other sights, from glaciers to alligators. This book is a mixture of scholarly reminiscence, reflection on family life, travelogue, and critique of classical scholarship (not all archaeological) worldwide, illustrated with pictures of travels, friends, home life, and, for a historian, a reflection on experiences of over 90 years.

Transport amphorae are one of the best archaeological indicators for evaluating the economy and trade of societies in the ancient world. Scambi e commerci in area vesuviana: i dati delle anfore dai saggi stratigrafici I.E. (Impianto Elettrico) 1980-81 nel Foro di Pompei, produced by researchers from the University of Cadiz and the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, includes the study of nearly five hundred of these commercial containers, recovered during the pioneering stratigraphic excavations carried out in 1980-1981 at the Forum of Pompeii, called conventionally "Impianto Elettrico". The work represents the first Pompeian monograph dedicated exclusively to the analysis of the amphoric evidence brought to light by archaeological excavation activities in the city buried by the eruption of Vesuvius and analyses in diachronic perspective the main productions in circulation between the VI / V BC and the year 79 AD. The chapters of the volume offer the reader data relating to archaic amphorae, Greek amphorae and Italic wine amphorae from the Republican era, which draw a commercial panorama of great vitality. The African amphorae, following Punic traditions, are then reviewed; then follow the Punic-Gaditan garum amphorae, identified for the first time in the Vesuvian area in this study; le Dressel 21-22, containers for the Italic fish-salting trade and, finally, the productions of the late Republican and Julio-Claudian period. The volume is completed by a series of complementary archaeometric studies carried out on some of the amphorae (paleocontent organic residue analysis and petrographic characterization of the fabrics). All this material, analyzed with an integrated and interdisciplinary approach, allows us to draw multiple conclusions, fundamental to understanding the rich and articulated daily history of Pompeii, its merchants and its inhabitants (the consumers to whom the amphorae were intended) but also useful to better define the Economic History of some of the circum-Mediterranean regions (from Gades to the Aegean) with which Pompeii had strong trade ties in Antiquity, as evidenced by the amphorae presented here.