Recent archaeological discoveries, including manuscripts, have shed new light on China's history, in particular Qin and Han (221 BCE-220 CE), this volume's main focus. They make possible a deeper account of the growth of cities and of the spread of Chinese influence over distant areas. This book provides the first comprehensive survey of recent developments, evaluating the newly-found evidence in the light of earlier conclusions from China, Japan, Europe and America. Through cross-cultural comparisons and a close study of both the excavated and received literature, new conclusions are presented with respect to relatively understudied topics, such as gender, history of science, and modes of persuasion, while challenging the 'common wisdom' in such fields as Buddhism, Daoism and social history. Thus the volume provides a supplement to Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of China (1986) and shows how subsequent archaeology has enriched our perception of China's history in this period.

This study explores the evidence for Chinese writing in the late Neolithic (3500-2000 BCE) and early Bronze Age (2000-1250 BCE) periods. Chinese writing is often said to have begun with little incubation during the late Shang period (c. 1300-1045 BCE) in the middle-lower Yellow River Valley area as a sudden independent invention. This explanation runs counter to evidence from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Mesoamerica that shows that independent developments of writing generally undergo a protracted evolution. It also ignores archaeological data from the Chinese Neolithic and early Bronze Age that reveals the existence of signs comparable to Shang characters. Paola Dematte takes this data into account to address the issue of what writing is, and when, why, and how it develops, by employing a theory of writing that does not privilege language as a prime mover. It focuses instead on visual systems of communication as well as ideological and socio-economic developments as key elements that promote the eventual development of writing. To understand the processes that led to primary developments of writing, The Origins of Chinese Writing draws from the latest research on the early writing systems of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Mesoamerica, and other forms of protowriting. The result is a novel and inclusive theoretical approach to the archaeological evidence, grammatological data, and textual sources, an approach that demonstrates that Chinese writing emerged out of a long process that began in the Late Neolithic and continued during the Early Bronze Age.

Many types of written records are found in the Agora, and this booklet presents a sample of the more than 10,000 inventoried inscriptions written on stone. The texts illustrated include diplomatic agreements, commemorative plaques for athletic victories, records of court judgements, boundary stones identifying different buildings, and fragmentary inscriptions featuring names (over 30,000 individual Athenians are now recorded).

Carlisle charts the city's emergence as an urban centre under the Romans and traces its vicissitudes over subsequent centuries until the high Middle Ages. Arguably, the most important theme that differentiates its development from many other towns is its position as a 'border' city. The characteristics of the landscape surrounding Carlisle gave it special significance as a front-line element in the defence of the Roman province of Britannia and later at the frontier of two emerging kingdoms, England and Scotland. In both cases, it occupied the only overland route in the west between these two kingdoms, emphasising the importance of understanding its landscape setting. This volume sheds light on the processes of urbanization under the Romans beginning with a fort, developing into a major nodal hub, and ending as the capital city of the local tribe, the Carvetii. The story continues with the collapse of Roman rule and the city's re-emergence first as a monastic centre, then as a proto-town in the period of Anglo-Scandinavian settlement. Finally, the Norman Conquest confirmed Carlisle's importance with the establishment of a castle, a diocese, and an Augustinian Priory, as well as the granting of specific rights to the citizens. Carlisle uses a combination of archaeological discoveries and historical data to explore the history and legacy of this fascinating city.

Studies of the customs and beliefs of barbarian peoples who migrated westwards and settled in Western Europe from the close of the Roman empire to the ninth century. The decline of the Roman Empire was compounded by the spread westwards of tribes from Eastern Europe, settling areas from which the indigenous populations had been cleared by the spread of the power of Rome; those populations themselves, notably the Celts, were pushed to the fringes of the former empire. These migrations of barbarian peoples between the fourth and ninth centuries left no historical record in the accepted sense, but it is the recovery of the customs and beliefs of these populations that forms the common purpose of the studies in this book, for during these centuries the traits and attitudes developed which are at the root of present-day Europe: feudalism, the statuslevel achieved by the merchant class, the beginnings of an ideology that led to the separation of church and state, the demise of slavery as an inefficient mode of production, the origin of national identities. The late GIORGIO AUSENDA taught at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Stress, San Marino. Contributors: GIORGIO AUSENDA, JULIAN D. RICHARDS, JOHN HINES, DAVID TURTON, ROSS BALZARETTI, DENNIS H. GREEN, SVEN SCHUETTE, DAVID N. DUMVILLE, MORTEM AXBOE, IAN N. WOOD

