The horror of the puticuli, the mass burial pits, and their traditional association with the poor, has often led to this socio-economic group being viewed as somehow different to the rest of the ancient urban community in the Italy of the Late Roman Republic. This is the theory questioned by the author of this volume. Why should this part of the community care so little about the disposal of the dead when other members of society were devoting huge amounts of time and money to ensuring that the deceased received not only burial, but also lasting commemoration?

Experiencing the Frontier and the Frontier of Experience deals with the Roman Empire's responses to the threats which were caused by the new geostrategic situation brought on by the crisis of the 3rd century AD, induced by the 'barbarians' who - often already part of Roman military structures as mercenaries and auxiliaries - became a veritable menace for the Empire. Rome adopted different strategies: they oscillated between inclusion, warfare and other means of exerting influence. The contributions to this volume explore the archaeological evidence for Roman practice and especially the varying strategies of power and influence in the central regions on the one hand, and the south-eastern parts of the European 'Barbaricum' on the other. They show how 'Divide et impera' functioned as practical policy based on alliances, as well as consequent warfare, and diplomatic initiatives, which are traceable by prestige-goods and subsidia treasures found in the Barbaricum. The comparison of Roman imports in different parts of Iron-Age Europe can help understand better a complex process of shifting power and influence in an emerging new Europe, which transformed the Empire towards medieval 'Herrschaft' and social structure.

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1348 newly identified letters, 209 photographs (including 25 portraits), Andras Bodor's complete bibliography and his unpublished memoir from 1915-1959, the work offers also the first publication of Bodor's academic correspondence (107 letters) and also extracts from his unpublished journal. Based on a large number of unpublished documents and the major works of Bodor, the book tries to reconstruct the life and academic heritage of a classicist from the periphery of Europe, a region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.

One of the most significant features in the suburbium of Roman cities throughout Italy were the villae suburbanae. Modern scholarship has undertaken a large amount of research into the residential properties and lifestyles of the Roman nobility, and the Roman villa has been a prime subject area in this regard. But villae suburbanae have only received limited detailed analysis from these scholars. To this end, this study examines both the literary and archaeological evidence relating to villae suburbanae in an effort to gain a better understanding of this type of residence. The first fundamental feature of this investigation is to understand these buildings within their social and geographical context. The second feature is the method employed to interpret the social aspects of villae suburbanae, which utilises statistical analysis to determine the percentage of space allocated for potential entertainment.

This collection of essays promises to make an important contribution to the field of Roman studies, particularly, by its concentration on monuments, to that of Roman art history. The current high level of interest in problems of identity, including studies of colonialism, Romanization, ethnicity, social class, gender and a host of related topics creates a vital intellectual context for the study of the art of provincials and the lower classes. The monuments themselves contribute a critical dimension to this discourse, the more so because the textual evidence for the non-elites of Roman society, apart from inscriptions, is relatively scarce.

This report publishes and analyses archaeological work undertaken at the Romano-British settlement at Wilderspool in Warrington from 1991-93. Settlement at the site began in the 1st century AD, and it seems from the start to have been associated with the military. There is considerable evidence of industrial activity, principally iron working and pottery. Such evidence is most plentiful at times of known military activity in the area, and the authors suggest that the settlement's main function was as supplier to the army. There is evidence of increased agricultural activity from the 3rd century when industries went into decline. The evidence from Wilderspool is supplemented with that from Holditch in Staffordshire, a sizeable Romano-British settlement which peaked in size and importance in the early 2nd century, and then quickly fell in disuse after 150, the result, the authors suggest of a northward shift in military stationing.

This study looks at the archaeological evidence for Roman campaigning in Britain under the Flavians (AD 69-96). It discusses the tribal and place names in Ptolemy's map and the Ravenna Cosmology and attempts to identify the areas referred to. Finally it uses this information alongside Tacitus' Agricola, finding a remarkable degree of convergence with the archaeological and geo-political evidence.

