In the late 4th century AD, the site of Kourion, Cyprus was destroyed by an earthquake that struck with little or no warning, trapping victims and objects where they lay. Although much of the site was reoccupied and rebuilt, some areas were not, thus providing a unique example of a moment truly frozen in time. This work presents the results of a comprehensive study of the architecture, stratigraphy, and material culture assemblage recovered from the Earthquake House, a multi-roomed domestic structure destroyed during this seismic event. The architectural analysis revealed a number of modifications to the structure that increased its overall size and subdivided its internal spaces, although their timing and reasons remain unknown at present. Study of the artifact assemblage provided significant insights into the processes surrounding the use, re-use, and discard of artifacts. This analysis identified numerous behaviors including consumable and non-consumable storage, storage of material for reuse and/or recycling, food preparation, and waste disposal, including a partial reconstruction of the domestic waste stream. This study produced a more nuanced model for understanding the distribution of artifacts in ancient domestic contexts and demonstrates that even in cases of near instantaneous destruction without significant disturbance, a wide variety of variables must be considered when examining the artifacts of domestic assemblages.

The Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel initiated an archaeological salvage project in portions of the central and southern Negev (Israel). As a participant in the Negev Emergency Survey, Mordechai Haiman's field crew surveyed, from 1979-1989, 450 kilometers in the western Negev Highlands, and identified 1,500 sites. He also directed excavations at 33 sites. Funded by a grant from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications, this fieldwork was reanalyzed for publication. The contents of this final report touch upon various aspects of Haiman's excavations and surveys including methodologies, lithic material, pottery, fauna remains, petrographic analysis and more.

The ancient Mesoptamian city of Ur was a Sumerian city state which flourished as a centre of trade and civilisation between 2025-1738 BCE. However, in the recent past it suffered from the disastrous Gulf war and from neglect. It still remains a potent symbol for people of all faiths and will have an important role to play in the future This account of Ur's past looks at both the ancient city and its evolution over centuries, and its archaeological interpretation in more recent times. From the nineteenth century explorers and their identification of the site of Mukayyar as the Biblical city of Ur, the study proceeds to look in detail at the archaeologist Leonard Woolley and his key discoveries during the 1920s and 30s. Using the findings as a framework and utilising the latest evidence from environmental, historical and archaeological studies, the volume explores the site's past in chronological order from the Ubaid period in the 5th millennium to the death of Alexander. It looks in detail at the architectural remains: the sacred buildings, royal graves and also the private housing which provides a unique record of life four thousand years ago.The volume also describes the part played by Ur in the Gulf war and discusses the problems raised for archaeologists in the war's aftermath.

This volume contains a selection of articles based on papers presented at an international workshop held at Frankfurt am Main, Germany from the 27th to the 28th of October, 2012. The workshop was organized by members of the Research Training Group 1576 "Value and Equivalence" and the Tell Chuera Project. The articles address a wide range of materials (lithics, terracotta figurines, domestic architecture and installations, glyptics) and topics (the organization of space within residential areas, the economic base of 3rd millennium settlements, an anthropological perspective on the study of domestic remains) which are related to the study of 3rd millennium BCE houses and households in northern Mesopotamia. Many articles focus on recent archaeological excavations and observations from Tell Chuera, but hitherto unpublished field data from other sites (Tell Mozan, Tell Hazna, and Kharab Sayyar) are also presented. The archaeological focus of the volume is broadened by a philological treatise dealing with the study of households in southern Mesopotamia.

Eight papers arising from a colloquium on Warfare and Society in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean held at the University of Liverpool, 13th June 2008.

The first section of the present volume is a report of the Italian involvement in Southern Makr n and Khar n, its aims and objects, modus operandi. It is essentially restricted to the Islamic era and represents a discourse preliminary to the second section. The methodological approach of combining historical sources (written and manuscript, Persian and Arabic) with archaeological evidence and geo-morphological study has allowed for a re-reading of the traditional literature and the role played by Makr n and, in particular, the K j-u-Makr n region during the 10th-13th Centuries AD. Many questions put by this mystifying region still stand only partly answered, if not completely un-answered. After three seasons of archaeological field-work and research complemented with accurate geo-morphological surveys and studying we are still confronted with an elusive region and some crucial queries. Part Two of this study is the follow up of the archaeological and geo-morphological research-work: a historical study, which focuses on the 10th-13th Centuries AD."

