This book examines dwarfs in myth and everyday life in ancient Egypt and Greece. In both cultures physical beauty was highly admired, even to excess. What happened to those whose appearance did not conform to the 'ideal proportions'? The spectacular forms of dwarfism were always a focus of interest, and it is the most depicted disorder in antiquity. In this study Dr Dasen brings together for the first time a whole range of mostly unpublished or little-known iconographic, epigraphic, literary, and anthropological evidence. She covers areas such as the history of caricature and the portrait; medical history, in particular, the development of the perception of congenital disorders; social history; and history of religion, with questions on the magical and ritual efficiency of the malformed in sacred and theatrical contexts. She considers also the complex relations between mythology and ethnography, as shown, for example, in the Greek myth of the Pygmies. This is a fascinating work, with a wealth of insights for anyone interested in the history of medicine and the ancient world.

This book explores the spoliation of architectural and sculptural materials during the Roman empire. Examining a wide range of materials, including imperial portraits, statues associated with master craftsmen, architectural moldings and fixtures, tombs and sarcophagi, arches and gateways, it demonstrates that secondary intervention was common well before Late Antiquity, in fact, centuries earlier than has been previously acknowledged. The essays in this volume, written by a team of international experts, collectively argue that reuse was a natural feature of human manipulation of the physical environment, rather than a sign of social pressure. Reuse often reflected appreciation for the function, form, and design of the material culture of earlier eras. Political, social, religious, and economic factors also contributed to the practice. A comprehensive overview of spoliation and reuse, this volume examines the phenomenon in Rome and throughout the Mediterranean world.

Viking Identities is the first detailed archaeological study of Viking-Age Scandinavian-style female dress items from England. Based on primary archival and archaeological research, including the analysis of hundreds of recent metal-detector finds, it presents evidence for over 500 brooches and pendants worn by women in the late ninth and tenth centuries. Jane F. Kershaw argues that these finds add an entirely new dimension to the limited existing archaeological evidence for Scandinavian activity in the British Isles and make possible a substantial reassessment of the Viking settlements. Kershaw offers an interpretation of the significance of the jewellery in a broader, historical context. The jewellery highlights locations of settlement not commonly associated with the Vikings. In contrast to claims of high levels of cultural assimilation, the jewellery suggests that incoming groups maintained a distinct Scandinavian identity which was sometimes appropriated by the indigenous population. Kershaw also addresses one of the great unanswered questions in the study of Viking-Age settlements: what about the women? The interpretation of the jewellery challenges traditional perceptions of Viking conquest as an all-male affair and brings into focus a population group which has, until now, been almost invisible. Kershaw describes the objects and explores a number of themes related to their contemporary use, including their date, distribution, and function in costume. This body of material - unknown 30 years ago - is introduced to a public audience for the first time. Including many object images and maps, the study provides a practical guide to the identification of Scandinavian metalwork.

The ancient Greeks traveled widely by sea and founded colonies in far-flung locations. On the north coast of the Black Sea were a number of such Greek settlements, places where the Greeks made contact with the local Scythian population. Greek goods were traded extensively throughout the region, and many of these often-luxurious articles eventually made their way into tombs.
From its wealth of such Greek finds from the Black Sea, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has lent some 175 Greek objects to an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa. This richly illustrated catalogue to the exhibition presents nine essays on the archaeology of the northern Black Sea region and its history, culture, and art, including sculpture, pottery, gems, and jewelry. Written by curators at the State Hermitage Museum, Greeks on the Black Sea presents an intriguing world at once Greek and barbarian.

When reconstructing the past, the archaeologist needs to take into account all kinds of relevant information. Where no written evidence is available, the natural sciences play an indispensable role. Troia is a remarkable site in this respect. The present Troia project, under the directorship of Manfred Korfmann, integrates various disciplines including geoarchaeology, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, anthropology, geophysical prospection as well as chemical and technological studies of metal, stone and pottery. Hardly any other archaeological project is supported so intensely and on such a broad scale by archaeometric investigations as the international research group in Troia. In April 2001 an International Symposium was held in Heidelberg, Germany, with the aim of promoting scientific interaction and providing synopses of the various disciplines engaged in Troia. This volume contains most of the contributions presented at the symposium.

