The Penn Museum has a long and storied history of research and archaeological exploration in the ancient Middle East. This book highlights this rich depth of knowledge while also serving as a companion volume to the Museum's signature Middle East Galleries opening in April 2018. This edited volume includes chapters and integrated short, focused pieces from Museum curators and staff actively involved in the detailed planning of the new galleries. In addition to highlighting the most remarkable and interesting objects in the Museum's extraordinary Middle East collections, this volume illuminates the primary themes within these galleries (make, settle, connect, organize, and believe) and provides a larger context within which to understand them. The ancient Middle East is home to the first urban settlements in human history, dating to the fourth millennium BCE; therefore, tracing this move toward city life figures prominently in the book. The topic of urbanization, how it came about and how these early steps still impact our daily lives, is explored from regional and localized perspectives, bringing us from Mesopotamia (Ur, Uruk, and Nippur) to Islamic and Persianate cites (Rayy and Isfahan) and, finally, connecting back to life in modern Philadelphia. Through examination of topics such as landscape, resources, trade, religious belief and burial practices, daily life, and nomads, this very important human journey is investigated both broadly and with specific case studies.

The Archaeology of Difference presents a new and radically different perspective on the archaeology of cross-cultural contact and engagement. The authors move away from acculturation or domination and resistance and concentrate on interaction and negotiation by using a wide variety of case studies which take a crucially indigenous rather than colonial standpoint.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203298810

This accessible book provides the only comprehensive introduction to the wealth of ancient monuments and artefacts discovered on Sicily. From the Paleolithic to the later Roman period it explores all the main topics of archaeological interest including:
* Greek colonisation
* sanctuaries and burial
* the architecture of temples, houses, theatres and military sites
* sculpture
* cities.
With concise and illuminating commentary, over 200 illustrations and a comprehensive bibliography, The Archaeology of Ancient Sicily continues to be the standard work on the subject.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203469623

Among the best-known and most esteemed people known from antiquity is the Babylonian king Hammurabi. His fame and reputation are due to the collection of laws written under his patronage. This book offers an innovative interpretation of the Laws of Hammurabi. Ancient scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a set of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The scribe of the Laws of Hammurabi advanced beyond earlier scribes in composing statutes that manifest systematization and implicit legal principles, and inserted the Laws of Hammurabi into the form of a royal inscription, shrewdly reshaping the genre. This tradition of scribal improvisation on a set of traditional cases continued outside of Mesopotamia. It influenced biblical law and the law of the Hittite empire significantly. The Laws of Hammurabi was also witness to the start of another stream of intellectual tradition. It became the subject of formal commentaries, marking a profound cultural shift. Scribes related to it in ways that diverged from prior attitudes; it became an object of study and of commentary, a genre that names itself as dependent on another text. The famous Laws of Hammurabi is here given the extensive attention it continues to merit.

Magic, dreams, and prophecy played important roles in ancient Egypt, as recent scholarship has increasingly made clear. In this volume, eminent international Egyptologists come together to explore such divination across a wide period.

In this readable and intriguing study, Stefan Reif tells a number of remarkable stories. He explains how Cairo came to have its important Genizah archive, how Cambridge developed its interests in Hebraica, and how a number of colourful figures brought about the connection between the two centres. Also reliably summarised here are the importance of the Genizah material for Jewish cultural history and the manner in which its conservation, decipherment and publication have proceeded in the course of a century.
The book will serve as a helpful reference work for students and teachers of Jewish history and literature. Perhaps more importantly, it will introduce the whole topic to those with an interest in uncovering the secrets of the past but lacking the awareness that the Genizah's contents are at least as important for this purpose as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This is the first account of the Lapita peoples, the common ancestor of the Polynesians, Micronesians, and Austronesian-speaking Melanesians who over the last 4000 years colonized the islands of the Pacific, including New Zealand and territories as far afield as Fiji and Hawaii. Its purpose is to provide answers to some of the most puzzling archaeological and anthropological questions: who were the Lapita peoples? what was their history? how were they able to travel such great distances? and why did they do so? Recent discoveries (several by the author of this book) have begun at last to yield a coherent picture of these elusive peoples.