This book examines historical evidence from the last 2000 years to analyse earthquakes in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Early chapters review techniques of historical seismology, while the main body of the book comprises a catalogue of more than 4000 earthquakes identified from historical sources. Each event is supported by textual evidence extracted from primary sources and translated into English. Covering southern Rumania, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, the book documents past seismic events, places them in a broad tectonic framework, and provides essential information for those attempting to prepare for, and mitigate the effects of, future earthquakes and tsunamis in these countries. This volume is an indispensable reference for researchers studying the seismic history of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, including archaeologists, historians, earth scientists, engineers and earthquake hazard analysts. A parametric catalogue of these seismic events can be downloaded from www.cambridge.org/9780521872928.

This book provides a comprehensive research on Ancient Indian glass. The contributors include experienced archaeologists of South Asian glass and archaeological chemists with expertise in the chemical analysis of glass, besides, established ethnohistorians and ethnoarchaeologists. It is comprised of five sections, and each section discusses different aspects of glass study: the origin of glass and its evolution, its scientific study and its care, ancient glass in literature and glass ethnography, glass in South Asia and the diffusion of glass in different parts of the world. The topic covered by the different chapters ranges from the development of faience, to the techniques developed for the manufacture of glass beads, glass bangles or glass mirrors at different times in south Asia, a major glass producing region and the regional distribution of key artefacts both within India and outside the region, in Africa, Europe or Southeast Asia. Some chapters also include extended examples of the archaeometry of ancient glasses. It makes an important contribution to archaeological, anthropological and analytical aspects of glass in South Asia. As such, it represents an invaluable resource for students through academic and industry researchers working in archaeological sciences, ancient knowledge system, pyrotechnology, historical archaeology, social archaeology and student of anthropology and history with an interest in glass and the archaeology of South Asia.

In the first millennium AD, the Classic Maya created courtly societies in and around the Yucatan Peninsula that have left some of the most striking intellectual and aesthetic achievements of the ancient world, including large settlements like Tikal, Copan, and Palenque. This book is the first in-depth synthesis of the Classic Maya. It is richly informed by new decipherments of hieroglyphs and decades of intensive excavation and survey. Structured by categories of person in society, it reports on kings, queens, nobles, gods, and ancestors, as well as the many millions of farmers and other figures who lived in societies predicated on sacred kingship and varying political programs. The Classic Maya presents a tandem model of societies bound by moral covenants and convulsed by unavoidable tensions between groups, all affected by demographic trends and changing environments. Focusing on the Classic heartland but referring to other zones, it will serve as the basic source for all readers interested in the civilization of the Maya.

This work book contributes to the knowledge about human settlements in the Isla Grande of Tierra Del Fuego by the hunter-gatherer societies that inhabited the area until the early twentieth century. The central theme is the study of technological organization as an approach to the management strategies of biotic and abiotic resources, as well as the occupation of space, considering the different environments represented in the area and the differential supply of resources. As a general framework, the book proposes instrumental methodologies that allow us to look at the characterization of the social and economic organization of hunter-gatherer societies from the point of view of the analysis of natural resources management, the resources introduced by Europeans and the spatial organization of technical activities.

This book focuses on the development of Egypt in its formative phase, from ca. 5200 BC, when Egyptians first began farming wheat and barley, until 2160 BC, as Egypt s central government weakened and appears to have fallen into disorder. During these millennia, which coincide with the Predynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom periods, Egyptian civilization became increasingly complex, and many of its greatest pyramids and other monuments were built. Robert Wenke examines this cycle of ancient Egypt s development by analyzing Egyptological, anthropological, and other forms of evidence, which are set into the larger context of early civilizations that developed in various areas of the world. Written in an accessible style, with many anecdotes, quotations, and personal reflections, this book is intended for use in undergraduate and graduate courses on early civilizations and states."