Ephesos is one of the most important archeological digs in the world. For 120 years Austrian archeologists have been at work on this magical site in western Turkey and continue to bring up spectacular finds. In this place archeologists have succeeded like nowhere else to make academia and the public aware of the distant past. In this book, Sabine Ladstatter, who leads the Ephesos dig, and award-winning photographer Lois Lammerhuber present the world of antiquity from a very special angle. Cats are to be found almost anywhere around the ancient city. They live in a very special environment. Sabine Ladstatter explains the nature of this extraordinary relationship and Lois Lammerhuber followed the cats of Ephesos on a magical mystery tour through an antique world of temples, stones, theaters and private houses."

This book surveys four thousand years of pottery production and presents totally unexpected fresh information, using technical and analytical methods. It provides a study of ancient pottery of Jerusalem, from the earliest settlement to the medieval city and brings to light important aspects that cannot be discovered by the commonly accepted morphological pottery descriptions. New insights include the discovery that third millennium BCE pottery appears to have been produced by nomadic families, middle Bronze Age ceramics were made by professional potters in the Wadi Refaim, the pottery market of the Iron Age II pottery cannot be closely dated and is still produced during the first centuries after the exile, and the new shapes are made by Greek immigrant potters. The book contains a chapter on the systematics of ceramic studies and numerous notes about the potters themselves.

This research takes an integrative approach to the study of Hellenistic cult and cultic practices in an important part of western Asia by employing a combination of archaeological, numismatic and historical evidence. Although any thorough investigation of Seleukid religion would prove illuminating in itself, this research uses religion as a lens through which to explore the processes of acculturation and rejection within a colonial context. It discusses the state attitude towards, and manipulation of, both Hellenic and indigenous beliefs and places this within a framework developed out of a series of case studies exploring evidence for religion at a regional level. The study outlines the development of religious practices and expression in the region which formed the birthplace of the modern world's three most influential monotheistic religions.

Contents: Mikhail Abramzon: A hoard of bronze Pontic and Bosporan coins of the reign of Mithradates VI from Phanagoria, 2007; Anna Alexandropoulou: The Late Classical and Hellenistic pottery of Sinope and Amisos; William Anderson and Abby Robinson: Marginal or mainstream? The character of settlement in Late Roman Paphlagonia; Sumer Atasoy: New exploration of the southern Black Sea coast: Filyos - Tios; Eka Avaliani: Ancient Anatolia: cultural mosaic, not melting pot; Lucretiu Mihailescu-Birliba: Les Pontobithyniens en Dacie romaine; Thomas Bruggemann: Paphlagonia between Goths, Sasanids and Arabs (3rd-8th centuries AD); Ertekin Doksanalti and Gungor Karauguz: The Hellenistic and Roman ceramics from field surveys at Devrek and its environs, west Black Sea region of Turkey; Sevket Donmez: A new excavation in Pontus: Amasya-Oluz Hoyuk. Preliminary results for the Hellenistic period and Iron Age layers; Dimitris P. Drakoulis: Regional transformations and the settlement network of the coastal Pontic provinces in the Early Byzantine period; Cristian E. Ghita: The Pontic army: integrating Persian and Macedonian traditions; J.G.F. Hind: Milesian and Sinopean traders in Colchis (Greeks at Phasis and the ransoming of shipwrecked sailors); Monica M. Jackson: The Amisos Treasure: a Hellenistic tomb from the age of Mithradates Eupator; Gungor Karauguz, Ozsen Corumluoglu, Ibrahim Kalayci and Ibrahim Asri: A 3D digital photogrammetric model of a Roman 'birdrock monument' in the north-west region of Anatolia; Merab Khalvashi and Emzar Kakhidze: Sinopean amphorae in Apsarus; Liudmila G. Khrushkova: Chersonesus in the Crimea: Early Byzantine capitals with fine-toothed acanthus leaves; Liudmila G. Khrushkova and Dmitri E. Vasilinenko: Basilica Lesnoe-1 near Sochi in the north-eastern Black Sea region; Sergei A. Kovalenko The Hestiatorion of the Chaika settlement in the north-western Crimea; Ergun Lafli und Eva Christof: Drei neu entdeckte Phallossteine aus der Chora von Hadrianopolis; Boris Agomedov and Sergey Didenko: Red Slip Ware in Chernyakhov culture; Iulian Moga: Strabo on the Persian Artemis and Men in Pontus and Lydia; Kyrylo Myzgin: Finds of Roman coins of Asia Minor provincial mintage in the territory of Chernyakhov Culture; Alexander V. Podossinov: Bithynia, Paphlagonia and Pontus on the Tabula Peutingeriana; Jean-Louis Podvin: Cultes isiaques en Pont et Paphlagonie; Elena A. Popova and Tatiana V. Egorova: Investigation of the Late Scythian cinder heap on the site of Chaika near Evpatoria in the north-west Crimea; Annette Teffeteller: Strategies of continuity in the construction of ethnic and cultural identity: the lineage and role of Zeus Stratios in Pontus and Paphlagonia; Bruno Tripodi: Paphlagonian horseman in Cunaxa (Xenophon Anabasis 1. 8. 5); Gocha R. Tsetskhladze: The southern Black Sea coast and its hinterland: an ethno-cultural perspective; Maya Vassileva: The rock-cut monuments of Phrygia, Paphlagonia and Thrace: a comparative overview; Jose Vela Tejada: Stasis and polemos at Pontus in the first half of the 4th century BC according to Aeneas Tacticus: the Datames' siege of Sinope; Fred C. Woudhuizen; The saga of the Argonauts: a reflex of Thraco-Phrygian maritime encroachment on the southern Pontic littoral; Luca Zavagno: Amastris (Paphlagonia): a study in Byzantine urban history between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages; Elena A. Zinko: Peculiarities of the paintings of Bosporan crypts of the 3rd-6th centuries AD; Two Appendices: Pessinus in Phrygia: Brief Preliminary Report of the 2010 Field Season.