In antiquity, Rome represented one of the world's great cultural capitals. The city constituted a collective repository for various commemoratives, cultural artefacts, and curiosities, not to mention plunder taken in war, and over its history became what we might call a 'museum city'. Ancient Rome as a Museum considers how cultural objects and memorabilia both from Rome and its empire came to reflect a specific Roman identity and, in some instances, to even construct or challenge Roman perceptions of power and of the self. In this volume, Rutledge argues that Roman cultural values and identity are indicated in part by what sort of materials Romans deemed worthy of display and how they chose to display, view, and preserve them. Grounded in the growing field of museum studies, this book includes a discussion on private acquisition of cultural property and asks how well the Roman community at large understood the meaning and history behind various objects and memorabilia. Of particular importance was the use of collections by a number of emperors in the further establishment of their legitimacy and authority. Through an examination of specific cultural objects, Rutledge questions how they came to reflect or even perpetuate Roman values and identity.

This book is a contribution to efforts to understand the transformation that took place across the European continent, and in particular East Central Europe, during the second half of the first millennium. Its goal is to draw conclusions primarily on the basis of the archaeological evidence from important early medieval centres. A special emphasis is given to Pohansko near B eclav (Czech Republic), perhaps the best studied centre of its kind in the entire region. In terms of methodology the book marks a new attempt to interlink a number of proven methodological tools used in western archaeology from the 1970 s, to new questions related to a cognitive approach to archaeology and the positivist tradition of Central European archaeology.

The Museum of the Royal Tombs of Aigai was built especially to protect the monuments in the burial complex of King Philip II and to facilitate the public's access to their splendid murals, original large-scale paintings of the Classical period. In the form of an ancient tumulus and encasing the monuments, this Museum-Mausoleum is dedicated to the memory of illustrious historical figures familiar to all. This guide to the Museum of the Royal Tombs takes the reader step by step on the tour of this particularly spare and austere, yet simultaneously atmospheric, exhibition of the treasures from these tombs, which are displayed in units. Impressive photographs accompany historical information and the presentation of the exhibits, transporting the visitor through space and time, in the footsteps of the remarkable flowering of culture in the land of Macedonia during Classical Antiquity.

Over three and a half centuries from the 880s to 1250, moneyers working in Winchester produced at the very least 24 million silver pennies. About five and a half thousand survive in national and local museums and private collections all over the world and have been sought out, photographed (some 3200 coins in 6400 images detailing both sides), and minutely catalogued by Yvonne Harvey for this volume. During the period from late in the reign of Alfred to the time of Henry III, dies for striking the coins were produced centrally under royal authority in the most sophisticated system of monetary control at the time in the western world. In this first account of a major English mint to have been made in forty years, a team of leading authorities have studied and analysed the use the Winchester moneyers made of the dies, and together with the size, weight, and the surviving number of coins from each pair of dies, have produced a detailed account of the varying fortunes of the mint over this period. Their results are critical for the economic history of England and the changing status of Winchester over this long period, and provide the richest available source for the history of the name of the city and the personal names of its citizens in the later Anglo-Saxon period.

The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy provides an overview of all excavations that have been conducted at Troy, from the nineteenth century through the latest discoveries between 1988 and the present. Charles Brian Rose traces the social and economic development of the city and related sites in the Troad, as well as the development of its civic and religious centers from the Bronze Age through the early Christian period, with a focus on the settlements of Greek and Roman date. Along the way, he reconsiders the circumstances of the Trojan War and chronicles Troy's gradual development into a Homeric tourist destination and the adoption of Trojan ancestry by most nation-states in medieval Europe.

In this fully illustrated study, Rune Frederiksen assembles all archaeological and written sources for city walls in the ancient Greek world, and argues that widespread fortification of settlements and towns, usually considered to date from the Classical period, in fact took place much earlier. Frederiksen discusses the types of fortified settlement and the topography of urban fortification, and also the preservation of structures from early settlements. He also presents an architectural history of Greek fortification walls before the Classical period, and makes the intriguing observation that early monumental architecture developed just as much in fortifications as it did in early temples. This underlines the importance of the secular sphere for the development of early communities across the Greek world.

Migration, Mobility and Place in Ancient Italy challenges prevailing conceptions of a natural tie to the land and a demographically settled world. It argues that much human mobility in the last millennium BC was ongoing and cyclical. In particular, outside the military context 'the foreigner in our midst' was not regarded as a problem. Boundaries of status rather than of geopolitics were those difficult to cross. The book discusses the stories of individuals and migrant groups, traders, refugees, expulsions, the founding and demolition of sites, and the political processes that could both encourage and discourage the transfer of people from one place to another. In so doing it highlights moments of change in the concepts of mobility and the definitions of those on the move. By providing the long view from history, it exposes how fleeting are the conventions that take shape here and now.

