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Books > Humanities > Archaeology > Archaeology by period / region > General
The Sacred Identity of Ephesos offers a full-length interpretation of one of the largest known bequests in the Classical world, made to the city of Ephesos in AD 104 by a wealthy Roman equestrian, and challenges some of the basic assumptions made about the significance of the Greek cultural renaissance known as the 'Second Sophistic'. Professor Rogers shows how the civic rituals created by the foundation symbolised a contemporary social hierarchy, and how the ruling class used foundation myths - the birth of the goddess Artemis in a grove above the city - as a tangible source of power, to be wielded over new citizens and new gods. Utilising an innovative methodology for analysing large inscriptions, Professor Rogers argues that the Ephesians used their past to define their present during the Roman Empire, shedding new light on how second-century Greeks maintained their identities in relation to Romans, Christians, and Jews.
This book presents an archaeological study of Crete in transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 to 3000 BC) within the broader South Aegean context. The study, based on the author's own fieldwork, contains a gazetteer of over 170 sites. The material from these sites will prompt archaeologists in Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East to reconsider their understanding of the foundation of Bronze Age civilization in the Aegean.
This survey of work carried out over a number of years synthesises the progress of archaeology, showing at a glance the changes within less than quarter of a century on the interpretation of and reflection on knowledge in the area. Entertainingly, written, this is a lasting introductory account of important finds in English and Welsh archaeology, by two of the key researchers of the time. Heavily illustrated, this book showcases many artefacts as well as maps and plans, offering a wealth of information.
This wide-ranging yet detailed study describes and assesses the many-faceted cultural achievement of an area remote from Athens, the Dorian islands. Elizabeth Craik's scholarship sets this lively outlying region of the ancient Greek world - which included Rhodes, Kos, Karpathos, Melos, and Thera - in the perspective of Greek civilization as a whole, demonstrating that excessive emphasis on the Athenian advancements of the fifth century BC tends to obscure the contribution of other regions. Beginning with a discussion of the geographical setting, natural resources and historical development of the area, The Dorian Aegean goes on to survey linguistic usage and local scripts, and to examine the regional contribution to literature, medicine and science. In the final three chapters, the religious traditions and practices of the islands are discussed, in terms of myths, cults and administration. This work will appeal to students of the classical world, archaeology, and cultural history.
For more than a decade the European Seminar in Historical Methodology has debated the history of ancient Israel (or Palestine or the Southern Levant, as some prefer). A number of different topics have been the focus of discussion and published collections, but several have centered on historical periods. The really seminal period--one of great debates over a number of different topics--is the four centuries between the Late Bronze II and Iron IIA, but it seemed appropriate to leave it toward the end of the various historical periods. It was also important to give a prominent place to archaeology, and the best way to do this seemed to be to have a special Seminar session devoted entirely to archaeology.
Early Urbanizations in the Levant examines the first cycle of urbanization, collapse and reurbanization in the 4th-2nd millennium BCE Levant. The core of the study is a detailed analysis of settlement fluctuations and material culture development in the Hula Valley, at the crossroads between modern Israel, Syria and Lebanon. Focusing on field data and a close reading of the material text, the book emphasizes the variety exhibited in patterns of cultural and social change when small, densely settled regions are carefully scrutinized. Using the concepts of time-space edges and shifting loci of power, the study suggests new scenarios to explain changes in the regional archaeological record, and considers the implications these have for existing reconstructions of social evolution in the larger region. The Levant is shown to be composed of a fluid mosaic of polities that moved along multiple, if often parallel, paths towards and away from complexity. This book should be of interest to anyone studying the archaeology of early state formation in the Near East, particularly in areas of asecondaryAe urbanization - Palestine, Syria and Anatolia. With its detailed consideration of settlement patterns and ceramic production, it is also indispensable for the study of the early history of the two major sites in the area, Tel Dan and Tel Hazor, being the first attempt to integrate the results of excavations at these sites with the information obtained in archaeological surveys of the valley which sustained them.