Professor Kirch takes the reader back many thousands of years to the earliest evidence of the Lapita peoples. He describes the research itself and conveys the excitement of the first discoveries of Lapita settlements, tools and pottery. He then traces the remarkable cultural development and spread of the Lapita peoples across the unoccupied islands of Eastern Melanesia, Micronesia and Western Polynesia. He shows how they became the progenitors of the Polynesian and Austronesian-speaking Melanesian peoples.

The author describes Lapita sites, communities and landscapes, the development of their decorated ceramics, and their shell-tool industry. He reveals the means by which they accomplished such prodigious voyages and explains why they undertook them. He illustrates his account with specially drawn maps and with a wide range of photographs, many published for the first time.
Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, anthropology, biology and linguistics, and written in clear, non-specialized language, this is an outstanding book ofgreat importance to the history of South-East Asia and the Pacific.

Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland is the first volume to be devoted solely to the Irish Neolithic, using an innovative landscape and anthropological perspective to provide significant new insights on the period.
Gabriel Cooney argues that the archaeological evidence demonstrates a much more complex picture than the current orthodoxy on Neolithic Europe, with its assumption of mobile lifestyles, suggests. He integrates the study of landscape, settlement, agriculture, material culture and burial practice to offer a rounded, realistic picture of the complexities and the realities of Neolithic lives and societies in Ireland.

Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland is the first volume to be devoted solely to the Irish Neolithic, using an innovative landscape and anthropological perspective to provide significant new insights on the period. Gabriel Cooney argues that the archaeological evidence demonstrates a much more complex picture than the current orthodoxy on Neolithic Europe, with its assumption of mobile lifestyles, suggests. He integrates the study of landscape, settlement, agriculture, material culture and burial practice to offer a rounded, realistic picture of the complexities and the realities of Neolithic lives and societies in Ireland.

Contents:
Looking back, looking forward - the field of Anglo-Saxon archaeology. Reorganization among the ruins. York 700-1050. Constructions of wood, stone and ink - the churches of 8th-century England. Wearmouth and Jarrow in their continental context, The Anglo-Saxon church at Canterbury. Anglo- Saxon church building - aspects of design and construction. Archaeology and the cult of St Oswald in pre-conquest Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon cemetary at Sutton Hoo - an interim report. Beowulf and Sutton Hoo - the odd couple. Children, death and the afterlife in Anglo-Saxon England. Repton and the Vikings. An Anglo-Saxon "cunning woman" from Bidford-on-Avon. Questioning the monuments - approaches to Anglo-Saxon sculpture through gender studies. Statements in stone - Anglo-Saxon sculpture, Whitby and the Christianization of the north. Women's costume in the 10th and 11th centuries and textile production in Anglo-Saxon England. The archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England - theory and practice.

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists. The volume spans from as early as 10,000 cal. bp to the modern era, analysing the relationship between material culture, cultural change, and the complex connectivities between communities and groups. In considering social practices shared between different historic groups, and also the expression of their respective identities, the papers in this volume illustrate the potential of globalization thinking to bridge the local and global in material culture analysis. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization is the first such volume to take a world archaeology approach, on a multi-period basis, in order to bring together the scope of evidence for the significance of material culture in the processes of globalization. This work thus also provides a means to understand how material culture studies can be utilised to assess the impact of global engagement in our contemporary world. As such, it will appeal to archaeologists and historians as well as social science researchers interested in the origins of globalization.

Originally published in 1987, Human Evolution looks at theories of the evolution of human behaviour (contemporary at the time of publication). The book reviews competing theories of psychological and social evolution and provides a detailed historical introduction to the subject. A key theoretical concern which emerges in the book includes the psychological significance of the human evolution issue itself. The period of human evolution covered ranges from the demise of the Miocene hominoids, to the emergence of 'civilization'. Topics covered include: functions of 'origin myths', history of the study of human evolution, methods and data-bases, theories of the nature of 'hominisation', origins of bipedalism, language and tool-use, theories of social evolution, theories of cave art and the spread of Homo sapiens to America and Australia.

Originally published in 1987 Rates of Evolution is an edited collection drawn from a symposium convened to bring together palaeontologists, geneticists, molecular biologists and developmental biologists to examine some aspects of the problem of evolutionary rates. The book asks questions surrounding the study of evolution, such as did large morphological changes really occur rapidly at various times in the geological past, or is the fossil record too imperfect to be of value in assessing rates of morphological change? What is the measure of 'rapid' change? Is stasis at any taxonomic level established? Is it possible to relate genomic and morphological change? What is the role of regulatory and executive genes in controlling evolutionary change? Does the transfer of genetic material between different taxa provide the possibility of increasing evolutionary rates? Featuring contributions from leading researchers, this book will interest anthropologists, palaeontology and scientists of evolution and genetics.