The societies of ancient Europe underwent a continual process of militarisation, and this would come to be a defining characteristic of the early Middle Ages. The process was neither linear nor mono-causal, but it affected society as a whole, encompassing features like the lack of demarcation between the military and civil spheres of the population, the significance attributed to weapons beyond their military function and the wide recognition of martial values. Early medieval militarisation assembles twenty studies that use both written and archaeological evidence to explore the phenomenon of militarisation and its impact on the development of the societies of early medieval Europe. The interdisciplinary investigations break new ground and will be essential reading for scholars and students of related fields, as well as non-specialists with an interest in early medieval history. -- .

The Northern Black Sea region, despite its distance from the centers of classical civilizations, played an integral role in the socioeconomic life of the ancient Greco-Roman world. The chapters in this book, written by experts on the region, explore topics such as the trade, religion, political culture, art and architecture, and the local non-Greek populations, from the foundation of the first Greek colonies on the North Pontic shores at the end of the seventh and sixth century BCE through the first centuries of the Roman imperial period. This volume closely examines relevant categories of archaeological material, including amphorae, architectural remains, funerary and dedicatory monuments, inscriptions, and burial complexes. Geographically, it encompasses the coastal territories of modern Russia and Ukraine. The Northern Black Sea in Antiquity embraces an inclusive and comparative approach while discussing new archaeological evidence, offering fresh insights into familiar questions, and presenting original interpretations of well-known artifacts.

In Truly Beyond Wonders Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis investigates texts and material evidence associated with healing pilgrimage in the Roman empire during the second century AD. Her focus is upon one particular pilgrim, the famous orator Aelius Aristides, whose Sacred Tales, his fascinating account of dream visions, gruelling physical treatments, and sacred journeys, has been largely misunderstood and marginalized. Petsalis-Diomidis rehabilitates this text by placing it within the material context of the sanctuary of Asklepios at Pergamon, where the author spent two years in search of healing. The architecture, votive offerings, and ritual rules which governed the behaviour of pilgrims are used to build a picture of the experience of pilgrimage to this sanctuary. Truly Beyond Wonders ranges broadly over discourses of the body and travel and in so doing explores the place of healing pilgrimage and religion in Graeco-Roman society and culture. It is generously illustrated with more than 80 drawings and photographs, and four colour plates.

Originally published in 1931, this book presents the content of an inaugural lecture delivered at Cambridge University by Arthur Bernard Cook (1868-1952) upon taking up the position of Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology. The text provides a discussion of the development of classical archaeology with special reference to Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in classical archaeology and the writings of Cook.

This volume traces the rise of Rome and the extension of Roman power across Europe, from the viewpoints of both conquerors and conquered, and also Rome's barbarian heirs, covering the period from 1000 BC through to AD 400. The book reconstructs as far as possible the indigenous experience of contact with Rome, showing how Roman domination impacted upon the already complex world of Iron Age Europe, before leaving a new 'barbarian' world in its wake. Using both literary and archaeological evidence, the eight expert contributors analyse the transformation of Europe, and the laying of the foundations of the Middle Ages, including chapters on Iron Age Europe, Roman society, warfare and the army, economy and trade, religions, and the cultural implications of Roman conquest, as well as narrative chapters on war and politics.

Although we often think of friendship today as an indisputable value of human social life, for thinkers and writers across late medieval Christian society friendship raised a number of social and ethical dilemmas that needed to be carefully negotiated. On Amista analyses these dilemmas and looks at how Dante's strategic articulations of friendship evolved across the phases of his literary career as he maneuvered between different social groups and settings. Elizabeth Coggeshall reveals that friendship was not an unequivocal moral good for the writers of late medieval Italy. Instead, it was an ambiguous term to be deployed strategically, describing a wide range of social relationships such as allies, collaborators, servants, patrons, rivals, and enemies. Drawing on the use of the language of friendship in the letters, correspondence poems, dedications, narratives, and treatises composed by Dante and his interlocutors, Coggeshall examines the way they skillfully negotiated around the dilemmas that friendship raised in the spheres of medieval Italian literary society. The book addresses instances of inclusivity and exclusivity, collaboration and self-interest, hierarchy and equality, and alterity and identity. Employing literary, historical, and sociological analysis, On Amista presents a genealogy for the innovative and tactical use of the terms of friendship among the works of late medieval Italian authors.

Originally published in 1916, this book was based upon the Rede Lecture for that year, which was delivered at Cambridge University by the archaeologist and bishop George Forrest Browne (1833-1930). The text presents an examination of the Anglo-Saxon crosses of Bewcastle and Ruthwell, providing information on their appearance and the broader context of their creation. Notes and illustrative figures are also included, with photographs and reproductions of ruins. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in archaeology, ancient crosses and Anglo-Saxon history.