The Sacred Identity of Ephesos offers a full-length interpretation of one of the largest known bequests in the Classical world, made to the city of Ephesos in AD 104 by a wealthy Roman equestrian, and challenges some of the basic assumptions made about the significance of the Greek cultural renaissance known as the 'Second Sophistic'. Professor Rogers shows how the civic rituals created by the foundation symbolised a contemporary social hierarchy, and how the ruling class used foundation myths - the birth of the goddess Artemis in a grove above the city - as a tangible source of power, to be wielded over new citizens and new gods. Utilising an innovative methodology for analysing large inscriptions, Professor Rogers argues that the Ephesians used their past to define their present during the Roman Empire, shedding new light on how second-century Greeks maintained their identities in relation to Romans, Christians, and Jews.
Daniel Albero Santacreu presents a wide overview of certain aspects of the pottery analysis and summarizes most of the methodological and theoretical information currently applied in archaeology in order to develop wide and deep analysis of ceramic pastes. The book provides an adequate framework for understanding the way pottery production is organised and clarifies the meaning and role of the pottery in archaeological and traditional societies. The goal of this book is to encourage reflection, especially by those researchers who face the analysis of ceramics for the first time, by providing a background for the generation of their own research and to formulate their own questions depending on their concerns and interests. The three-part structure of the book allows readers to move easily from the analysis of the reality and ceramic material culture to the world of the ideas and theories and to develop a dialogue between data and their interpretation. Daniel Albero Santacreu is a Lecturer Assistant in the University of the Balearic Islands, member of the Research Group Arqueo UIB and the Ceramic Petrology Group. He has carried out the analysis of ceramics from several prehistoric societies placed in the Western Mediterranean, as well as the study of handmade pottery from contemporary ethnic groups in Northeast Ghana.
This book portrays the Himalayan-born River Saraswati, a legendary river that was the lifeline of a progressive and vibrant society for more than three thousand years. Written in simple language and richly illustrated, it highlights the events that resulted in the robbing of the Saraswati of its water and the end of a wonderful culture. The author weaves a geological narrative out of a mass of data generated by explorers, archaeologists, sedimentologists, geohydrologist, seismologists and remote-sensing specialists. The story explains how a great Himalayan river disappeared and how the Harappan Civilization vanished from the banks of the river Saraswati more than three and half thousand years ago in the wake of tectonic upheavals in the foothills of the Himalaya at a time when the rainfall had drastically declined. And it reveals that nowadays the Saraswati is an extraordinary wide water-less channel coursing through the vast but dry floodplain in western India.
The nineteen papers collected in this volume explore a notable phenomenon, that of retrospection in the art and architecture of Romanesque Europe. They arise from a conference organized by the British Archaeological Association in 2010, and reflect its interest in how and why the past manifested itself in the visual culture of the 11th and 12th centuries. This took many forms, from the casual re-use of ancient material to a specific desire to re-present or emulate earlier objects and buildings. Central to it is a concern for the revival of Roman and early medieval forms, spolia, selective quotation, archaism and the construction of histories. The individual essays presented here cover a wide range of topics and media: the significance of consecration ceremonies in the creation of architectural memory, the rise of pictorial concepts in 12th-century chronicles, the creation of history in the Paris of Hugh of St-Victor, and the appeal of the works of Bernward of Hildesheim and of Hrabanus Maurus in the centuries after their deaths. There are studies of buildings and the ideological purpose behind them at Tarragona, Ripoll, Cluny, Pannonhalma (Hungary), La Roccelletta (Calabria), and Old St Peter's, comparative studies of Trier, Villenauxe and Glastonbury, and of Bury St Edmunds, Rievaulx and Canterbury, and wide-ranging papers on the tantalizing evidence for an engagement with an overseas past in Ireland, an Anglo-Saxon past in England, and a Milanese past among the aisleless cruciform churches of Augustinian Europe. The volume concludes with an assessment of the very concept of Romanesque.
