Aristocratic Society in Ancient Crete, first published in 1955, investigates the emergence and progress of Dorian society on Crete from the 8th century BC onwards. The major contribution of Cretan culture in this period was in the field of law - law and order are traditionally linked, and Dorian Crete remained steadfast in its pursuit of order. The author offers an explanation for the protracted aristocratic character of Cretan society, basing his study on the crucial Code of Gortyna. The primitive foundations of the social system are examined, illuminating the tribal institutions which formed the basis of the aristocratic states which developed. The four classes of the Cretan states, and the mutual relations of these classes, are defined, and the stages whereby family institutions developed are analysed. Finally, political and judicial organisation is scrutinised, and the Cretan culture is situated in the wider horizon of Mediterranean civilisation.

In Pannonia and Upper Moesia, first published 1974, Andras Mocsy surveys the Middle Danube Provinces from the latest pre-Roman Iron Age up to the beginning of the Great Migrations. His primary concern is to develop a general synthesis of the archaeological and historical researches in the Danube Basin, which lead to a more detailed knowledge of the Roman culture of the area. The economic and social development, town and country life, culture and religion in the Provinces are all investigated, and the local background of the so-called Illyrian Predominance during the third century crisis of the Roman Empire is explained, as is the eventual breakdown of Danubian Romanisation. This volume will appeal to students and teachers of archaeology alike, as well as to those interested in the Roman Empire - not only the history of Rome itself, but also of the far-flung areas which together comprised the Empire's frontier for centuries.

The story of the Vikings in North America as both fact and fiction, from the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries to the myths and fabrications about their presence there that have developed in recent centuries. Tracking the saga of the Norse across the North Atlantic to America, Norse America sets the record straight about the idea that the Vikings 'discovered' America. The journey described is a continuum, with evidence-based history and archaeology at one end, and fake history and outright fraud at the other. In between there lies a huge expanse of uncertainty: sagas that may contain shards of truth, characters that may be partly historical, real archaeology that may be interpreted through the fictions of saga, and fragmentary evidence open to responsible and irresponsible interpretation. Norse America is a book that tells two stories. The first is the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries, settling in Greenland and establishing a shore station at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland (to which a chapter of the book is devoted) and ending (but not culminating) in a fleeting and ill-documented presence on the shores of the North American mainland. The second is the appropriation and enhancement of the westward narrative by Canadians and Americans who want America to have had white North European origins, who therefore want the Vikings to have 'discovered' America, and who in the advancement of that thesis have been willing to twist and manufacture evidence in support of claims grounded in an ideology of racial superiority.

This book argues that Robert Willis's presentations were fundamental to the format of British Archaeological Association meetings and to the creation of medieval architectural history. It discusses the background to his study of Canterbury in terms of his own research.

The Romans occupied Britain for almost four hundred years, and their influence is still all around us - in the shape of individual monuments such as Hadrians Wall, the palace at Fishbourne and the spa complex at Bath, as well as in subtler things such as the layout and locations of ancient towns such as London, Canterbury and Colchester, and the routes of many major roads. Yet this evidence can only suggest a small proportion of the effect that the Romans had on the landscape of Britain. A Portrait of Roman Britain breaks new ground in enabling us to visualise the changes in town and countryside brought by Roman military and civilian needs. Using clear, well-documented descriptions, John Wacher answers questions such as: Were Roman towns as neat and tidy as they are often represented? How much woodland was needed to fuel the bath houses of Roman Britain? How much land did a Roman cavalry regiment require for its horses?

Egypt played a crucial role in the Roman Empire for seven centuries. It was wealthy and occupied a strategic position between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds, while its uniquely fertile lands helped to feed the imperial capitals at Rome and then Constantinople. The cultural and religious landscape of Egypt today owes much to developments during the Roman period, including in particular the forms taken by Egyptian Christianity. Moreover, we have an abundance of sources for its history during this time, especially because of the recovery of vast numbers of written texts giving an almost uniquely detailed picture of its society, economy, government, and culture. This book, the work of six historians and archaeologists from Egypt, the US, and the UK, provides students and a general audience with a readable new history of the period and includes many illustrations of art, archaeological sites, and documents, and quotations from primary sources.