Originally published in 1915, The Natural Theology of Evolution looks at the concept of natural theology, examining the argument for the existence of God based on reason and ordinary experiences of nature. The book looks at natural theology in light of Darwin's theory of evolution, and how this important discovery affected belief in intelligent design. The book argues that the discovery of evolution, far from diminishing the existence of God, provides stronger proof for an intelligently designed earth and therefore the existence of God. This book provides a unique and interesting take on the debates surrounding evolution in the late 19th and early 20th century. It will be of interest to philosophers, historians of religion and natural historians alike.

Scholars often assume that elite, or high-status tomb chapels of the Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdoms featured decorations in order to provide for the eternal needs of the deceased. However, this explanation often fails to account for the content of many such decorations.

The Cosmos of Khnumhotep II offers a detailed study of the tomb chapel of Khnumhotep II. Kamrin painstakingly charts the various levels of meaning buried in the scenes, ornaments, and texts that adorn Khnumhotep II's chapel, and provides a detailed analysis of the organizational structure of the tomb. She argues that the tomb chapel should be interpreted as a model of the cosmos, integrating the realms of the living and the dead. An abundance of new evidence suggests that various cult structures may be regarded as cosmograms, schematized representations of the Egyptian cosmos that reflect the powers and operations of the universe.

This book is a study of communities that drew their identity and livelihood from their relationships with water during a pivotal time in the creation of the social, economic and political landscapes of northern Europe. It focuses on the Baltic, North and Irish Seas in the Viking Age (ad 1050-1200), with a few later examples (such as the Scottish Lordship of the Isles) included to help illuminate less well-documented earlier centuries. Individual chapters introduce maritime worlds ranging from the Isle of Man to Gotland - while also touching on the relationships between estate centres, towns, landing places and the sea in the more terrestrially oriented societies that surrounded northern Europe's main spheres of maritime interaction. It is predominately an archaeological project, but draws no arbitrary lines between the fields of historical archaeology, history and literature. The volume explores the complex relationships between long-range interconnections and distinctive regional identities that are characteristic of maritime societies, seeking to understand communities that were brought into being by their relationships with the sea and who set waves in motion that altered distant shores.

Crystal skulls, imaginative codices, dubious Olmec heads and cute Colima dogs. Fakes and forgeries run rampant in the Mesoamerican art collections of international museums and private individuals. Authors Nancy Kelker and Karen Bruhns 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. 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 Andean archaeology.

Archaeologists are increasingly aware of issues of gender when studying past societies; women are becoming better represented within the discipline and are attaining top academic posts. However, until now there has been no study undertaken of the history of women in European archaeology and their contribution to the development of the discipline.
Excavating Women discusses the careers of women archaeologists such as Dorothy Garrod, Hanna Rydh and Marija Gimbutas, who against all odds became famous, as well as the many lesser-known personalities who did important archaeological work. The collection spans the earliest days of archaeology as a discipline to the present, telling the stories of women from Scandinavia, Mediterranean Europe, Britain, France, Germany and Poland. The chapters examine women's contributions to archaeology in the context of other, often socio-political, factors that affected their lives. It examines issues such as women's increased involvement in archaeological work during and after the two World Wars, and why so many women found it more acceptable to work outside of their native lands.
This critical assessment of women in archaeology makes a major contribution to the history of archaeology. It reveals how selective the archaeological world has been in recognizing the contributions of those who have shaped its discipline, and how it has been particularly inclined to ignore the achievements of women archaeologists.
Excavating Women is essential reading for all students, teachers and researchers in archaeology who are interested in the history of their discipline and its sociopolitics.

Animals played a crucial role in many aspects of Celtic life: in the economy, hunting, warfare, art, literature and religion. Such was their importance to this society, that an intimate relationship between humans and animals developed, in which the Celts believed many animals to have divine powers. In Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, Miranda Green draws on evidence from early Celtic documents, archaeology and iconography to consider the manner in which animals formed the basis of elaborate rituals and beliefs. She reveals that animals were endowed with an extremely high status, considered by the Celts as worthy of respect and admiration.