The Early Anglo-Saxon Period is characterized archaeologically by the regular deposition of artefacts in human graves in England. The scope for dating these objects and graves has long been studied, but it has typically proved easier to identify and enumerate the chronological problems of the material than to solve them. Prior to the work of the project reported on here, therefore, there was no comprehensive chronological framework for Early Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, and the level of detail and precision in dates that could be suggested was low. The evidence has now been studied afresh using a co-ordinated suite of dating techniques, both traditional and new: a review and revision of artefact-typology; seriation of grave-assemblages using correspondence analysis; high-precision radiocarbon dating of selected bone samples; and Bayesian modelling using the results of all of these. These were focussed primarily on the later part of the Early Anglo-Saxon Period, starting in the 6th century. This research has produced a new chronological framework, consisting of sequences of phases that are separate for male and female burials but nevertheless mutually consistent and coordinated. These will allow archaeologists to assign grave-assemblages and a wide range of individual artefact-types to defined phases that are associated with calendrical date-ranges whose limits are expressed to a specific degree of probability. Important unresolved issues include a precise adjustment for dietary effects on radiocarbon dates from human skeletal material. Nonetheless the results of this project suggest the cessation of regular burial with grave goods in Anglo-Saxon England two decades or even more before the end of the seventh century. That creates a limited but important discrepancy with the current numismatic chronology of early English sceattas. The wider implications of the results for key topics in Anglo-Saxon archaeology and social, economic and religious history are discussed to conclude the report.
This volume provides an up-to-date and in-depth summary and analysis of the political practices of pre-Columbian communities of the Araucanians or Mapuche of south-central Chile and adjacent regions. This synthesis draws upon the empirical record documented in original research, as well as a critical examination of previous studies. By applying both archaeological and ethnohistorical approaches, the latter including ethnography, this volume distinguishes itself from many other studies that explore South American archaeology. Archaeological and traditional-historical narratives of the pre-European past are considered in their own terms and for the extent to which they can be integrated in order to provide a more rounded and realistic understanding than otherwise of the origins and courses of ecological, economic, social and political changes in south-central Chile from late pre-Hispanic times, through the contact period and up to Chile s independence from Spain (ca. AD 1450-1810). Both the approach and the results are discussed in the light of similar situations elsewhere. Throughout its treatment, the volume continually comes back to two central questions: (1) how did the varied practices, institutions and worldviews of the Mapuche s ancient communities emerge as a historical process that resisted the Spanish empire for more than 250 years? and (2) how were these communities reproduced and transformed in the face of ongoing culture contact and landscape change during the early Colonial period? These questions are considered in light of contemporary theoretical concepts regarding practice, landscape, environment, social organization, materiality and community that will make the book relevant for students and scholars interested in similar processes elsewhere."
This work offers a re-edition of twelve mathematical tablets from the site of Tell Harmal, in the borders of present-day Baghdad. In ancient times, Tell Harmal was Saduppum, a city representative of the region of the Diyala river and of the kingdom of Esnunna, to which it belonged for a time. These twelve tablets were originally published in separate articles in the beginning of the 1950s and mostly contain solved problem texts. Some of the problems deal with abstract matters such as triangles and rectangles with no reference to daily life, while others are stated in explicitly empirical contexts, such as the transportation of a load of bricks, the size of a vessel, the number of men needed to build a wall and the acquisition of oil and lard. This new edition of the texts is the first to group them, and takes into account all the recent developments of the research in the history of Mesopotamian mathematics. Its introductory chapters are directed to readers interested in an overview of the mathematical contents of these tablets and the language issues involved in their interpretation, while a chapter of synthesis discusses the ways history of mathematics has typically dealt with the mathematical evidence and inquires how and to what degree mathematical tablets can be made part of a picture of the larger social context. Furthermore, the volume contributes to a geography of the Old Babylonian mathematical practices, by evidencing that scribes at Saduppum made use of cultural material that was locally available. The edited texts are accompanied by translations, philological, and mathematical commentaries.