Everyone has heard of the Minotaur in the labyrinth on Crete and many know that the Greek gods would adopt the guise of a bull to seduce mortal women. But what lies behind these legends? The Power of the Bull discusses mankind's enduring obsession with bulls. The bull is an almost universal symbol throughout Indo-European cultures. Bull cults proliferated in the Middle East and in many parts of North Africa, and one cult, Mithraism, was the greatest rival to Christianity in the Roman Empire. The Cults are divergent yet have certain core elements in common. Michael Rice argues that the ancient bulls were the supreme sacrificial animal. An examination of evidence from earliest prehistory onwards reveals the bull to be a symbol of political authority, sexual potency, economic wealth and vast subterranean powers. In some areas representations of the bull have varied little from earliest times, in others it has changed vastly over centuries. This volume provides a well-illustrated and accessible analysis of the exceptionally rich artistic inheritance associated with the bull.

In the sixth century, Byzantine emperors secured the provinces of the Balkans by engineering a frontier system of unprecedented complexity. Drawing on literary, archaeological, anthropological, and numismatic sources, Andrei Gandila argues that cultural attraction was a crucial component of the political frontier of exclusion in the northern Balkans. If left unattended, the entire edifice could easily collapse under its own weight. Through a detailed analysis of the archaeological evidence, the author demonstrates that communities living beyond the frontier competed for access to Byzantine goods and reshaped their identity as a result of continual negotiation, reinvention, and hybridization. In the hands of 'barbarians', Byzantine objects, such as coins, jewelry, and terracotta lamps, possessed more than functional or economic value, bringing social prestige, conveying religious symbolism embedded in the iconography, and offering a general sense of sharing in the Early Byzantine provincial lifestyle.

This book sets a new agenda for mortuary archaeology. Applying explicit case studies based on a range of European sites (from Scandinavia to Britain, Southern France to the Black Sea), 'Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages' fulfills the need for a volume that provides accessible material to students and engages with current debates in mortuary archaeology's methods and theories. The book builds upon Heinrich Harke's influential research on burial archaeology and early medieval migrations, focusing in particular on his ground-breaking work on the relationship between the theory and practice of burial archaeology. Using diverse archaeological and historical data, the essays explore how mortuary practices have served in the make-up and expression of medieval social identities. Themes explored include masculinity, kinship, ethnicity, migration, burial rites, genetics and the perception of landscape.

Boiotia was - next to Athens and Sparta - one of the most important regions of ancient Greece. Albert Schachter, a leading expert on the region, has for many decades pioneered and fostered the exploration of it and its people through his research. His seminal publications have covered all aspects of its history, institutions, cults, and literature from late Mycenaean times to the Roman Empire, revealing a mastery of the epigraphic evidence, archaeological data, and the literary tradition. This volume conveniently brings together twenty-three papers (two previously unpublished, others revised and updated) which display a compelling intellectual coherence and a narrative style refreshingly immune to jargon. All major topics of Boiotian history from early Greece to Roman times are touched upon, and the book can be read as a history of Boiotia, in pieces.

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.

This monograph is the definitive survey of iron tools and other fittings in use during the period c1066 to 1540AD. Exceptional in a north-western European context for its range and coverage of artefacts from both rural and urban excavations, much of the material described here was recovered during 'rescue' projects in the 1960s and 1970s funded by the State through the Ministry of Public Works and Buildings and their successors. The text contains almost everything necessary to identify, date and understand medieval iron objects. In scope and detail there is still no published parallel and, as such, it will be essential for almost any archaeologist working in later medieval archaeology, particularly in the fields of excavation, finds study, museums and research.