This monograph examines the deposition of precious metal artefacts in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods (from c. AD 200 to AD 700) within and beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire and its successor states. The primary foci of the study are the size, date range and spatial distribution of these finds, with less emphasis on specific aspects of artefacts themselves and the specific contexts in which individual deposits were found. The immense chronological and regional scope allows broad changes in deposition patterns to be presented and examined. And a variety of possible interpretations of these patterns are offered in the final chapter.

This volume contains a range of papers from a seminar held in Oxford in 2005. What did art in its widest sense mean to them, the Romans, and what might it (or even should it), mean to us? The approach adopted avoids fashionable theory, mainly culled second-hand from the social sciences, and tries to engage directly with material culture.

This investigation is concerned with the accuracy of Hadrian's reputation as a prolific builder in the western provincial cities. The pursuit of this not only reveals more of Hadrian's personal building, but also that all construction work during this period is shown to have contributed to a general perception of intense and continuous building during Hadrian's reign.

This work presents systematic and objective examination of the large corpus of Hellenistic gold Eros jewellery. By focusing on the question of the interconnections between the major centres of production - Egypt, South Italy and South Russia, Western Asia Minor, Greece and Syria a number of regional schools and new jewellery groups are identified. The keys to the discussion are the well documented find contexts from Northern Greece, South Italy and Tel Atrib (Egypt) that make it possible to arrive at a relative chronology for a particular type of Eros, found throughout the Hellenistic world. The morphological, stylistic, iconographic and technical continuities between Hellenistic jewellery and in particular the Eros motif ensure the successful use of this methodology. Evidence from Koroni in Attica and from several South Italian tomb groups has been examined in detail and dated, according to the methodology described above to ca. 240 BC.

The purpose of this work is to determine the most informative articles and the most effective methods and research approaches to the study of Roman brick stamps covering the former Roman Empire. The different research methods used in different areas are compared. This study attempts to give an overall view of research methods, approaches and categories of studies used in all schools of brick stamp research and poses the question whether brick stamps can contribute to our understanding of military history. Regional and local differences of both stamps and modern schools of research are highlighted and their importance in terms of Roman history is discussed. The author critically reviews a selection of articles, focusing primarily on the methodologies employed by certain scholars. The reviewed articles contain a selection of brick stamps. A catalogue of the works reviewed is included and the publications listed there form the background for this present analysis.

Ceramic building material, particularly roofing material, is one of the most common finds on Romano-British sites, yet despite its abundance, it has been relatively little studied. Whole books have been devoted to relatively minor pottery types, but it is extremely rare for a book to devote as much as a single chapter to ceramic roofing material. This book is devoted to the study of ceramic roofing material, primarily tegulae. It considers how they were made and develops and dates a typology. It looks at the role of stamps and signatures and how these can inform the study of when and by whom the tegulae were made. It analyses how the tiles were fitted onto pitched roofs, how these roofs were constructed and proposes four stages in their evolution. It suggests that tegulae might also have been used on some vaulted roofs. Finally the logistics, costs and economics of tile manufacture and distribution are addressed. The book follows a logical sequence considering first how tegulae were manufactured, next their typology and then their dating in order to prepare the ground for the subsequent chapters on stamps and roof construction. The final chapter brings all the evidence together to examine the economic and social data that can be derived from a study of tegulae, grouped together as a single site. In contrast, where a useful assemblage of tiles has come from an individual site within a town, this has been identified separately from other assemblages within the same town. If these separate assemblages within the same towns are aggregated together then the number of individual sites falls from 104 to 85.

The collection of Roman inscribed stones and sculpture, together with other Roman objects found at Maryport in Cumbria, is the oldest archaeological collection in Britain still in private hands. Today, it is housed in the Senhouse Roman Museum on Sea Brows to the north of the modern town of Maryport. Beside the museum the earthworks of the Roman fort may still be seen, and beyond it, though not visible, lies a large civil settlement revealed through geophysical survey and the scene of two recent excavations. 'Maryport: A Roman Fort and its community' places the collection in context and describes the history of research at the site. Maryport, although at the north-western edge of the Roman Empire, provides material of international importance for our understanding of the Roman state.