Essays on the development of the post-medieval house, its contents and decoration. During the last forty years, South-West England has been the focus of some of the most significant work on the early modern house and household in Britain. Its remarkable wealth of vernacular buildings has been the object of muchattention, while the area has also seen productive excavations of early modern household goods, shedding new light on domestic history. This collection of papers, written by many of the leading specialists in these fields, presents a number of essays summarizing the overall understanding of particular themes and places, alongside case studies which publish some of the most remarkable discoveries. They include the extraordinary survival of wall-hangings in a South Devon farm, the discovery of painted rooms in an Elizabethan town house, and a study of a table-setting mirrored on its ceiling. Also considered are forms of decoration which seem specific to particular areas of the West Country houses. Taken together, the papers offer a holistic view of the household in the early modern period. John Allan is Consultant Archaeologist to the Dean & Chapter of Exeter Cathedral; Nat Alcock is EmeritusReader in the Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick; David Dawson is an independent archaeologist and museum and heritage consultant. Contributors: Ann Adams, Nat Alcock, John Allan, James Ayres, Stuart Blaylock, Peter Brears, Tania Manuel Casimiro, Cynthia Cramp, Christopher Green, Oliver Kent, Kate Osborne, Richard Parker, Isabel Richardson, John Schofield, Eddie Sinclair, John R.L. Thorp, Hugh Wilmott,
Draws on a lifetime's study and a decade of new research to address the first question that every visitor asks: how was Stonehenge built? Icon of the New Stone Age, sculptural and engineering marvel, symbol of national pride: there is nothing quite like Stonehenge. These great sarsen and bluestone slabs, arranged with simple, graphic genius, attract visitors from across the world. The monument stands silent in the face of the questions its unlikely existence raises: who built it? Why? How? There has been endless speculation about why Stonehenge was built, inspiring theories ranging from the academically credible to the improbable, but far less investigation into how. In the millennia since its creation, pieces of Stonehenge have been knocked over by heavy machinery, found their way to Florida (and back again), and been exposed to radioactive sodium, but the seemingly impossible endeavour of raising the stones with Neolithic technology has remained inexplicable - until now. In the past decade ground-breaking discoveries, made possible by cutting-edge scientific techniques, have traced the precise provenance of the bluestones in Wales, but can we plot their journeys to the Salisbury Plain? And how might teams of labourers lacking machinery or even pack animals have dragged them 150 miles to the site? How did they carve joints into the sarsen boulders, among the hardest stones in the world, and then raise them into place? Mike Pitts draws on a lifetime's study to answer these questions, revealing how Stonehenge stood not in austere isolation, as we see it today, but as part of a wider world, the focus of a megalithic cosmology of belief, ritual and creativity. With 109 illustrations
This innovative study offers an up-to-date analysis of the archaeology of the North Sea. Robert Van de Noort traces the way people engaged with the North Sea from the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 BC, to the close of the Middle Ages, about AD 1500. Van de Noort draws upon archaeological research from many countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and France, and addresses topics which include the first interactions of people with the emerging North Sea, the origin and development of fishing, the creation of coastal landscapes, the importance of islands and archipelagos, the development of seafaring ships and their use by early seafarers and pirates, and the treatments of boats and ships at the end of their useful lives.
The third volume in the Andean Archaeology series, this book focuses on the marked cultural differences between the northern and southern regions of the Central Andes, and considers the conditions under which these differences evolved, grew pronounced, and diminished. This book continues the dynamic, current problem-oriented approach to the field of Andean Archaeology that began with Andean Archaeology I and Andean Archaeology II. Combines up-to-date research, diverse theoretical platforms, and far-reaching interpretations to draw provocative and thoughtful conclusions.
A gripping account of 200 years of archaeological research, excavation and thought, told through the life stories of 70 of the world's greatest pioneers and practitioners. Brian Fagan has assembled a team of some of the world's greatest living archaeologists to write knowledgeably and entertainingly about their distinguished predecessors. Full of fascinating anecdotes, personal accounts and unexpected insights, this comprehensively illustrated book encompasses more than two centuries of research and excavation round the globe. Controversial figures such as Heinrich Schliemann of Troy fame, and Aurel Stein, plunderer of ancient manuscripts from Central Asia, are reassessed. Little-known pioneers - for example, Max Uhle in Peru and Li Chi in China - are set beside the giants in the field: Lepsius, Mariette and Carter in Egypt; Koldewey, Doerpfeld and Woolley in the Near East; Stephens and Catherwood, discoverers of the Maya of Mexico; and Louis and Mary Leakey, who transformed knowledge of our African ancestry. Other indomitable women here include Gertrude Bell, explorer of Arabia and Iraq, Kathleen Kenyon, the excavator of Jericho, and the script-decipherer Tatiana Proskouriakoff.