This book is intended as an introduction to the archaeology of the easternmost regions of Greek settlement in the Hellenistic period, from the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BC, through to the last Greek-named kings of north-western India somewhere around the late first century BC, or even early first century AD. The Far East of the Hellenistic world a region comprising areas of what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the former-Soviet Central Asian Republics is best known from the archaeological remains of sites such as Ai Khanoum, which attest the endurance of Greek cultural and political presence in the region in the three centuries following the conquests of Alexander the Great. The chapters here survey the available evidence, including Latin, Greek, Chinese and Indian texts, as well as archaeology, survey the secondary literature, and ponder themes of identity, cultural contact and ethnicity.

A handmade pottery with incised decoration found in small quantities amongst the wheelmade waresin the Nile Valley between the Fifth and the First Cataract and in the Eastern Desert. Discussses the historical background, the clay, the provenance suggested by the chemical inclusions, use indicated by lipid residues, and the cultural origins of the pots.

This book is an archaeological and art-historical study of the images and monuments of Roman 'client' kings in the Near East from the Taurus to Edom (modern South East Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan) in the important transitional period between the downfall of the Seleucid empire and Rome's establishment of provincial administration across the entire region. In this volume, Kropp treats royal portraits, tombs, palaces, coins, and temples as historical documents and aims at uncovering royal identities and ideological aspirations. In particular, he focuses on the six major players: the Kommagenian, Emesan, Ituraean, Nabataean, Hasmonaean, and Herodian dynasties. The images and monuments discussed show an endless variety of eclectic styles, shapes, and types - a result of individual, deliberate choices from an array of cultural and artistic options, such as Hellenistic, Roman, and Persian. The study of their origins and importance therefore places monuments, like the Khazneh at Petra or the Temple at Jerusalem, in their proper context and allows a more nuanced understanding of their creation as expressions and constructions of royal personas.

The revolutionary cult of sun-worship that Akhenaten introduced, and such contentious issues as the role of Nefertiti as a goddess, the dominant part played by plague during Akhenaten's reign, and likely events of the king's twilight years are treated with new insight and set within the framework of an authoritative overview of the entire period.

