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Books > Humanities > Archaeology > Archaeology by period / region > European archaeology
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.
Epigraphy, or the study of inscriptions, is critical for anyone seeking to understand the Roman world, whether they regard themselves as literary scholars, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, religious scholars or work in a field that touches on the Roman world from c. 500 BCE to 500 CE and beyond. The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy is the fullest collection of scholarship on the study and history of Latin epigraphy produced to date. Rather that just a collection of inscriptions, however, this volume seeks to show why inscriptions matter and demonstrate to classicists and ancient historians how to work with the sources. To that end, the 35 chapters, written by senior and rising scholars in Roman history, classics, and epigraphy, cover everything from typograph to the importance of inscriptions for understanding many aspects of Roman culture, from Roman public life, to slavery, to the roles and lives of women, to the military, and to life in the provinces. Students and scholars alike will find the Handbook a crritical tool for expanding their knowledge of the Roman world.
The city of Pompeii has had an enormous impact on Western imaginations since its rediscovery under the ashes of the volcano that destroyed it in 79 CE. In the 250 years since excavations began, Pompeii has helped to bring the ancient world to life for everyone, from music hall audiences to gentleman scholars, and it continues to have an impact on the way in which we think about the past, and the human condition itself. The contributors to this generously illustrated volume, who include the novelist Robert Harris, in a recorded interview, investigate how Pompeii has been used in film, fiction, and art on both sides of the Atlantic over three centuries. They explore the many different ways in which Pompeii inhabits our imaginations: as ghostly relic of human suffering, romantic ruin, model of cultural inspiration, home of a distant, decadent culture, and comforting model for everyday life.
Glassware and Glassworking in Thessaloniki: 1st Century BC - 6th Century AD is a detailed examination of the production of glass and glass vessels in the eastern Mediterranean from the Hellenistic Age to the Early Christian period, analysing production techniques and decoration. The volume establishes the socio-economic framework of glassmaking and glassmakers' social status in the Roman world generally and in Thessaloniki specifically, while identifying probable local products. Presented are all the excavation glass finds from Thessaloniki and its environs found between 1912 and 2002. A typological classification was created for almost 800 objects - which encompass the overwhelming majority of common excavation finds in the Balkans - as well as for the decorative themes that appear on the more valuable pieces. Comparative material from the entire Mediterranean was studied, verified in its entirety through primary publications. A summary of the excavation history of these vessels' find-spots is provided, with details for each excavation, in many cases unpublished and identified through research in the archives of the relevant museums and Ephorates of Antiquities. The uses of glass vessels are presented, and there is discussion and interpretation of the reasons that permitted, or imposed, the choice of glass for their production. The finds are statistically analysed, and a chronological overview examining them century by century on the basis of use and place of production is given. Finally, there is an effort to interpret the data from the study in historical terms, and to incorporate the results into the political-economic evolution of the region's political history. Relatively unfamiliar glassmaking terms are explained in a glossary of glassworking technology and typology terms. The material is fully documented in drawings and photographs, and every object in the catalogue is illustrated. A detailed index of the 602 geographical terms in the work, many unknown, concludes the book.
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.
The nature of authority and rulership was a central concern in ancient Greece, where the figure of the king or tyrant and the sovereignty associated with him remained a powerful focus of political and philosophical debate even as Classical Athens developed the world's first democracy. This collection of essays examines the extraordinary role that the concept of tyranny played in the cultural and political imagination of Archaic and Classical Greece through the interdisciplinary perspectives provided by internationally known archaeologists, literary critics, and historians. The book ranges historically from the Bronze and early Iron Age to the political theorists and commentators of the middle of the fourth century B.C. and generically across tragedy, comedy, historiography, and philosophy. While offering individual and sometimes differing perspectives, the essays tackle several common themes: the construction of authority and of constitutional models, the importance of religion and ritual, the crucial role of wealth, and the autonomy of the individual. Moreover, the essays with an Athenian focus shed new light on the vexed question of whether it was possible for Athenians to think of themselves as tyrannical in any way. As a whole, the collection presents a nuanced survey of how competing ideologies and desires, operating through the complex associations of the image of tyranny, struggled for predominance in ancient cities and their citizens.