In this groundbreaking study, Michael Willis examines how the gods of early Hinduism came to be established in temples, how their cults were organized, and how the ruling elite supported their worship. Examining the emergence of these key historical developments in the fourth and fifth centuries, Willis combines Sanskrit textual evidence with archaeological data from inscriptions, sculptures, temples, and sacred sites. The centre-piece of this study is Udayagiri in central India, the only surviving imperial site of the Gupta dynasty. Through a judicious use of landscape archaeology and archaeo-astronomy, Willis reconstructs how Udayagiri was connected to the Festival of the Rainy Season and the Royal Consecration. Under Gupta patronage, these rituals were integrated into the cult of Vishnu, a deity regarded as the source of creation and of cosmic time. As special devotees of Vishnu, the Gupta kings used Udayagiri to advertise their unique devotional relationship with him. Through his meticulous study of the site, its sculptures and its inscriptions, Willis shows how the Guptas presented themselves as universal sovereigns and how they advanced new systems of religious patronage that shaped the world of medieval India.

This book focuses on the development of Egypt in its formative phase, from c.5200 BC, when Egyptians first began farming wheat and barley, until 2160 BC, as Egypt's central government weakened and appears to have fallen into disorder. During these millennia, which coincide with the Predynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom periods, Egyptian civilization became increasingly complex, and many of its greatest pyramids and other monuments were built. Robert Wenke examines this cycle of ancient Egypt's development by analyzing Egyptological, anthropological, and other forms of evidence, which are set into the larger context of early civilizations that developed in various areas of the world. Written in an accessible style, with many anecdotes, quotations, and personal reflections, this book is intended for use in undergraduate and graduate courses on early civilizations and states.

The horse is surely the aristocrat of animals domesticated by man. This book documents the origins of horse domestication on the Pontic-Caspian steppes some 6,000 years ago and the consequent migration of equestrian tribes across Eurasia to the borders of sedentary states. Horse-chariotry and cavalry in effect changed the nature of warfare in the civilizations of the Middle East, India, and China. But, beyond the battlefield, horsepower also afforded great advances in transport, agriculture, industry, and science. Rapidity of horse communications forged far-flung equestrian empires, where language, law, weights, measures, and writing systems were standardized and revolutionary technologies and ideas were disseminated across continents. Always recognizing this dual character of horsepower both destructive and constructive the politico-military and economic importance of the horse is discussed in the rise of Hittite, Achaemenid, Chinese, Greco-Roman, Arab, Mongol, and Turkic states. Following Columbian contact, Old and New World cultures are contrastively evaluated in terms of presence or absence of the horse. And Spanish conquest of the horseless Americas is seen as the model for subsequent European equestrian colonization of horseless territories around the planet."

This book examines the textual and archaeological evidence for the history of Cyprus from 750 to 500 BC. This significant period of the island's past is examined in three parts. The first surveys what is known about the local population of Cyprus and the political and social organization of the island. The second offer a narrative account of the period within a chronological framework more detailed than any analysis currently available. It suggests that the defining feature of the Cypro-Archaic period was the way in which local kingdoms adapted to different political and economic conditions in the Near East and Egypt, and took advantage of them. It challenges the prevalent view of a succession of foreign overlords controlling the island through military means. The third part discusses the internal and external relations of Cyprus by studying specific groups of pottery, seals, and sculpture. As a whole, this book provies a more complete picture of Archaic Cyprus than ever previously attempted. Generously illustrated with plates and figures, this will be an invaluable work of reference for archaeologists and ancient historians of both the West and Near East.

This volume provides a substantive introduction to Babylonian ceremonial script, along with a history of its modern study, and several case studies of how the script was actually used. Since the advent of Assyriology in the early nineteenth century it has been known that two distinct scripts were used in ancient Mesopotamian inscriptions and documents. One, usefully characterized as cursive, was used for the ephemeral documents of daily life as well as on most library and archival texts. The other was a deliberately archaizing script reserved for ceremonial use. This ceremonial script, of Babylonian origin, contained both archaic and archaizing signs, and was in productive use for over two millennia, not only in Babylonia but occasionally also in Assyria and beyond. Yet to date there has been no systematic study devoted specifically to this ceremonial script, nor any published syllabary of the archaic and archaizing signs it employs. This volume attempts to rectify this deficiency. The book's introduction is supplemented by an edition of the palaeographic lists of the second and first millennia BCE, which contain pedagogical inventories of the archaic and archaizing cuneiform signs, illustrating how the ceremonial script was taught, learned and transmitted in scholarly contexts.