The essays in this volume are devoted to the art and architecture of Munster, one of the four ancient provinces of Ireland. A major theme underpinning many of the essays is the degree to which Irish craftsmen and builders engaged with the rest of Europe, and the nature of their relationship with English practice. The extent to which the advent of Gothic was a colonial phenomenon, an inevitable consequence of the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland after 1170, is likewise considered, so too the extent to which Ireland developed its own identity in architecture and sculpture in the later middle ages. While travellers from abroad regarded Ireland as one of the most remote regions of the western world, situated at the end of the earth, these essays make it clear that the province of Munster was still very much an integral part of Christian Europe.

The British Archaeological Association's 2007 conference celebrated the material culture of medieval Coventry, the fourth wealthiest English city of the later middle ages. The nineteen papers collected in this volume set out to remedy the relative neglect in modern scholarship of the city's art, architecture and archaeology, as well as to encompass recent research on monuments in the vicinity. The scene is set by two papers on archaeological excavations in the historic city centre, especially since the 1970s, and a paper investigating the relationships between Coventry's building boom and economic conditions in the city in the later middle ages. Three papers on the Cathedral Priory of St Mary bring together new insights into the Romanesque cathedral church, the monastic buildings and the post-Dissolution history of the precinct, derived mainly from the results of the Phoenix Initiative excavations (19992003). Three more papers provide new architectural histories of the spectacular former parish church of St Michael, the fine Guildhall of St Mary and the remarkable surviving west range of the Coventry Charterhouse. The high-quality monumental art of the later medieval city is represented by papers on wall-painting (featuring the recently conserved Doom in Holy Trinity church), on the little-known Crucifixion mural at the Charterhouse, and on a reassessment of the working practices of the famous master-glazier, John Thornton. Two papers on a guild seal and on the glazing at Stanford on Avon parish church consider the evidence for Coventry as a regional workshop centre for high quality metalwork and glass-painting. Beyond the city, three papers deal with the development of Combe Abbey from Cistercian monastery to country house, with the Beauchamp family's hermitage at Guy's Cliffe, and with a newly identified stonemasons' workshop in the 'barn' at Kenilworth Abbey. Two further papers concern the architectural patronage of the earls and dukes of Lancaster in the 14th century at Kenilworth Castle and in the Newarke at Leicester Castle.

This volume is dedicated to the remarkable flourishing of art and architecture in Bohemia, and Prague in particular, as it became the political centre of Charles IV's Holy Roman Empire. A focus is on cultural exchange, and the links which can be traced through the artwork across Europe. Topics and buildings under discussion include Prague Cathedral, St Bartholomew's in Kyje, Karlstein Castle, St Stephen's Vienna, aristocratic patronage, chasuble iconography and the Zderad column in Brno.

The fourteen papers collected in this volume explore the medieval art, architecture and archaeology of King's Lynn and the Fens. They arise out of the Association's 2005 conference, and reflect its concern to engage with a broad range of monuments and themes, rather than focusing on a single major building. Within King's Lynn contributors consider the superb 14th-century enamelled drinking vessel popularly known as 'King John's Cup', the former Hanseatic 'Steelyard', the Red Mount Chapel, and the oak furnishings of the chapel of St Nicholas, while the pine standard chest from St Margaret's church is assessed in terms of the importation and distribution of similar chest across England as a whole.Outside King's Lynn there are articles on the historical manipulation of landscapes and buildings at Kirkstead, the 13th-century architecture and sculpture of Croyland Abbey, the 14th-century parish church of St Mary at Snettisham, the tomb of Sir Humphrey de Littlebury at All Saints, Holbeach, the overlooked medieval wall paintings in the Prior's Chapel at Castle Acre, and the late medieval stained glass at Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen. Finally, there are three papers that look at particular aspects of the ways in which parish churches were financed, embellished and used across the region - in terms of late-12th and early-13th-century patronage, their 12th-century deployment of architectural sculpture, and the types and arrangements of choir stalls that appeared at a parochial level during the later Middle Ages.