This is the story of the landfill that operated in Jerusalem during the first century CE and served as its garbage dump during the ca. 50-year period that followed Jesus’s crucifixion through to the period that led to the great revolt of the Jews just prior to the city’s destruction. The book presents an extensive investigation of hundreds of thousands of items that were systematically excavated from the thick layers of landfill. It brings together experts who conducted in-depth studies of every sort of material discarded as refuse—ceramic, metal, glass, bone, wood, and more. This research presents an amazing and tantalizing picture of daily life in ancient Jerusalem, and how life was shaped and regulated by strict behavioral rules (halacha). The book also explores why garbage was collected in Jerusalem in so strict a manner and why the landfill operated for only about 50 years. Half a century of garbage from Early Roman–period Jerusalem provides an abundance of new data and new insights into the ideological choices and new religious concepts emerging and developing among those living in Jerusalem at this critical moment. It is an eye-opener for archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and theologians, as well as for the general reader.

Antiquities have been pawns in empire-building and global rivalries; power struggles; assertions of national and cultural identities; and cross-cultural exchanges, cooperation, abuses, and misunderstandings—all with the underlying element of financial gain. Indeed, “who owns antiquity?� is a contentious question in many of today’s international conflicts. About Antiquities offers an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between archaeology and empire-building around the turn of the twentieth century. Starting at Istanbul and focusing on antiquities from the Ottoman territories, Zeynep Çelik examines the popular discourse surrounding claims to the past in London, Paris, Berlin, and New York. She compares and contrasts the experiences of two museums—Istanbul’s Imperial Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art—that aspired to emulate European collections and gain the prestige and power of owning the material fragments of ancient history. Going beyond institutions, Çelik also unravels the complicated interactions among individuals—Westerners, Ottoman decision makers and officials, and local laborers—and their competing stakes in antiquities from such legendary sites as Ephesus, Pergamon, and Babylon. Recovering perspectives that have been lost in histories of archaeology, particularly those of the excavation laborers whose voices have never been heard, About Antiquities provides important historical context for current controversies surrounding nation-building and the ownership of the past.

In an expansion of his 2012 Robson Classical Lectures, Clifford Ando examines the connection between the nature of the Latin language and Roman thinking about law, society, and empire. Drawing on innovative work in cognitive linguistics and anthropology, Roman Social Imaginaries considers how metaphor, metonymy, analogy, and ideation helped create the structures of thought that shaped the Roman Empire as a political construct. Beginning in early Roman history, Ando shows how the expansion of the empire into new territories led the Romans to develop and exploit Latin's extraordinary capacity for abstraction. In this way, laws and institutions invented for use in a single Mediterranean city-state could be deployed across a remarkably heterogeneous empire. Lucid, insightful, and innovative, the essays in Roman Social Imaginaries constitute some of today's most original thinking about the power of language in the ancient world.

European adventurers began exploring Palmyra's priceless Roman ruins in the 17th century, but it wasn't until the advent of photography that the public became aware of its scale and majesty. In 1885, the sight of Palmyra astounded members of the Wolfe Expedition as they journeyed home from Mesopotamia. The group's photographer, John Henry Haynes, documented the monumental temples, tombs and colonnades in more than a hundred invaluable images. Since then, Haynes and his work have largely been forgotten, and the forces of the self-styled Islamic State have destroyed the key monuments of this world-renowned site, including the glorious Temple of Bel. Haynes's images of Palmyra - published here for the first time - are all the more poignant. The Syrian city of Palmyra - known as ‘the Pearl of the Desert’ - was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. A key stop on the Silk Road, it was a vital link between the East and the West, and a prize fought over by successive conquering armies.

The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary was conceived to provide more than lexical information alone, more than a one-to-one equivalent between Akkadian and English words. By presenting each word in a meaningful context, often with a full and idiomatic translation, it recreates the cultural milieu and in many ways assumes the function of an encyclopedia.

One of the greatest historians of the twentieth century, Arnaldo Momigliano (1908-1987) is known for his path-breaking studies of ancient Greek and Roman history. The encyclopedic knowledge of the ancient world that Momigliano brought to his work, however, enabled him to make connections between ancient history and the subsequent study of that history. His sweeping vision stretched from antiquity to the present day. In Momigliano and Antiquarianism, Peter N. Miller brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to provide the first serious study of Momigliano's history of historical scholarship. At its core, this collection is devoted to one of Momigliano's most celebrated subjects the history of antiquarianism, and one of his most audacious claims, that the decay of early modern antiquarianism actually gave birth to the modern cultural sciences - history, sociology, anthropology, art history, archaeology, and history of religion. Filling a gap in the scholarship, this erudite collection will prove fascinating to teachers and students of classics, history, and the human sciences.