Here are over 1,000 pages of authoritative information on the archaeology of Greek and Roman civilization. The sites discussed in the more than 2,800 entries are scattered from Britain to India and from the shores of the Black Sea to the coast of North Africa and up the Nile. They are located on sixteen area maps, keyed to the entries. The entries were written by 375 scholars from sixteen nations, many of whom have worked at the sites they describe. Until now our knowledge of the Classical period has been scattered in hundreds of sources dating from antiquity to our own times. This volume provides essential information on work accomplished, in progress, and still to be undertaken. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
This book examines how Romans used their pottery and the implications of these practices on the archaeological record. It is organized around a flow model for the life cycle of Roman pottery that includes a set of eight distinct practices: manufacture, distribution, prime use, reuse, maintenance, recycling, discard, reclamation. J. Theodore Pena evaluates how these practices operated, how they have shaped the archaeological record, and the implications of these processes on archaeological research through the examination of a wide array of archaeological, textual, representational, and comparative ethnographic evidence. The result is a rich portrayal of the dynamic that shaped the archaeological record of the ancient Romans that will be of interest to archaeologists, ceramicists, and students of material culture."
Rome and Barbaricum: Contributions to the archaeology and history of interaction in European protohistory asks the following questions: How did the 'Barbarians' influence Roman culture? What did 'Roman-ness' mean in the context of Empire? What did it mean to be Roman and/or 'Barbarian' in different contexts? The papers presented here explore the concepts of Romanisation and of Barbaricum from a multi-disciplinary and comparative standpoint, covering Germania, Dacia, Moesia Inferior, Hispania, and other regions of the Roman Empire. They deal with issues such as conceptual analysis of the term 'barbarian', military and administrative organization, inter-cultural and linguistic relations, numismatics, religion, economy, prosopographic investigations, constructing identities; and they present reflections on the theoretical framework for a new model of Romanisation.
Just six miles from the center of Belfast, County Down, on the plateau of Ballynahatty above the River Lagan, is one of Ireland’s great Neolithic henge monuments: the 200 m wide Giant’s Ring. For over a thousand years, this area was the focus of intense funerary ritual seemingly designed to send the dead to their ancestors and secure the land for the living. Scattered through the fields to the north and west of the Ring are flat cemeteries, standing stones, tombs, cists, and ring barrows – ancient monuments that were leveled by the plough when the land was enclosed in the 18th and 19th centuries. A great 90 m long timber enclosure with an elaborate entrance and inner ‘temple’ was first observed through crop marks in aerial photos. Excavation of the site between 1990–1999 revealed a complex structure composed of over 400 postholes, many over 2 m deep. This was a building in the grand style, elegantly designed to control space, views, and access to an inner sanctum containing a platform for exposure of the dead. By 2550 BC, the timber ‘temple’ had been swept away in a massive conflagration and the remains dismantled. Ballynahatty was one of the last great public ceremonial enterprises known to have been constructed by the Neolithic farmers in Northern Ireland, an enterprise proclaiming their enigmatic religion, ancestral rights and territorial aspirations. This report reconstructs the remarkable building complex and explains the sophistication and organization of its construction and use. The report sets the site and excavation in the wider development of the Ballynahatty landscape and its study to the present day.
Twenty sites were excavated on the route of a National Grid pipeline across Holderness, East Yorkshire. These included an early Mesolithic flint-working area, near Sproatley. In situ deposits of this age are rare, and the site is a significant addition to understanding of the post-glacial development of the wider region. Later phases of this site included possible Bronze Age round barrows and an Iron Age square barrow. Elsewhere on the pipeline route, diagnostic Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age flints, as well as Bronze Age pottery, provide evidence of activity in these periods. Iron Age remains were found at all of the excavation sites, fourteen of which had ring gullies, interpreted as evidence for roundhouse structures. The frequency with which these settlements occurred is an indication of the density of population in the later Iron Age and the large assemblage of hand-made pottery provides a rich resource for future study. Activity at several of these sites persisted at least into the second or early third centuries AD, while the largest excavation site, at Burton Constable, was re-occupied in the later third century. However, the pottery from the ring gullies was all hand-made, suggesting that roundhouses had ceased to be used by the later first century AD, when the earliest wheel-thrown wares appear. This has implications for understanding of the Iron Age to Roman transition in the region. Late first- or early second-century artefacts from a site at Scorborough Hill, near Weeton, are of particular interest, their nature strongly suggesting an association with the Roman military. With contributions by: Hugo Anderson-Whymark (flint), Kevin Leahy (metal, glass, worked bone), Terry Manby (earlier prehistoric pottery), Chris Cumberpatch (hand-made pottery), Rob Ixer (petrography), Derek Pitman and Roger Doonan (suface residues: ceramics and slag), Ruth Leary (Roman pottery), Felicity Wild (samian ware), Kay Hartley (mortaria), Jane Young with Peter Didsbury (post-Roman pottery), Ruth Shaffrey (worked stone), Lisa Wastling (fired clay), Jennifer Jones (surface residues: fired clay), Katie Keefe and Malin Holst (human bone), Jennifer Wood (animal bone), Don O'Meara (plant macrofossils), Tudur Burke Davies (pollen) and Matt Law (molluscs). Illustrations by: Jacqueline Churchill, Dave Watt and Susan Freebrey
Abila of the Decapolis is the largest Graeco-Roman city in Jordan with a tremendous wealth of funerary remains, and thus has the potential to improve our understanding of ancient culture and mobility. This is the first comprehensive synthesis of burial types, practices, and evidence for societal collapse in the growing field of bioarchaeology of Jordan. The book provides a comprehensive descriptive catalogue of the tombs and classification of tomb types, documented by over a hundred plans and 3D reconstructions. It also presents a model to explain the decline of Abila at the end of the Byzantine period. It will be a unique source for students and researchers interested in the funerary architecture and bioarchaeology of the classical period (Greek, Roman, and Byzantine).
