Whether on a national or a personal level, everyone has a complex relationship with their closest neighbors. Where are the borders? How much interaction should there be? How are conflicts solved? Ancient Israel was one of several small nations clustered in the eastern Mediterranean region between the large empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia in antiquity. Frequently mentioned in the Bible, these other small nations are seldom the focus of the narrative unless they interact with Israel. The ancient Israelites who produced the Hebrew Bible lived within a rich context of multiple neighbors, and this context profoundly shaped Israel. Indeed, it was through the influence of the neighboring people that Israel defined its own identity-in terms of geography, language, politics, religion, and culture. Ancient Israel's Neighbors explores both the biblical portrayal of the neighboring groups directly surrounding Israel-the Canaanites, Philistines, Phoenicians, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Arameans-and examines what we can know about these groups through their own literature, archaeology, and other sources. Through its analysis of these surrounding groups, this book will demonstrate in a direct and accessible manner the extent to which ancient Israelite identity was forged both within and against the identities of its close neighbors. Animated by the latest and best research, yet written for students, this book will invite readers into journey of scholarly discovery to explore the world of Israel's identity within its most immediate ancient Near Eastern context.

Gifts for the Gods is an enlightening and richly illustrated book on animal mummies from ancient Egypt. Introducing readers to the wealth of animal mummies in British museums and private collections, this fascinating collection focuses on the prevalent type of animal mummy to be found in Britain: the votive offering. In a series of chapters written by experts in their field, Gifts for the Gods details the role of animals in ancient Egypt and in museum collections. It concentrates on the unique relationship of British explorers, travellers, archaeologists, curators and scientists with this material. The book describes a best-practice protocol for the scientific study of animal mummies by the Ancient Egyptian Animal Bio Bank team, whilst acknowledging that the current research represents only the beginning of a much larger task.

'Beautifully written, sumptuously illustrated, constantly fascinating' The Times On 26 November 1922 Howard Carter first peered into the newly opened tomb of an ancient Egyptian boy-king. When asked if he could see anything, he replied: 'Yes, yes, wonderful things.' In Tutankhamun's Trumpet, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson takes a unique approach to that tomb and its contents. Instead of concentrating on the oft-told story of the discovery, or speculating on the brief life and politically fractious reign of the boy king, Wilkinson takes the objects buried with him as the source material for a wide-ranging, detailed portrait of ancient Egypt - its geography, history, culture and legacy. One hundred artefacts from the tomb, arranged in ten thematic groups, are allowed to speak again - not only for themselves, but as witnesses of the civilization that created them. Never before have the treasures of Tutankhamun been analysed and presented for what they can tell us about ancient Egyptian culture, its development, its remarkable flourishing, and its lasting impact. Filled with surprising insights, unusual details, vivid descriptions and, above all, remarkable objects, Tutankhamun's Trumpet will appeal to all lovers of history, archaeology, art and culture, as well as all those fascinated by the Egypt of the pharaohs. 'I've read many books on ancient Egypt, but I've never felt closer to its people' The Sunday Times

In June, 1973, a group of eleven teachers, students and pupils from Glasgow boarded a new school minibus and began a trip - across Europe, Turkey, Syria and Iraq - to Persepolis, in Iran, the ceremonial capital of the great king Darius of Persia and his son and successor Xerxes. This is the story, based on the diary and photographs of one of the teachers. A fascinating mix of archaeology and culture, the practicalities of travel on a tight budget, bureaucracy, political disruption, and food and drink. Liberally illustrated with maps of the route and photographs of ancient sites, cities and landscapes, and of the minibus and its inhabitants.

In June, 1973, a group of eleven teachers, students and pupils from Glasgow boarded a new school minibus and began a trip - across Europe, Turkey, Syria and Iraq - to Persepolis, in Iran, the ceremonial capital of the great king Darius of Persia and his son and successor Xerxes. This is the story, based on the diary and photographs of one of the teachers. A fascinating mix of archaeology and culture, the practicalities of travel on a tight budget, bureaucracy, political disruption, and food and drink. Liberally illustrated with maps of the route and photographs of ancient sites, cities and landscapes, and of the minibus and its inhabitants.

What does archaeology tell us about Jesus and the world in which he lived? How accurate are the Gospel accounts of first-century Galilee and Judea? Has the tomb of Jesus really been found? Informed by the latest archaeological research, and illustrated throughout with photographs of key findings, this fascinating book opens up the subject for people of all religious backgrounds. It will help readers gain a much clearer and more accurate picture of life in the Roman world during first century, and enable them to understand and critique the latest theories - both sober and sensational - about who Jesus was and what he stood for.

