This book focuses on the formative period of Church reform in the Middle Ages in Northern Europe, when the Church paved the way for the development of money economy on its own doorstep. Church archaeology provides evidence for patterns of monetary use related to liturgy, church architecture and devotional culture through the centuries. This volume encompasses Alpine European evidence, with emphasis on Gotland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland, which opens up a new field of research on religion and money for an international audience. Based on 100,000 single finds of coins from the 11th to 18th centuries from 650 Scandinavian churches, the volume offers an in-depth discussion of the concepts of ritual, liturgy and devotional uses of money, monetary space and spiritual economy within the framework of Christendom, the medieval church and church architecture. Written by international scholars, Coins in Churches will be a valuable resource for readers interested in the history of religion, money, the economy, and church architecture in Northern Europe in the Middle Ages.

Through the close study of texts, Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era examines the overlapping emphases and themes of two cosmopolitan and multiethnic cultural identities emerging in the early centuries CE - a trans-empire alliance of the Elite and the "Christians." Exploring the cultural representations of these social identities, Judith Perkins shows that they converge around an array of shared themes: violence, the body, prisons, courts, and time. Locating Christian representations within their historical context and in dialogue with other contemporary representations, it asks why do Christian representations share certain emphases? To what do they respond, and to whom might they appeal? For example, does the increasing Christian emphasis on a fully material human resurrection in the early centuries, respond to the evolution of a harsher and more status based judicial system? Judith Perkins argues that Christians were so successful in suppressing their social identity as inhabitants of the Roman Empire, that historical documents and testimony have been sequestered as "Christian" rather than recognized as evidence for the social dynamics enacted during the period, Her discussion offers a stimulating survey of interest to students of ancient narrative, cultural studies and gender.

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom Holland The 'Viking Age' is traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of Norway died leading the charge against the English line at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This book, the most wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the current state of our knowledge, takes a refreshingly different view. It shows that the Viking expansion began generations before the Lindisfarne raid, and traces Scandinavian history back centuries further to see how these people came to be who they were. The narrative ranges across the whole of the Viking diaspora, from Vinland on the eastern American seaboard to Constantinople and Uzbekistan, with contacts as far away as China. Based on the latest archaeology, it explores the complex origins of the Viking phenomenon and traces the seismic shifts in Scandinavian society that resulted from an economy geared to maritime war. Some of its most striking discoveries include the central role of slavery in Viking life and trade, and the previously unsuspected pirate communities and family migrations that were part of the Viking 'armies' - not least in England. Especially, Neil Price takes us inside the Norse mind and spirit-world, and across their borders of identity and gender, to reveal startlingly different Vikings to the barbarian marauders of stereotype. He cuts through centuries of received wisdom to try to see the Vikings as they saw themselves - descendants of the first human couple, the Children of Ash and Elm. Healso reminds us of the simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of the past, of how much we cannot know, alongside the discoveries that change the landscape of our understanding. This is an eye-opening and surprisingly moving book.

Who Should Be King in Israel? attempts to link common messianic issues found in some Dead Sea Scrolls with the Gospel of John. These messianic issues are studied in relation to the political situation facing the Johannine community in dealing with the Roman empire. The readers/hearers of the Fourth Gospel had to deal with different challenges from the Roman government and the non-Christian Jewish community in the era between the Jewish Revolt and the Bar-Kochba Revolt. Jesus is presented as the new David, the Son of God, who is the solution to all of humanity's problems. The fall of the Temple in 70 CE had created a political and religious situation that meant early Christians of the post-70 CE socio-political environment had to deal with Roman suspicion and Jewish disappointment. The Fourth Gospel uses vocabulary and imagery designed to communicate the message that Jesus is the Christ without inflaming either Roman or Jewish sensibilities. This book is written in a manner designed to deal intelligently with that difficult era in Christian history.