Nasca pots, Quimbaya figurines, Moche porn figures, stone shamans. Fakes and forgeries run rampant in the Andean art collections of international museums and private individuals. Authors Karen Bruhns and Nancy Kelker examine the phenomenon in this eye-opening volume. They discuss the most commonly forged classes and styles of artifacts, many of which were being duplicated as early as the 19th century. More important, they describe the system whereby these objects get made, purchased, authenticated, and placed in major museums as well as the complicity of forgers, dealers, curators, and collectors in this system. Unique to this volume are biographies of several of the forgers, who describe their craft and how they are able to effectively fool connoisseurs and specialists. This is an important accessible introduction to pre-Columbian art fraud for archaeologists, art historians, and museum professionals alike. A parallel volume by the same authors discusses fakes in Mesoamerican archaeology.
The Archaeology of Britain is the only concise and up-to-date introduction to the archaeological record of Britain from the reoccupation of the landmass by Homo sapiens during the later stages of the most recent Ice Age until last century. This fully revised second edition extends its coverage, including greater detail on the first millennium AD beyond the Anglo-Saxon domain, and into recent times to look at the archaeological record produced by Britain s central role in two World Wars and the Cold War. The chapters are written by experts in their respective fields. Each is geared to provide an authoritative but accessible introduction, supported by numerous illustrations of key sites and finds and a selective reference list to aid study in greater depth. It provides a one-stop textbook for the entire archaeology of Britain and reflects the most recent developments in archaeology both as a field subject and as an academic discipline. No other book provides such comprehensive coverage, with such a wide chronological range, of the archaeology of Britain. This collection is essential reading for undergraduates in archaeology, and all those interested in British archaeology, history and geography.
Historical archaeologists often become so involved in their potsherd patterns they seldom have time or energy left to address the broader processes responsi ble for the material culture patterns they recognize. Some ofus haveurged our colleagues to use the historical record as a springboard from which to launch hypotheses with which to better understand the behavioral and cultural pro cesses responsible for the archaeological record. Toooften, this urging has re sulted in reports designed like a sandwich, having a slice of "historical back ground," followed by a totally different "archaeological record," and closed with a weevil-ridden slice of "interpretation" of questionable nutritive value for understanding the past. The reader is often left to wonder what the archae ological meat had to do with either slice of bread, since the connection be tween the documented history and the material culture is left to the reader's imagination, and the connection between the interpretation and the other disparate parts is tenuous at best. The plethora of stale archaeological sandwiches in the literature has re sulted at the methodological level from a too-narrow focus on the specific history and archaeology ofa site and the individuals involvedon it, rather than a focus on the explanation of broader processes of culture to which the actors and events at the site-specific level responded."
Taking a bioarchaeological approach, this book examines the Ancestral Pueblo culture living in the Four Corners region of the United States during the late Pueblo I through the end of the Pueblo III period (AD 850-1300). During this time, a vast system of pueblo villages spread throughout the region creating what has been called the Chaco Phenomenon, named after the large great houses in Chaco Canyon that are thought to have been centers of control. Through a bioarchaeological analysis of the human skeletal remains, this volume provides evidence that key individuals within the hierarchical social structure used a variety of methods of social control, including structural violence, to maintain their power over the interconnected communities.
The Archaeology of Britain is the only concise and up-to-date introduction to the archaeological record of Britain from the reoccupation of the landmass by Homo sapiens during the later stages of the most recent Ice Age until last century. This fully revised second edition extends its coverage, including greater detail on the first millennium AD beyond the Anglo-Saxon domain, and into recent times to look at the archaeological record produced by Britain s central role in two World Wars and the Cold War. The chapters are written by experts in their respective fields. Each is geared to provide an authoritative but accessible introduction, supported by numerous illustrations of key sites and finds and a selective reference list to aid study in greater depth. It provides a one-stop textbook for the entire archaeology of Britain and reflects the most recent developments in archaeology both as a field subject and as an academic discipline. No other book provides such comprehensive coverage, with such a wide chronological range, of the archaeology of Britain. This collection is essential reading for undergraduates in archaeology, and all those interested in British archaeology, history and geography.
This technical and well-illustrated guide for archaeologists and conservators aims to 'provide a methodology for the identification of the woody taxa used to manufacture artefacts recovered from archaeological excavations', to provide the anatomical descriptions of the taxa and to present a list of characters of the taxa. The guide is heavily illustrated with photographs, maps, and tables to allow easy identification. |
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