Pigs are among the most peculiar animals domesticated in the Ancient Near East. Their story, from domestication to taboo, has fascinated historians, archaeologists, and religious studies scholars for decades. Rejecting simple explanations, this book adopts an evolutionary approach that relies on zooarchaeology and texts to unravel the cultural significance of swine in the Near East from the Paleolithic to the present day. Five major themes are covered: The domestication of the pig from wild boars in the Neolithic period, the unique roles that pigs developed in agricultural economies before and after the development of complex societies, the raising of swine in cities, the shifting ritual roles of pigs, and the formation and development of the pork taboo in Judaism and, later, Islam. The origins and significance of this taboo have inspired much debate. Evolution of a Taboo contends that the well-known taboo described in Leviticus evolved over time, beginning with conflicts between Israelites and Philistines in the early part of the Iron Age, and later was mobilized by Judah's priestly elite in the writing of the Biblical texts. Centuries later, the pig taboo became a point of contention in the ethno-political struggles between Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures in the Levant; later still, between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Through these conflicts, the pig taboo grew in power. As this rich account illustrates, it came to define the relations between pigs and people in the Near East and beyond, up to the present day.

Offering new insights based on recent archaeological discoveries in their heartland of modern-day Lebanon, Mark Woolmer presents a fresh appraisal of this fascinating, yet elusive, Semitic people. Discussing material culture, language and alphabet, religion (including sacred prostitution of women and boys to the goddess Astarte), funerary custom and trade and expansion into the Punic west, he explores Phoenicia in all its paradoxical complexity. Viewed in antiquity as sage scribes and intrepid mariners who pushed back the boundaries of the known world, and as skilled engineers who built monumental harbour cities like Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenicians were also considered (especially by their rivals, the Romans) to be profiteers cruelly trading in human lives. The author shows them above all to have been masters of the sea: this was a civilization that circumnavigated Africa two thousand years before Vasco da Gama did it in 1498. The Phoenicians present a tantalizing face to the ancient historian. Latin sources suggest they once had an extensive literature of history, law, philosophy and religion; but all now is lost. In this revised and updated edition, Woolmer takes stock of recent historiographical developments in the field, bringing the present edition up to speed with contemporary understanding.

This is a short, illustrated introduction to the ever-fascinating topic of Egyptian mummies, by an international expert. It is a readable, short, but authoritative overview of Egyptian mummification. It deals with perennially popular topic. It is illustrated throughout in colour. The author, a world expert on Egyptian mummification, addresses the most frequently asked questions about Egyptian mummies: how and why they were made, the religious beliefs which underpinned mummification, the preservation of animals, and how the mummies have been treated from ancient times until the present day. He provides an up to date summary of the ancient evidence, and also considers modern attitudes to Egyptian mummies, emphasising their role as a major source of knowledge and understanding about past societies. The text and illustrations draw heavily on the rich collection of mummies and funerary objects in the British Museum, and the findings of a wide range of recent scientific investigations of this collection. The book will therefore reflect the important advances which have been made in the understanding of Egyptian mummies over the last few years. The Author John H. Taylor is a curator of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum.

This work focuses the social context of writing in ancient Western Arabia in the oasis of ancient Dadan, modern-day al-'Ula in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula between the sixth to first centuries BC. It offers a description and analysis of the language of the inscriptions and the variation attested within them. It is the first work to perform a systematic study of the linguistic variation of the Dadanitic inscriptions. It combines a thorough description of the language of the inscriptions with a statistical analysis of the distribution of variation across different textual genres and manners of inscribing. By considering correlations between language-internal and extralinguistic features this analysis aims to take a more holistic approach to the epigraphic object. Through this approach an image of a rich writing culture emerges, in which we can see innovation as well as the deliberate use of archaic linguistic features in more formal text types.

The Phoebe A. Hearst Expedition to Naga ed-Deir, Cemeteries N 2000 and N 2500 presents the results of excavations directed by George A. Reisner and led by Arthur C. Mace. The site of Naga ed-Deir, Egypt, is unusual for its continued use over a long period of time (c. 3500 BCE-650 CE). Burials in N 2000 and N 2500 date to the First Intermediate Period/Middle Kingdom and the Coptic era. In keeping with Reisner's earlier publications of Naga ed-Deir, this volume presents artifacts in chapter-length studies devoted to a particular object type and includes a burial-by-burial description. The excavators' original drawings, notes, and photographs are complemented by a contemporary analysis of the objects by experts in their subfields.