The Shapwick Project began in 1989 as a ten-year, multi-disciplinary landscape investigation of the evolution of early and late medieval settlement patterns. This volume sets out the methods used in the exploration of this wetland-edge landscape and summarises the long term micro-history of a community and its lands from early prehistory to the present day. Shapwick was granted to the abbey at Glastonbury in the first half of the 8th century and, as a consequence, there are numerous later medieval surveys, demesne accounts and court rolls. Together with an unusually long sequence of post-medieval and modern maps, these sources illuminate themes as diverse as building history and farming practice. At the same time, aerial photography, fieldwalking, shovel-pitting and topographical survey create a picture of the distribution and date of archaeological monuments across the parish while garden bed collections and test pitting are used to evaluate the archaeology underlying the modern village. Other innovative techniques described here include large-scale geophysical survey and the geochemical techniques of heavy metal analysis together with detailed surveys of historic buildings, botany and hedgerow invertebrates. The results from these surveys are at least as important as the excavations undertaken at sites of prehistoric-to-19th-century date. Stratigraphies, chronologies and features are all detailed in this volume, with important collections of objects from prehistory to the end of the 19th century and accompanying specialist reports which illuminate environment and diet. Highlights include a combination of pollen analysis and lithic distributions which add significantly to our understanding of the context of prehistoric waterlogged trackways within the peat zone, and striking evidence for the intensification of settlement and land use in the later pre-Roman Iron Age and later Roman period. The modern village was in existence by the 10th century when a dispersed population was apparently re-housed in a compact, nucleated village with open field systems to east and west and various models for this process are debated. Among the later medieval sites excavated are two manorial centres of Glastonbury Abbey, industrial evidence, and well-preserved palaeoenvironmental material. In the 18th and 19th centuries outlying farms were built and the housing stock transformed at the same time as parts of the village were emparked. This post-medieval and early modern evidence is given equal weight in the volume.

The papers in this collection explore the medieval art, architecture, and archaeology of the city of Mainz and of the middle Rhine valley. They were delivered in 2003, at the first annual conference the Association held in Germany. The contributors embrace a wide range of subjects. Some consider the architecture and archaeology of the early medieval and Romanesque period, including the Carolingian monastery of Lorsch and the cathedrals of Mainz, Speyer, and Worms. Other authors look at high and late Gothic architecture in the region, such as the collegiate church at Oppenheim and the Wernerkapelle at Bacherach. There are, moreover, papers on castle architecture, sculpture, panel painting, liturgical furnishings, and medieval inscriptions. At the centre of discussion stand questions of cult, patronage, iconography, and style. New light is shed particularly on the relationship between the art and architecture in the Rhine valley and France. This collection brings together British, German, and French scholars to discuss the art and architecture of this major centre of artistic creation in medieval Europe and will hopefully be of lasting value to scholarship.

Coinage played a central role in the history of the Athenian naval empire of the fifth century BC. It made possible the rise of the empire itself, which was financed through tribute in coinage collected annually from the empire's approximately 200 cities. The empire's downfall was brought about by the wealth in Persian coinage that financed its enemies. This book surveys and illustrates, with nearly 200 examples, the extraordinary variety of silver and gold coinages that were employed in the history of the period, minted by cities within the empire and by those cities and rulers that came into contact with it. It also examines how coins supplement the literary sources and even attest to developments in the monetary history of the period that would otherwise be unknown. This is an accessible introduction to both the history of the Athenian empire and to the use of coins as evidence.

This book contains papers by archaeologists and numismatists from six countries concerned with different aspects of how silver was used in both Scandinavia and the wider Viking world during the 8th to 11th centuries AD. The volume brings together a combination of recent summaries and new work on silver and gold coinage, rings and bullion, which allow a better appreciation of the broader socioeconomic conditions of the Viking world. This is an indispensable source for all archaeologists, historians and numismatists involved in Viking Studies.