The first full study of the important first century AD Nabataean inscriptions of Mada'in Salih in Saudi Arabia since the turn of the century, this unique and authoritative work incorporates fifty halftone illustrations of tomb inscriptions. It is the first of the new series of supplements to Oxford's Journal of Semitic Studies. These supplements will be sold as books, and will not be available as part of the subscription of the journal.

This is the first of a series of three volumes which are intended to present a complete corpus of all the church buildings in use in the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem between the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade in 1099 and the loss of Acre in 1291. Volume II completes the general topographical coverage begun in Volume I, while Volume III will deal specifically with Jerusalem, Acre and Tyre. When complete the Corpus will contain a topographical listing of all the 400 or more church buildings of the Kingdom and individual descriptions and discussion of them in terms of their identification, building history and architecture. A feature of the Corpus is the standardized format in which the evidence is presented; this also extends to the plans and elevations which are drawn to a uniform style and scale. The Corpus will therefore be an indispensable work of reference for all those concerned with the history and architecture of the Latin east.

The origins of Christian holy places in Palestine and the beginnings of Christian pilgrimage to these sites have seemed obscure. From a detailed examination of the literature and archaeology pertaining to specific sites and the region in general, the present author finds no evidence that Christians of any kind venerated 'holy places' before the fourth century. It appears that scholarly Christians had visited certain Biblical sites out of historical and exegetical concerns, but that these sites were not considered holy, or the visitors as 'pilgrims'. Instead, the origins of Christian pilgrimage and holy places rest with the emperor Constantine, who established four basilicas in Palestine c. 325-30 and provided two imperial matrons, Helena and Eutropia, as examples of a new kind of pious pilgrim. Pilgrimage to intrinsically sacred shrines had been a pagan practice, which was grafted on to Christianity. Many Jewish, Samaritan, and pagan sites were thereafter appropriated by the church and turned into Christian holy places. This process helped to destroy the widespread paganism of Palestine and mark the country as a 'holy land'. Very few sites are genuine, the most important being the cave (not Garden) of Gethsemane, in which Jesus was probably arrested.

This volume provides new insights into the distinctive contributions that community archaeology and heritage make to the decolonization of archaeological practice. Using innovative approaches, the contributors explore important initiatives which have protected and revitalized local heritage, initiatives that involved archaeologists as co-producers rather than leaders. These case studies underline the need completely reshape archaeological practice, engaging local and indigenous communities in regular dialogue and recognizing their distinctive needs, in order to break away from the top-down power relationships that have previously characterized archaeology in Africa. Community Archaeology and Heritage in Africa reflects a determined effort to change how archaeology is taught to future generations. Through community-based participatory approaches, archaeologists and heritage professionals can benefit from shared resources and local knowledge; and by sharing decision-making with members of local communities, archaeological inquiry can enhance their way of life, ameliorate their human rights concerns, and meet their daily needs to build better futures. Exchanging traditional power structures for research design and implementation, the examples outlined in this volume demonstrate the discipline's exciting capacity to move forward to achieve its potential as a broader, more accessible, and more inclusive field.

First Published in 1994. This research guide was written as a comprehensive, though by no means exhaustive, survey of the literature pertinent to studying the indigenous complex societies of south central Africa. Although the paramount focus of the compilation was the archaeology of Great Zimbabwe, the author has drawn from a broad geographical area and a wider period of time than that usually associated with Zimbabwean culture in order to demonstrate the cultural background for the growth of monumental trading towns in south central Africa.

This book, edited by Nancy L. Lapp and with contributions by Michael S. Zimmerman, Daniel Ulvoczky, Nicholas Hudson and Adam Hartman, is the second volume of reports from Paul Lapp's excavations at 'Iraq al-Amir in 1961 and 1962. The first appeared as the Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research Vol. 47, in 1983. The presentation by Michael S. Zimmerman of the stratified corpus of the Hellenistic and Roman pottery in the Village excavations, from approximately 200 BCE to 200 CE, is a major portion of the volume. Along with the smaller pottery collections of the Iron Age, Early Bronze, and Byzantine periods, a major contribution is made to the growing quantity of characteristic pottery of Transjordan and its relation to the ceramic assemblages of ancient Palestine to the west and Syria to the north. Although early Iron Age pottery is present in the collection, the main Iron Age occupation was later in the period, even into early Persian times, and it is doubtful that there was an Iron I fortress there as Paul Lapp suggested. The pottery studies are introduced by a review of the history of the excavations at the site from the time of the early explorers and, further, by an introduction describing camp and excavation life in an area not yet touched by modern conveniences in the middle of the twentieth century.