"While Cobo's Historia is not a pristine account, it is hard to imagine what our knowledge of Andean societies would be without it. Four hundred years after Cobo landed in Lima, Roland Hamilton should be congratulated on his translations of the Historia del Nuevo Mundo, which remains a monument to the breadth of vision and intellectual energy of its author." -- American Antiquity

Completed in 1653, Father Bernabe Cobo's Historia del Nuevo Mundo is an important source of information on pre-conquest and colonial Spanish America. Though parts of the work are now lost, the remaining sections which have been translated offer valuable insights into Inca culture and Peruvian history.

Inca Religion and Customs is the second translation by Roland Hamilton from Cobo's massive work. Beginning where History of the Inca Empire left off, it provides a vast amount of data on the religion and lifeways of the Incas and their subject peoples. Despite his obvious Christian bias as a Jesuit priest, Cobo objectively and thoroughly describes many of the religious practices of the Incas. He catalogs their origin myths, beliefs about the afterlife, shrines and objects of worship, sacrifices, sins, festivals, and the roles of priests, sorcerers, and doctors.

The section on Inca customs is equally inclusive. Cobo covers such topics as language, food and shelter, marriage and childrearing, agriculture, warfare, medicine, practical crafts, games, and burial rituals.

Because the Incas apparently had no written language, such postconquest documents are an important source of information about Inca life and culture. Cobo's work, written by one who wanted to preserve something of the indigenousculture that his fellow Spaniards were fast destroying, is one of the most accurate and highly respected.

Focusing on the daily concerns and routine events of people in the past, Investigating the Ordinary argues for a paradigm shift in the way southeastern archaeologists operate. Instead of dividing archaeological work by time periods or artifact types, the essays in this volume unite separate areas of research through the theme of the everyday. Ordinary activities studied here range from flint-knapping to ceremonial crafting, from subsistence to social gatherings, and from the Paleoindian period to the nineteenth century. Contributors demonstrate that attention to everyday life can help researchers avoid overemphasizing data and jargon and instead discover connections between the people of different eras. This approach will also inspire archaeologists with ways to engage the public with their work and with the deep history of the southeastern United States.

Did Trajan really deserve his reputation as the embodiment of all imperial virtues? Why did Dante, writing in the Middle Ages, place him in the sixth sphere of Heaven among the Just and Temperate rulers? In this, the only biography of Trajan available in English, Julian Bennett rigorously tests the substance of this glorious reputation. Surprisingly, for a Roman emperor, Trajan comes through the test with his reputation relatively intact.

Originally published between 1920-70, the "History of Civilization" was published at a formative time within the social sciences, and during a period of historical discovery. The aim of the general editor, C.K. Ogden, was to summarize the most up to date findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists. This reprinted material is available as a set or in the following groupings: "Prehistory and Historical Ethnography" set of 12 (0-415-15611-4, u800); "Greek Civilization" set of 7 (0-415-15612-2, u450); "Roman Civilization" set of 6 (0-415-15613-0, u400); "Eastern Civilizations" set of 10 (0-415-15614-9, u650); "Judaeo-Christian Civilization" set of 4 (0-415-15615-7, u250); "European Civilization" set of 11 (0-415-15616-5, u700).

In Rosalie David's hands, the Egyptian builders of the pyramids are revealed as simple people, leading ordinary lives while they are engaged on building the great tomb for a Pharoah. This is an engrossing detective story, bringing to the general reader a fascinating picture of a special community that lived in Egypt and built one of the pyramids, some four thousand years ago.

The three-thousand-year-old rock-cut temples at Abu Simbel and the story of their rescue from the rising waters of Lake Nasser in the 1960s are almost as familiar worldwide as the tale of the gold funerary mask and brief life of the boy king Tutankhamun. Yet although they are among the most celebrated, visited, and photographed archaeological sites in the world, the two temples are among the least understood by the visitor. In this lucidly written, beautifully illustrated guide, Nigel Fletcher-Jones explains the main features of both temples, discusses what they teach us about ancient Egypt during the reign of Rameses II (1265-1200 BC), and illustrates which gods and goddesses were worshipped here. With over 50 new photographs, drawings, and diagrams, and packed with fascinating insights, Abu Simbel: A Short Guide to the Temples is an indispensable companion and souvenir to one of the world's great archaeological sites.