In this magisterial two-volume book, Pier Luigi Tucci offers a comprehensive examination of one of the key complexes of Ancient Rome, the Temple of Peace. Based on archival research and an architectural survey, his research sheds new light on the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque transformations of the basilica, and the later restorations of the complex. Volume 1 focuses on the foundation of the complex under Vespasian until its restoration under Septimius Severus and challenges the accepted views about the ancient building. Volume 2 begins with the remodelling of the library hall and the construction of the rotunda complex, and examines the dedication of the Christian Basilica of SS Cosmas and Damian. Of interest to scholars in a range of topics, The Temple of Peace in Rome crosses the boundaries between classics, archaeology, history of architecture, and art history, through Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period.

In this book, Efrosyni Boutsikas examines ancient Greek religious performances, intricately orchestrated displays comprising topography, architecture, space, cult, and myth. These various elements were unified in a way that integrated the body within cosmic space and made the sacred extraordinary. Boutsikas also explores how natural light or the night-sky may have assisted in intensifying the experience of these rituals, and how they may have determined ancient perceptions of the cosmos. The author's digital and virtual reconstructions of ancient skyscapes and religious structures during such occurrences unveil a deeper understanding of the importance of time and place in religious experience. Boutsikas shows how they shaped emotions, cosmological beliefs, and ritual memory of the participants. Her study revolutionises our understanding on ancient emotionality and cognitive experience, demonstrating how Greek religious spaces were vibrant arenas of a shared experience of the cosmos.

This book investigates the working mechanisms of public opinion in Late Republican Rome as a part of informal politics. It explores the political interaction (and sometimes opposition) between the elite and the people through various means, such as rumours, gossip, political literature, popular verses and graffiti. It also proposes the existence of a public sphere in Late Republican Rome and analyses public opinion in that time as a system of control. By applying the spatial turn to politics, it becomes possible to study sociability and informal meetings where public opinion circulated. What emerges is a wider concept of the political participation of the people, not just restricted to voting or participating in the assemblies.

In this wide-ranging and often controversial book, Robert Drews examines the question of the origins of man's relations with the horse. He questions the belief that on the Eurasian steppe men were riding in battle as early as 4000 BC, and suggests that it was not until around 900 BC that men anywhere - whether in the Near East and the Aegean or on the steppes of Asia - were proficient enough to handle a bow, sword or spear while on horseback. After establishing when, where, and most importantly why good riding began, Drews goes on to show how riding raiders terrorized the civilized world in the seventh century BC, and how central cavalry was to the success of the Median and Persian empires.
Drawing on archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence, this is the first book devoted to the question of when horseback riders became important in combat. Comprehensively illustrated, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of civilization in Eurasia, and the development of man's military relationship with the horse.

This is an illustrated reference to the art, architecture, religion, society and culture of the Roman world with over 450 pictures, maps and artworks. How the Romans lived: an authoritative and highly accessible exploration of Roman society. It is beautifully illustrated with over 450 photographs of painting and sculpture, architecture and art, artworks and maps that explore the glory that was Rome. You can find out how people in the ancient Roman Empire lived, worked, played and behaved during one of the cultural peaks of world history. This wonderfully illustrated history celebrates the great public buildings, palaces and villas of the Roman Empire, including the Colosseum, the Pantheon and other World Heritage buildings. Daily life in ancient Rome is explored through contemporary accounts of sports and games in the arenas, work and play at the baths, the forum and the woman's world of home. You can discover the scandalous lives of such notorious emperors as Caligula and Nero. With its wealth of pictures and artworks, and an authoritative and enthusiastic text, this is the perfect book for study projects or anyone planning to visit Italy or other sites of the ancient Roman world.