9 papers presented at a colloquium held in honour of J.J. Coulton at Lincoln College, Oxford on 17 April 2004, to mark his retirement from the Readership in Classical Archaeology at Merton College, Oxford. Jim Coulton devoted much of his early career to the study of Cycladic architecture. He saw earlier than most how important this area would be in advancing our knowledge not only of ancient architecture but also of many aspects of ancient Greek civilisation in general.

This volume presents an analysis of the human remains found in the Middle Bronze Age cemetery of Sant' Abbdondio, Pompeii. More specifically, Mary Anne Tafuri applies ICP-MS trace element analysis to the human bone and teeth from the cemetery in an attempt to reconstruct the social dynamics of the group. Reconstructing dietary habits, assuming that people ate local resources, opens a window, not only on the Middle Bronze Age economy, but also on residence and mobiity. The methods of Tafuri's analysis are outlined in detail and the results are interpreted in terms of the relationships between people, resources and the environment at Sant' Abbdondio.

At the heart of this study of Roman pottery in Macedonian Greece is a catalogue of over 1,900 vessels from five sites in the area of: Amphipolis, Philppi, Kepia, Abdera and Thasos. Vaitsa Malamidou's aim is that the material should throw light on the internal and external cultural influences in north-eastern Greece', arguing that the evidence indicates that, during the Roman period, the influence on pottery was always from the east, with most of the important vessels imported from Asia Minor. The large amounts of local wares is also an indicator of regional prosperity. The catalogue is preceded by a discussion of Roman pottery studies in general and the historical evidence for Roman Macedonia and Thrace. There is also a discussion of methodology, the excavations and the archaeological provenance of the fine and coarse wares.

The presence of unusual, grotesque and rude carvings on ecclesiastical buildings have been explained in a number of ways, from reflecting the warped sense of humour of the masons, to a purely ornamental or marginal function. However, in this study of medieval sculpture from southern England, Alex Woodcock suggests that imagery should be seen in the same way as the buildings themselves, as liminal spaces mediating between the human, mortal world and the sacred and unknown. In examining various distorted and foliate heads, grotesques, mythical creatures, beasts and so on, Woodcock argues that these are wholly appropriate images for medieval religious life, reflecting the ambiguous and the unclassifiable in an unknown realm, whilst also having an apotropaic function. Placing emphasis on liminality, the study focuses in particular on heads - severed, foliate and otherwise - and whole figures, humans, animals and hybrids, including detailed studies of the siren and mermaid.

The purpose of castles - their position and their symbolic nature - is the main focus of this study, which takes into account the importance of their context in the medieval world, as part of a many-faceted society. The four south-eastern counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire and their castle buildings are looked at in detail to define the reasons for their locations - not just from a 'military-strategic' point of view, but a social and economic one as well.

Investigation of social and economic change has always been central to archaeology. As part of this, population movements have frequently been emphasised as instigators of transition. This is particularly the case in British archaeology where, as an island, migration episodes tend to be viewed as highly significant. The Norman Conquest was the last and perhaps most famous of Britains invasions, resulting in the almost complete replacement of the Saxon elite, both lay and ecclesiastical. Because the events surrounding the Conquest are so well documented, 1066 has come to be held as a significant watershed. This book sets out to undertake a detailed zooarchaeological analysis of the Norman Conquest, whereby data are considered by site-type to detect subtle temporal variations, if present, in human-animal relationships. The aim of this book is to show that zooarchaeological and historical data can be used together profitably to provide a new perspective on the Normans and their conquest of England. In order to accomplish this, the Norman Conquest is examined at the macro, meso and micro scale, which can be translated as the Norman Empire, Saxo-Norman England and specific Saxo-Norman sites, respectively. Contents: Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: The French Dataset; Chapter 3: The Animal Economy: Continuity or Change?; Chapter 4: New Norman Breeds? Studies in Animal Size and Conformation; Chapter 5: The Norman Impact on Wild Resource Exploitation; Chapter 6: Deer Hunting: Methods and Rituals; Chapter 7: Biogeography of the Anglo-Norman Transition; Chapter 8: Cooking, Class and Cultural Identity; Chapter 9: The Invisible Conquest.

