This comprehensive catalogue of ancient terracotta oil lamps found in Cyprus situates the objects within larger cultural and social contexts and elucidates their varied decoration The fourth catalogue in a series that documents the renowned Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art, this book focuses on the collection's 453 terracotta oil lamps dating from the Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Byzantine periods. The rich iconography on many of these common, everyday objects offers a rare look into daily life on Cyprus in antiquity and highlights the island's participation in Roman artistic and cultural production. Each lamp is illustrated, and the accompanying text addresses the objects' typology, decoration, and makers' marks while providing new insights into art, craft, and trade in the ancient Mediterranean. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

In this book, Xiaolong Wu offers a comprehensive and in-depth study of the Zhongshan state during China's Warring States Period (476-221 BCE). Analyzing artefacts, inscriptions, and grandiose funerary structures within a broad archaeological context, he illuminates the connections between power and identity, and the role of material culture in asserting and communicating both. The author brings an interdisciplinary approach to this study. He combines and cross-examines all available categories of evidence, including archaeological, textual, art historical, and epigraphical, enabling innovative interpretations and conclusions that challenge conventional views regarding Zhongshan and ethnicity in ancient China. Wu reveals the complex relationship between material culture, cultural identity, and statecraft intended by the royal patrons. He demonstrates that the Zhongshan king Cuo constructed a hybrid cultural identity, consolidated his power, and aimed to maintain political order at court after his death through the buildings, sculpture, and inscriptions that he commissioned.

This is a presentation of beautiful colored mosaics. They originate from buildings in the oasis of Jericho and all date from the first half of the eighth century, during the time of Umayyad caliphate of the early Islamic period. Many visitors have had the privilege of seeing the mosaics revealed, but no one has experienced the impact of all these pavements since they were first excavated in the 1930s and 1940s. A few have been published, but the presentation in Hamilton and Grabar (Khirbat al Mafjar: An Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley, 1959) is only very fine aquarelle paintings from the originals. In 2010 the Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage uncovered, cleaned, and assessed the state of conservation of these mosaics. A series of high-quality digital photographs was prepared by a team from the Department, composed of M. Diab, N. Khatib, Said Ghazal, Rafaat Sharaia, and I. Hamdan, under the direction of ?. Taha, from which the present selection is offered for study and appreciation of this triumph in early Islamic art. These images speak for themselves.