This widely-used textbook presents a modern interpretation of Greek ideas, culture, and actions. Changes in the new edition concern mainly the spread and significance of tumulus-burial in Albania and the Mycenaean world, the dating of early coinage, the decree of Themistocles, and some aspects of Alexander the Great.
Who Were the Plunderers of Salmydessus? discusses ten references (from different periods) concerning the piratical activities of the Thracians at Salmydessus in an attempt to identify who these Thracians were. The goal set, the specificity of the references, and, above all, the probability that most of the authors under review had no first-hand experience of the area of Salmydessus, but relied on the works of their predecessors, define the character of the study and the research methods used. It is a historical work, with a strong element of Quellenforschung, and provides a comprehensive examination of the literary and epigraphic evidence relevant to the topic.
This book reconstructs the pre-Julian calendar of Rome on the basis of epigraphical and literary evidence, and analyzes its relation to the solar and lunar years. Mrs. Michels shows how the varied contents of the calendar were related to the political as well as to the religious life of Rome of the first century B.C. She traces the history of the calendar back to the fifth century, indicating the stages by which a single list of festivals may have developed into the complex document of the late republic. The Roman method of intercalation, the character of the days, and the history of the trinum nundinum are presented in appendices. Originally published in 1967. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
From thousands of fragments of plaster the author has assembled clues to the scheme of the wall painting in this royal palace destroyed by fire at the end of the thirteenth century B.C. Originally published in 1969. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Homer's King Nestor of "sandy Pylas" passes from legend into history in this first volume of the report of excavations on a hill called Englianos in Messenia, conducted by the Archaeological Expedition of the University of Cincinnati. The palace with its contents and the surrounding lower town indicate that this was an administrative center and the capital of a prosperous Mycenaean kingdom. The name Pylos appears on more than fifty tablets, and there can be no doubt that this was the Messenian abode of the Nestor of Greek tradition. Destroyed by fire at the end of the 13th century B.C., and never reoccupied, the palace has lain for more than 3,000 years in ruins. During the annual campaigns of the Expedition between 1952 and 1964, it emerged as a complex of four separate structures of considerable size. The floors, stumps of wall bearing plaster with painted decorations, doorways, and other evidence helped to identify gateways, courts, porticoes, vestibules, corridors, a great throne room, storerooms, a wine magazine, pantries filled with pottery, a bathroom, stairways, and a repair shop. Except for the tablets, seals, and frescoes, which will be described in other volumes, all the finds are recorded and illustrated with plans, drawings, and photographs. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
This case study of an underdeveloped area was carried out by the Rockefeller Foundation in an effort to discover what kinds of assistance can be usefully given to underdeveloped areas and in what ways. It is hoped that the results will be useful to many kinds of specialists--government and foundation officials, foreign-aid missions, private investors, etc. Originally published in 1953. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
This report aims to offer glimpses of the human condition on Naxos island, Greece, focusing on the archaeoanthropologic study of the human skeletal remains along with associated contexts of faunal materials recovered from the Geometric (9th -7th c BC) component of the burial ground site of Plithos in Chora at Naxos island.
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 province of Dacia had a relatively short life being abandoned due to economic and strategic reasons in the 260s. It was heavily militarized and therefore the role of the army was crucial in Its development and life. The Roman frontier In Dacia combined several elements, each relating to the landscape: there were riverain and mountain borders, some supplemented by linear barriers, and all connected by roads. Everywhere, the complex system of the border consisted primarily of a network of watchtowers, smaller or larger forts and artificial earthen ramparts or stone walls.