The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States brings together sixteen essays by leading scholars of the ancient Greek economy specialising in history, economics, archaeology and numismatics. Marshalling a wide array of evidence, these essays investigate and analyse the role of market-exchange in the economy of the ancient Greek world, demonstrating the central importance of markets for production and exchange of goods and services during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Contributors draw on evidence from literary texts and inscriptions, household archaeology, amphora studies and numismatics. Together, the essays provide an original and compelling approach to the issue of explaining economic growth in the ancient Greek world.

In recent years, storage has come to the fore as a central aspect of ancient economies. However studies have hitherto focused on urban and military storage. Although archaeological excavations of rural granaries are numerous, their evidence has yet to be fully taken into account. Such is the ambition of Rural Granaries in Northern Gaul (Sixth Century BCE - Fourth Century CE). Focusing on northern Gaul, this volume starts by discussing at length the possibility of quantifying storage capacities and, through them, agrarian production. Building on this first part, the second half of the book sketches the evolution of rural storage in Gaul from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity, setting firmly archaeological evidence in the historical context of the Roman Empire.

The Alamanni and Rome focuses upon the end of the Roman Empire. From the third century AD, barbarians attacked and then overran the west. Some - Goths, Franks, Saxons - are well known, others less so. The latter include the Alamanni, despite the fact that their name is found in the French ('Allemagne') and Spanish ('Alemania') for 'Germany'. This pioneering study, the first in English, uses new historical and archaeological findings to reconstruct the origins of the Alamanni, their settlements, their politics, and their society, and to establish the nature of their relationship with Rome. John Drinkwater discovers the cause of their modern elusiveness in their high level of dependence on the Empire. Far from being dangerous invaders, they were often the prey of emperors intent on acquiring military reputations. When much of the western Empire fell to the Franks, so did the Alamanni, without ever having produced their own 'successor kingdom'.

Spirits of the Dead examines the importance attached to preserving the memory of the dead in the Roman world, and explores the ways in which funerary inscriptions can be used to reconstruct Roman lives, however fragmentarily and imperfectly. It is the only study to examine epigraphic, historical, and archaeological evidence in order to gain insight into the way Romans used funerary texts to establish a dialogue with their own society. Maureen Carroll brings together a large body of material from many geographical areas, shedding light on provincial and regional variation in funerary commemoration and even on the differences between funerary traditions of neighbouring towns.

This volume presents a completely new and very substantial body of information about the origin of agriculture and plant use in Africa. All the evidence is very recent and for the first time all this archaeobotanical evidence is brought together in one volume (at present the information is unpublished or published in many disparate journals, confer ence reports, monographs, site reports, etc. ). Early publications concerned with the origins of African plant domestication relied almost exclusively on inferences made from the modem distribution of the wild progenitors of African cultivars; there existed virtually no archaeobotanical data at that time. Even as recently as the early 1990s direct evidence for the transition to farming and the relative roles of indigenous versus Near Eastern crops was lacking for most of Africa. This volume changes that and presents a wide range of ex citing new evidence, including case studies from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Uganda, Egypt, and Sudan, which range in date from 8000 BP to the present day. The volume ad dresses topics such as the role of wild plant resources in hunter-gatherer and farming com munities, the origins of agriculture, the agricultural foundation of complex societies, long-distance trade, the exchange of foods and crops, and the human impact on local vege tation-all key issues of current research in archaeology, anthropology, agronomy, ecol ogy, and economic history."

Private associations organized around a common cult, occupation, ethnic identity, neighborhood or family were among the principal means of organizing social and economic life in the ancient Mediterranean. They offered opportunities for sociability, cultic activities, mutual support and contexts in which to display and recognize virtuous achievement. This volume collects 140 inscriptions and papyri from Ptolemaic and early Roman Egypt, along with translations, notes, commentary, and analytic indices. The dossier of association-related documents substantially enhances our knowledge of the extent, activities, and importance of private associations in the ancient Mediterranean, since papyri, unavailable from most other locations in the Mediterranean, preserve a much wider range of data than epigraphical monuments. The dossier from Egypt includes not only honorific decrees, membership lists, bylaws, dedications, and funerary monuments, but monthly accounts of expenditures and income, correspondence between guild secretaries and local officials, price and tax declarations, records of legal actions concerning associations, loan documents, petitions to local authorities about associations, letters of resignation, and many other papyrological genres. These documents provide a highly variegated picture of the governance structures and practices of associations, membership sizes and profiles, and forms of interaction with the State.