The Visions of Amram (4Q543-547), five copies of an Aramaic text found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, stems from the pre-Hasmonean period and provides evidence of a highly variegated society in early Judaism. In this book, Robert R. Duke offers a new reading of all the fragments and an in-depth discussion of their significance, illuminating a time period in Jewish history that needs more understanding and culminating in a suggested social location for its production. Duke concludes that 4Q543-547 was written by a disenfranchised group of priests who resided in Hebron. The importance of the patriarchal burials, chronology, endogamy, the figure of Moses, and angelology argue for a priestly group, whose members were also influenced by apocalyptic thinking. The suggestion of Hebron as the geographical location for this group is based on the theories of George Nickelsburg's and David Suter's work on 1 Enoch. Pre-Hasmonean Judaism was an intense time of dialogue and disagreement, and 4Q543-547 is one more item to consider in reconstructing these social realities.

Cave and Worship in Ancient Greece brings together a series of stimulating chapters contributing to the archaeology and our modern understanding of the character and importance of cave sanctuaries in the fi rst millennium BCE Mediterranean. Written by emerging and established archaeologists and researchers, the book employs a fascinating and wide range of approaches and methodologies to investigate, and interpret material assemblages from cave shrines, many of which are introduced here for the fi rst time. An introductory section explores the emergence and growth of caves as centres of cult and religion. The chapters then probe some of the meanings attached to cave spaces and votive materials such as terracotta fi gurines, and ceramics, and those who created and used them. The authors use sensory and gender approaches, discuss the identity of the worshippers, and the contribution of statistical analysis to the role of votive materials. At the heart of the volume is the examination of cave materials excavated on the Cycladic islands and Crete, in Attika and Aitoloakarnania, on the Ionian islands and in southern Italy. This is a welcome volume for students of prehistoric and classical archaeology,enthusiasts of the history of caves, religion, ancient history, and anthropology.

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the fi rst centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history. The contributions explore how these cities developed landscapes full of civic memory and ritual, saw commercial priorities transforming the urban environment, and began to expand signifi cantly beyond their wall circuits. These interrelated developments not only changed how cities looked and could be experienced, but they also affected the functioning of the urban community and together contributed to keeping increasingly complex urban communities socially cohesive. By focusing on the transformation of urban landscapes in the Late Republican and Imperial periods, the volume adds a new, explicitly historical angle to current debates about urban space in Roman studies. Confronting archaeological and historical approaches, the volume presents developments in Italy, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, thus significantly broadening the geographical scope of the discussion and offering novel theoretical perspectives alongside well- documented, thematic case studies. Urban Space and Urban History in the Roman World will be of interest to anyone working on Roman urbanism or Roman history in the Late Republic and early Empire.

For someone who has exercised such a profound influence on Christian theology, Paul remains a shadowy figure behind the barrier of his complicated and difficult biblical letters. Debates about his meaning have deflected attention from his personality, yet his personality is an important key to understanding his theological ideas. This book redresses the balance. Jerome Murphy-O'Connor's disciplined imagination, nourished by a lifetime of research, shapes numerous textual, historical, and archaeological details into a colourful and enjoyable story of which Paul is the flawed but undefeated hero.
This chronological narrative offers new insights into Paul's intellectual, emotional, and religious development and puts his travels, mission, and theological ideas into a plausible biographical context. As he changes from an assimilated Jewish teenager in Tarsus to a competitive Pharisee in Jerusalem and then to a driven missionary of Christ, the sometimes contradictory components of Paul's complex personality emerge from the way he interacts with people and problems. His theology was forged in dialogue and becomes more intelligible as our appreciation of his person deepens. In Jerome Murphy-O'Connor's engaging biography, the Apostle comes to life as a complex, intensely human individual.

This source book offers a comprehensive treatment of solitary religious lives in England in the late Middle Ages. It covers both enclosed recluses (anchorites) and free-wandering hermits, and explores the relationship between them. Although there has been a recent surge of interest in the solitary vocations, especially anchorites, this has focused almost exclusively on a small number of examples. The field is in need of reinvigoration, and this book provides it. Featuring translated extracts from a wide range of Latin, Middle English and Old French sources, as well as a scholarly introduction and commentary from one of the foremost experts in the field, Hermits and anchorites in England is an invaluable resource for students and lecturers alike. -- .