Black Hawks Rising - the title of this book - acknowledges the formation and deployment of the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) in March 2007. Initially confined to peacekeeping within the Mogadishu enclave, it transformed into a peace-making mission. Many - including the author, who predicted the mission was DOA (Dead on Arrival) - gave the mission little chance of success. As a fighting force, however, AMISOM took on the Somali insurgents in 2010; expelled them from Central Mogadishu on Saturday, 6 August 2011; and expanded control of territory under the Somali Government in the succeeding years to most of Somalia. The opening chapters of the book take the reader be hind the scenes to highlight the inconsistent - and sometimes disastrous - US policy in the Horn of Africa generally, and in Somalia (specifically dating back to the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s). Under President George Bush, the US strongly and vigorously opposed deployment of regional African troops in Somalia - instead sponsoring Somali factions to fight against each other and, when that flopped, egged on Ethiopia to invade Somalia in December 2006, which caused the rise of violent insurgency that spilled across borders. Young jihadists streamed from the heart of USA to fight the invaders. To clean up the mess, the Bush administration finally supported the deployment of regional troops. Black Hawks Rising captures intimately the stories of the men and women who made up AMISOM: their triumphs, setbacks and victories. The spotlight focuses on the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF), whose Herculean efforts supported by Burundi National Defence Forces (BNDF) - and later the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), Forces Armees Djiboutiennes (FAD) , Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) and Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) - were pivotal to the success of the mission. Their dedication, professionalism, ideological commitment, hard work and humanity turned Somalia from a wasted nation to one with hope for peace, stability and a better future for the Somali people. Like Heru - the Hawk-God of Ancient Egypt - AMISOM's new breed of African peace-warriors have demonstrated the capacity to work across borders regionally, continent-wide and globally to help resolve conflicts whenever and wherever they arise - protecting lives and property, and preventing genocides before they happen.

The Arabian Gulf has become in recent years one of the most promising new areas of research in ancient near-eastern archaeology. Until now, however, no attempt has been made to synthesize the archaeology and history of this region from the beginnings of human settlement to the rise of Islam. This magisterial two-volume work draws on a wide array of archaeological, epigraphic, and literary sources to present the first comprehensive study of the area. Volume I covers the Pleistocene to the Achaemenian period, including almost all the published evidence for the prehistory and history of the Arabian Gulf. Volume II covers the period from Alexander the Great to the coming of Islam, including full discussion of the history of Christianity in the area. Both volumes are illustrated with numerous line drawings and plates.

Two common questions asked in archaeological investigations are: where did a particular culture come from, and which living cultures is it related to? In this book, Robert A. Cook brings a theoretically and methodologically holistic perspective to his study on the origins and continuity of Native American villages in the North American Midcontinent. He shows that to affiliate archaeological remains with descendant communities fully we need to unaffiliate some of our well-established archaeological constructs. Cook demonstrates how and why Native American villages formed and responded to events such as migration, environment and agricultural developments. He focuses on the big picture of cultural relatedness over broad regions and the amount of social detail that can be gleaned from archaeological and biological data, as well as oral histories.

This book looks at the treatment of Byzantine monuments in the first hundred years of the Greek State. It examines representative restoration interventions on Byzantine monuments in Greece and critically analyses the theoretical principles and the practices adopted. The author records the developmental course of actions taken to salvage the Byzantine heritage, both by the Greek State and by non-governmental agents. It also investigates their ideological and cultural framework, correlating this with European thought. It enhances the impact of the upgrading of Byzantium in Greece on activities for the protection, rescue and restoration of Byzantine ecclesiastical monuments. The study is based on ample archival material, which is published for the first time. This volume is an essential contribution to research into the history of Greek cultural heritage and of European restorations. English language edition