Vindonissa (Canton of Aargau, Switzerland) was an important Roman camp during the 1st century AD. The tiles are among the most common archaeological findings in the Vindonissa legionary camp, but commonly occur in different Roman sites of Switzerland. The principal aim of this study was the petrographic and chemical characterisation of the Vindonissa tiles to determine the production site (or sites) for these ceramics and to obtain information concerning the technological aspects of the tile production and the distribution of these stamped tiles in Switzerland in Roman times. Abstracts in French and German.

Aegean-type pottery has been found in the West Mediterranean for more than a century and several publications have tried to explain the phenomenon from an Aegeancentric point of view. The search for metals, the arrival of Mycenaean people after the LH III B destructions in Mainland Greece and the hypothesis that Mycenaeans had to sail westwards because of the dominance of the Minoan thalassocracy on the eastern routes are only some of the proposals. Yet, what do we know about the Italics, the people who consumed, and eventually produced, Aegean-type pottery? This question is at the centre of this study. The state of research on this topic, in spite of almost a century and a half of studies is disappointing. The phenomenon is still seen in terms of economic exchange, where the Aegeans are the primary players. There has been no attempt to research methodically the reasons why the Italics accepted and used Aegean-type pottery. In the last few decades, many anthropologists have concentrated their efforts on ethnographic studies of patterns of consumption and several theoretical models have been published as a result. In particular, globalisation has provided the stimulus for research focussed on cross-cultural consumption of standardised products. Using these studies, this research has tried to provide the Italic perspective, one of consumption as well as production. The results of this research demonstrate the independence of the Italics in their choices as consumers and provide insights on the social and cultural processes of these Bronze Age populations. As a result, while the role of the Aegeans in the phenomenon appears less important, the complexity of the regional Italic processes associated with the presence of Aegean-type pottery in the West Mediterranean becomes more apparent.

From about 2000 BCE onward, Egypt served as an important nexus for cultural exchange in the eastern Mediterranean, importing and exporting not just wares but also new artistic techniques and styles. Egyptian, Greek, and Roman craftsmen imitated one another's work, creating cultural and artistic hybrids that transcended a single tradition. Yet in spite of the remarkable artistic production that resulted from these interchanges, the complex vicissitudes of exchange between Egypt and the Classical world over the course of nearly 2500 years have not been comprehensively explored in a major exhibition or publication in the United States. It is precisely this aspect of Egypt's history, however, that Beyond the Nile uncovers. Renowned scholars have come together to provide compelling analyses of the constantly evolving dynamics of cultural exchange, first between Egyptians and Greeks-during the Bronze Age, then the Archaic and Classical periods of Greece, and finally Ptolemaic Egypt-and later when Egypt passed to Roman rule with the defeat of Cleopatra. Beyond the Nile is milestone publication on the occasion of a major international exhibition and one that will become an indispensable contribution to the field. With gorgeous photographs of more than two hundred rare objects, including frescoes, statues, obelisks, jewellery, papyri, pottery, and coins, this volume offers an essential and interdisciplinary approach to the rich world of artistic cross-pollination during antiquity.

This volume sets out to prove that, far from being simply assimilated or subsumed into Roman religion, Gallic rites continued, and continued to be the basis of Gallo-Roman religion. In each chapter, the number of these Gallic beliefs and customs, which continued after the Roman Conquest, is examined and it is demonstrated that Gallic religion was not abandoned, that the Celtic sanctuary design was the basis for Gallo-Roman temple design and that Gallo-Roman religion continued to be Gallic as well as Roman.