Resurrecting Pompeii provides an in-depth study of a unique site from antiquity with information about a population who all died from the same known cause within a short period of time.

Pompeii has been continuously excavated and studied since 1748. Early scholars working in Pompeii and other sites associated with the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius were seduced by the wealth of artefacts and wall paintings yielded by the site. This meant that the less visually attractive evidence, such as human skeletal remains, were largely ignored.

Recognizing the important contribution of the human skeletal evidence to the archaeology of Pompeii, Resurrecting Pompeii remedies that misdemeanour, and provides students of archaeology and history with an essential resource in the study of this fascinating historical event.

This is a collection of essays, by leading international scholars, on the history of the Greek theatre, and on the wider context of festival culture in which theatrical activity took place in the Greek world. The emphasis is on the documentary material - inscriptions, archaeological remains and monuments - which provides so much of our 'hard' evidence for the activities of the theatre. Much of the important material discussed here is unknown except to specialists, and these studies offer access to its interpretation to a wider audience. They cover a wide range of time and place, from the earliest days of the Greek theatre to the Roman period, with special emphasis on the neglected Hellenistic period, which is especially rich in documentary evidence.

Rituals, Collapse, and Radical Transformation in Archaic States explores the role of ritual in a variety of archaic states and generates discussion on how the decline in a state's ability to continue in its current form affected the practices of ritual and how ritual as a culture-forming dynamic affected decline, collapse, and regeneration of the state. Chapters examine ritual in collapsing and regenerating archaic states from diverse locations, time periods, and societies including Crete, Mycenean and Byzantine Greece, Mesopotamia, India, Africa, Mexico, and Peru. Underscoring similarities in a variety of archaic states in the role of ritual during periods of threat, collapse, and transformation, the volume shows how ritual can be used as a stabilizing or divisive force or a connecting medium between the present to the past in an empowering way. It also highlights the diversity of ritual roles and location in similar situations and illustrates how states in close proximity and sharing many cultural similarities can respond differently through ritual to stress and contrast the different response in rural and urban settings. Through detailed, cultural specific studies, the book provides a nuanced understanding of the diverse roles of ritual in the decline, collapse, and regeneration of societies and will be important for all archaeologists involved in the important notions of state "collapse" and "regeneration".

Greece in the Making 1200?479 BC is an accessible and comprehensive account of Greek history from the end of the Bronze Age to the Classical Period. The first edition of this book broke new ground by acknowledging that, barring a small number of archaic poems and inscriptions, the majority of our literary evidence for archaic Greece reported only what later writers wanted to tell, and so was subject to systematic selection and distortion. This book offers a narrative which acknowledges the later traditions, as traditions, but insists that we must primarily confront the contemporary evidence, which is in large part archaeological and art historical, and must make sense of it in its own terms.

In this second edition, as well as updating the text to take account of recent scholarship and re-ordering, Robin Osborne has addressed more explicitly the weaknesses and unsustainable interpretations which the first edition chose merely to pass over. He now spells out why this book features no ?rise of the polis? and no ?colonization?, and why the treatment of Greek settlement abroad is necessarily spread over various chapters. Students and teachers alike will particularly appreciate the enhanced discussion of economic history and the more systematic treatment of issues of gender and sexuality.

This book contains the contributions to a workshop on apologetics in early Christianity which took place at the Fifteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies in Oxford in the summer of 2007. The workshop was arranged by scholars from Germany, Finland and Denmark who had for some time worked together in a project on early Christian apologetics. The aim of the workshop was thus to present and discuss some of the results and still unsolved problems which arose from this project. The book presents the contributions to the workshop. Hereby the editors hope to reach a larger audience and thus to be able to further the discussion of the topic of early Christian apologetics.