Lithic Studies: Anatolia and Beyond aims to show networks of cultural interactions by focusing on the latest lithic studies from Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans, bringing to the forefront the connectedness and techno-cultural continuity of knapped and ground stone technologies. Lithic studies are mostly conducted on a site by site basis, and specialist studies on lithics tend to focus primarily on technology and typology. As a result, information acquired through lithic research is presented as the identifier of the particular site with the addition of brief local correlations. This creates isolated islands of information. This volume is intended to bring these islands together to build the bigger picture, showcasing the fluidity of technological change, transitional cultural developments, and cultural formation by focusing on the interrelations between sites, localities and regions. Individually and collectively the wide range of papers in the volume give perspectives on Neolithization as seen through stone technologies, highlighting both regional trends and interregional relationships. The volume lays the foundations for creating an integrated understanding of Neolithic lithic technologies across the broad geographical regions of Turkey, Greece and the Balkans.

In Context: the Reade Festschrift is a collection of invited and peer-reviewed essays by friends and colleagues of Julian Edgeworth Reade, sometime Mesopotamia curator at the British Museum from 1975 to 2000. Its coverage is designed to reflect the breadth of the recipient’s professional interests, from Assyria and Mesopotamia in general, to the relations between Mesopotamia and other regions and the impact of nineteenth-century discoveries on the field of Assyriology. They include both syntheses and archaeological research, as well as reports on archival discoveries. Context is always crucial. Here is fresh work from which any reader can gain a new appreciation of the importance of the ancient Near East.

This is the first full biography of James Rendel Harris (1852-1941), Bible and patristic scholar, manuscript collector, Quaker theologian, devotional writer, traveller, folklorist, and relief worker. Drawing on published and unpublished sources gathered in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, many of which were previously unknown, Alessandro Falcetta tells the story of Harris's life and works set against the background of the cultural and political life of contemporary Britain. Falcetta traces the development of Harris's career from Cambridge to Birmingham, the story of his seven journeys to the Middle East, and of his many campaigns, from religious freedom to conscientious objection. The book focuses upon Harris's innovative contributions in the field of textual and literary criticism, his acquisitions of hundreds of manuscripts from the Middle East, his discoveries of early Christian works - in particular the Odes of Solomon - his Quaker beliefs and his studies in the cult of twins. His enormous output and extensive correspondence reveal an indefatigable genius in close contact with the most famous scholars of his time, from Hort to Harnack, Nestle, the 'Sisters of Sinai', and Frazer.

Ancient clay cooking pots in the southern Levant are unappealing, rough pots that are not easily connected to meals known from ancient writings or iconographic representations. To narrow the gap between excavated sherds and ancient meals, the approach adopted in this study starts by learning how food traditionally was processed, preserved, cooked, stored, and transported in clay containers. This research is based on the cookware and culinary practices in traditional societies in Cyprus and the Levant, where people still make pots by hand.Clay pots were not only to cook or hold foods. Their absorbent and permeable walls stored memories of food residue. Clay jars were automatic yogurt makers and fermentation vats for wine and beer, while jugs were the traditional water coolers and purifiers. Dairy foods, grains, and water lasted longer and/or tasted better when stored or prepared in clay pots. Biblical texts provide numerous terms for cookware without details of how they looked, how they were used, or why there are so many different words.Recent studies of potters for over a century in the southern Levant provide a wealth of names whose diversity helps to delineate the various categories of ancient cookware and names in the text. Ancient Cookware from the Levant begins with a description of five data sources: excavations, ancient and medieval texts, 20th century government reports, early accounts of potters, and ethnoarchaeological studies. The final section focuses on the shape, style, and manufacture of cookware for the past 12,000 years. For archaeologists, changes in cooking pot morphology offer important chronological information for dating entire assemblages, from Neolithic to recent times. The survey of pot shapes in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan presents how different shapes were made and used.