Athens dominates textbook accounts of ancient Greece. But was it, for the Greeks themselves, a model city-state or a creative, even a corrupt, departure from the model? Or was there a model? This book reveals Epizephyrian Locri--a Greek colony on the Adriatic coast of Italy--as a third way in Greek culture, neither Athens nor Sparta. Drawing on a wide range of literary and archaeological evidence, James Redfield offers a fascinating account of this poorly understood Greek city-state, and in particular the distinctive role of women and marriage therein. Redfield devotes much of the book to placing Locri within a more general account of Greek culture, particularly with the institution of marriage in relation to private property, sexual identity, and the fate of the soul. He begins by considering the annual practice of sending two maidens from old-world Locris, the putative place of origin of the Italian Locrians, to serve in the temple of Athena at Ilion, finding here some key themes of Locrian culture. He goes on to provide a richly detailed overview of the Italian city; in a set of iconographic essays he suggests that marriage was seen in Locri as a life transformation akin to the eternal bliss hoped for after death. Nothing less than a general reevaluation of classical Greek society in both its political and theological dimensions, "The Locrian Maidens" is must reading for students and scholars of classics, while remaining accessible and of particular interest to those in women's studies and to anyone seeking a broader understanding of ancient Greece.
Our conception of the culture and values of the ancient Greco-Roman world is largely based on texts and material evidence left behind by a small and atypical group of city-dwellers. The people of the deep Mediterranean countryside seldom appear in the historical record from antiquity, and almost never as historical actors. This book is the first extended historical ethnography of an ancient village society, based on an extraordinarily rich body of funerary and propitiatory inscriptions from a remote upland region of Roman Asia Minor. Rural kinship structures and household forms are analysed in detail, as are the region's demography, religious life, gender relations, class structure, normative standards and values. Roman north-east Lydia is perhaps the only non-urban society in the Greco-Roman world whose culture can be described at so fine-grained a level of detail: a world of tight-knit families, egalitarian values, hard agricultural labour, village solidarity, honour, piety and love.
Kommos, located on the south coast of Crete, is widely known for its important sanctuary of the Greek period. and for its earlier role as a major Minoan harbortown. Volumes II and III of this series on the results of the major excavations there have already been published. Now Part I of Volume I offers a general introduction to the site with chapters on the history and character of its excavation seen within the context of earlier archaeological exploration of the Mesara Plain and specifically in the Kommos area (Joseph W. Shaw) and studies on the geomorphology (John A. Gifford), the flora (C. Thomas Shay and Jennifer M. Shay, with Katherine A. Frego and Janusz Zwiazek) and the fauna (David S. Reese, with contributions by Mark J. Rose and Sebastian Payne) of the Kommos region, and ancient and modern land use (Michael Parsons, with John A. Gifford), A catalogue and analysis of finds from a foot survey in the Kommos area are included (Richard Hope Simpson, with Philip P. Betancourt, Peter J. Callaghan, Deborah K. Harlan, John W. Hayes, Joseph W. Shaw, Maria C. Shaw, and L. Vance Watrous). A final chapter by Harriet Blitzer treats Minoan implements and industries. This excavationwas conducted by the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The Roman imperial hoard from Gruia, Romania (former Roman province of Dacia) is among the largest ever discovered in this part of the Roman Empire. 1,509 silver coins dated from Vespasian to Gordian III were accidentally discovered while digging in a private garden. Wealthy or not in a Time of Turmoil? The Roman Imperial hoard from Gruia in Roman Dacia (Romania) presents a catalogue of each of these coins, photos included, with their complete descriptions. A comparative analysis with other similar hoards throughout the Roman Empire reveals general and specific patterns for hoarding in this period. At the same time, looking at the prices and salaries around the time the hoard was buried, the authors aim to establish whether such an amount of silver coins could have represented someone's entire wealth. In addition, analysing the distribution of hoards in the provinces from the Middle and Lower Danube and the history of this area, some possible reasons for concealing and not recovering this hoard are discussed. One excited aspect emphasised in this book is the presentation of so the called 'weird' coins meaning those pieces that have been minted with various errors, by mistake or deliberately, such as engraving errors, coin-die malfunction, plated coins etc.
Roman and Late Antique Wine Production in the Eastern Mediterranean is devoted to the viticulture of two settlements, Antiochia ad Cragum and Delos, using results stemming from surface survey and excavation to assess their potential integration within the now well-known agricultural boom of the 5th-7th centuries AD. Interdisciplinary and ethnographic data supplements the main archaeological catalogue and provides a rounded understanding of production and use. The publication of an excavated vinicultural vat in Rough Cilicia for the first time, along with the first complete discussion of the viticultural industry on Delos in Late Antiquity, underscores the significance of this book. The combined catalogue, analysis and discussion reinforce the noteworthy position viticulture held in Late Antiquity as an agricultural endeavour, sociocultural and economic factor engrained within eastern Mediterranean settlements. |
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