How were space and movement in Roman cities affected by economic life? What can the study of Roman urban landscapes tell us about the nature of the Roman economy? These are the central questions addressed in this volume. While there exist many studies of Roman urban space and of the Roman economy, rarely have the two topics been investigated together in a sustained fashion. In this volume, an international team of archaeologists and historians focuses explicitly on the economics of space and mobility in Roman Imperial cities, in both Italy and the provinces, east and west. Employing many kinds of material and written evidence and a wide range of methodologies, the contributors cast new light both on well-known and on less-explored sites. With their direct focus on the everyday economic uses of urban spaces and the movements through them, the contributors offer a fresh and innovative perspective on the workings of Roman urban economies and on the debates concerning space in the Roman world. This volume will be of interest to archaeologists and historians, both those studying the Greco-Roman world and those focusing on urban economic space in other periods and places as well as to other scholars studying premodern urbanism and urban economies.

This book focuses on urbanization and state formation in middle Tyrrhenian Italy during the first millennium BC by analyzing settlement organization and territorial patterns in Rome and Latium vetus from the Bronze Age to the Archaic Era. In contrast with the traditional diffusionist view, which holds that the idea of the city was introduced to the West via Greek and Phoenician colonists from the more developed Near East, this book demonstrates important local developments towards higher complexity, dating to at least the beginning of the Early Iron Age, if not earlier. By adopting a multidisciplinary and multi-theoretical framework, this book overcomes the old debate between exogenous and endogenous by suggesting a network approach that sees Mediterranean urbanization as the product of reciprocal catalyzing actions.

Roman Britain: A Sourcebook has established itself as the only comprehensive collection of source material on the subject. It incorporates literary, numismatic and epigraphic evidence for the history of Britain under Roman rule, as well as translations of major literary sources.

This new edition includes not only recently discovered material, but also the texts of Caesar's commentaries on his expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54 BC, as well as relevant sections of Tacitus? biography of his father-in-law, former governor of Britain. The inclusion of these pivotal texts, which provide the most detailed account of the Romans campaigns in Britain, significantly underlies the volume's usefulness to all students of Roman Britain.

Though most of the material is arranged chronologically, there are also thematic sections on geography, religion and social and economic activity. Each section is prefaced by an introductory note, and the inclusion of illustrations and maps enhances the attractiveness of this updated collection as a teaching tool and a work of reference.

The village of Faxton in Northamptonshire was only finally deserted in the second half of the 20th century. Shortly afterwards, between 1966 and 1968, its medieval crofts were investigated under the direction of archaeologist Lawrence Butler. At the time this was one of the most ambitious excavations of a deserted medieval settlement to have been conducted and, although the results were only published as interim reports and summaries, Butler's observations at Faxton were to have significant influence on the growing academic and popular literature about village origins and desertion and the nature of medieval peasant crofts and buildings. In contrast to regions with abundant building stone, Faxton revealed archaeological evidence of a long tradition of earthen architecture in which so-called 'mud-walling' was successfully combined with other structural materials. The 'rescue' excavations at Faxton were originally promoted by the Deserted Medieval Village Research Group and funded by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works after the extensive earthworks at the site came under threat from agriculture. Three areas were excavated covering seven crofts. In 1966 Croft 29 at the south-east corner of the village green revealed a single croft in detail with its barns, yards and corn driers; in 1967 four crofts were examined together in the north-west corner of the village in an area badly damaged by recent ploughing and, finally, an area immediately east of the church was opened up in 1968. In all, some 4000m2 were investigated in 140 days over three seasons. The post-excavation process for Faxton was beset by delay. Of the 12 chapters presented in this monograph, only two were substantially complete at the time of the director's death in 2014. The others have had to be pieced together from interim summaries, partial manuscripts, sound recordings, handwritten notes and on-site records. Building on this evidence, a new team of scholars have re-considered the findings in order to set the excavations at Faxton into the wider context of modern research. Their texts reflect on the settlement's disputed pre-Conquest origins, probable later re-planning and expansion, the reasons behind the decline and abandonment of the village, the extraordinary story behind the destruction of its church, the development of the open fields and the enclosure process, as well as new evidence about Faxton's buildings and the finds discovered there. Once lauded, then forgotten, the excavations at Faxton now make a new contribution to our knowledge of medieval life and landscape in the East Midlands.

The original research papers in this volume represent the first attempt to address issues of gender in the archaeology of Italy. Ranging from prehistoric to early classic periods, the authors address theoretical and methodological issues, as well as present a series of cases using both traditional and feminist research methods.

This exciting new guide is the ideal companion to Greece if you are a traveller with historical and archaeological interests, as it combines practical information with impeccable scholarly research.
Written by an expert on Greece's landscape and archaeology, the guide is unique in exploring a wide range of sites off the beaten track. It also tours all the best-known monuments and regions, from the Acropolis to Aegina, from Megara to Marathon and from Sounion to Salamis.
Beautifully illustrated with over 200 plates, maps, plans and drawings, it includes:
* precise descriptions of routes and individual sites
* artistic, historical, social and political background
* unprecedented coverage outside Athens
* detailed exploration of the post-classical, Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods.
Take it with you on your travels or read it at home; either way, you will gain a deeper appreciation and enjoyment of Greece's history and archaeology.

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 steppes 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.

Roman Britain: A Sourcebook has established itself as the only comprehensive collection of source material on the subject. It incorporates literary, numismatic and epigraphic evidence for the history of Britain under Roman rule, as well as translations of major literary sources.

This new edition includes not only recently discovered material, but also the texts of Caesar 's commentaries on his expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54 BC, as well as relevant sections of Tacitus biography of his father-in-law, former governor of Britain. The inclusion of these pivotal texts, which provide the most detailed account of the Romans campaigns in Britain, significantly underlies the volume 's usefulness to all students of Roman Britain.

Though most of the material is arranged chronologically, there are also thematic sections on geography, religion and social and economic activity. Each section is prefaced by an introductory note, and the inclusion of illustrations and maps enhances the attractiveness of this updated collection as a teaching tool and a work of reference.

In this first study of the Greek and Roman exploration for over half a century, Duane W. Roller presents an important examination of the impact of the Greeks and Romans on the world through the Pillars of Herakles and beyond the Mediterranean.

Roller chronicles a detailed account of the series of explorers who were to discover the entire Atlantic coast; north to Iceland, Scandinavia and the Baltic, and south into the Africa tropics. His account examines these early pioneers and their discoveries, and contributes a brand new chapter to the history of exploration.

Based not only on the literary evidence, but also personal knowledge of the areas from the Arctic to west Africa, the book looks at the people, from the earliest Greeks, through the Carthaginians to the Romans, and examines their exploration of this vast and largely unfamiliar territory.

Discussing for the first time the relevance of Iceland and the Arctic to Greco-Roman culture, this groundbreaking work is an enthralling and informative read that will be an invaluable study resource for Greek and Roman history courses

Ritual is a fascinating subject, with a tendency to set the imagination racing and raise expectations for exciting treatment. Minoan archaeology and more particularly the so-called "peak sanctuaries" have been the object of much such interest and speculation, but also of considerable creative research. In this book, Evangelos Kyriakidis rigorously assesses old and new ideas about these sanctuaries, testing and enriching such ideas by connecting them with the extant material and underpinning them with a solid theoretical basis. General theoretical issues such as the attribution of ritual value to a prehistoric activity, the assessment of degrees of ritual establishment and the creation of ritual institutions are developed with the peak sanctuary material in mind. The results are then compared and contrasted to other studies on the social and political dynamics of Minoan Crete, providing a new insight into ritual in the area as a whole.

Through the close study of texts, Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era examines the overlapping emphases and themes of two cosmopolitan and multiethnic cultural identities emerging in the early centuries CE - a trans-empire alliance of the Elite and the "Christians." Exploring the cultural representations of these social identities, Judith Perkins shows that they converge around an array of shared themes: violence, the body, prisons, courts, and time. Locating Christian representations within their historical context and in dialogue with other contemporary representations, it asks why do Christian representations share certain emphases? To what do they respond, and to whom might they appeal? For example, does the increasing Christian emphasis on a fully material human resurrection in the early centuries, respond to the evolution of a harsher and more status based judicial system? Judith Perkins argues that Christians were so successful in suppressing their social identity as inhabitants of the Roman Empire, that historical documents and testimony have been sequestered as "Christian" rather than recognized as evidence for the social dynamics enacted during the period, Her discussion offers a stimulating survey of interest to students of ancient narrative, cultural studies and gender.