In The Iconography of Family Members in Egypt's Elite Tombs of the Old Kingdom,, Jing Wen offers a comprehensive survey of how ancient Egyptians portrayed their family members in the reliefs of an elite tomb. Through the analysis of the depiction of family members, this book investigates familial relations, the funerary cult of the dead, ancestor worship, and relevant texts. It provides a new hypothesis and perspective that would update our understanding of the Egyptian funerary practice and familial ideology. The scenes of family members are not a record of family history but language games of the tomb owner that convey specific meaning to those who enter the chapel despite time and space.

This book presents a new model for understanding the collection of ancient kingdoms that surrounded the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea from the Cilician Plain in the west to the upper Tigris River in the east, and from Cappadocia in the north to western Syria in the south, during the Iron Age of the ancient Near East (ca. 1200 to 600 BCE). Rather than presenting them as homogenous ethnolinguistic communities like "the Aramaeans" or "the Luwians" living in neatly bounded territories, this book sees these polities as being fundamentally diverse and variable, distinguished by demographic fluidity and cultural mobility. The Syro-Anatolian City-States sheds new light via an examination of a host of evidentiary sources, including archaeological site plans, settlement patterns, visual arts, and historical sources. Together, these lines of evidence reveal a complex fusion of cultural traditions that is nevertheless distinctly recognizable unto itself. This book is the first to specifically characterize the Iron Age city-states of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, arguing for a unified cultural formation characterized above all by diversity and mobility and that can be referred to as the "Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex."

In Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur, CHEN Fei conducts a full investigation into that king list, which records all the kings of Assyria and Babylonia in contemporary pairs from the 18th to the 7th century BC. The texts of all the exemplars of the Synchronistic King List are reconstructed anew by the existing studies and the author's personal collations on their sources, and part of the text of the main exemplar is thus revised. The author also looks into the format of the Synchronistic King List and draws the conclusion that the Synchronistic King List was composed by Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, to support his Babylonian policy.

The chapters of Middle Kingdom Palace Culture and Its Echoes in the Provinces discuss the degree of influence that provincial developments played in reshaping the Egyptian state and culture during the Middle Kingdom. Contributors to the volume are Egyptologists from around the world who have developed their research following a conference held at the University of Jaen in Spain.

The second volume of Excavations at Mendes furthers the publication of our archaeological work at the site of Tel er-Rub'a, ancient Mendes, in the east central Delta. Mendes is proving to be one of the most exciting sites in the Nile Delta. Occupied from prehistoric times until the Roman Period, Mendes reveals the nature of a typical Late Egyptian city, its distribution of economy, and demography. The discoveries reported on in this volume were wholly unexpected, and bear meaning fully on Ancient Egyptian history: these include the prosperity and size of the original Old Kingdom city, the major contributions of Ramesses II and Amasis to the monumental nature of the city, and the role of the city in the period c. 600-100 B.C. as an entrepot for Mediterranean trade.

The Cairo Genizah is considered one of the world's greatest Hebrew manuscript treasures. Yet the story of how over a quarter of a million fragments hidden in Egypt were discovered and distributed around the world, before becoming collectively known as "The Cairo Genizah," is far more convoluted and compelling than previously told. The full story involves an international cast of scholars, librarians, archaeologists, excavators, collectors, dealers and agents, operating from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and all acting with varying motivations and intentions in a race for the spoils. Basing her research on a wealth of archival materials, Jefferson reconstructs how these protagonists used their various networks to create key alliances, or to blaze lone trails, each one on a quest to recover ancient manuscripts. Following in their footsteps, she takes the reader on a journey down into ancient caves and tombs, under medieval rubbish mounds, into hidden attic rooms, vaults, basements and wells, along labyrinthine souks, and behind the doors of private clubs and cloistered colleges. Along the way, the reader will also learn about the importance of establishing manuscript provenance and authenticity, and the impact to our understanding of the past when either factor is in doubt.

Jewish temples stood in Jerusalem for nearly one thousand years and were a dominant feature in the life of the ancient Judeans throughout antiquity. This volume strives to obtain a diachronic and topical cross-section of central features of the varied aspects of the Jewish temples that stood in Jerusalem, one that draws on and incorporates different disciplinary and methodological viewpoints. Ten contributions are included in this volume by: Gary A. Anderson; Simeon Chavel; Avraham Faust; Paul M. Joyce; Yuval Levavi; Risa Levitt; Eyal Regev; Lawrence H. Schiffman; Jeffrey Stackert; Caroline Waerzeggers, edited by Tova Ganzel and Shalom E. Holtz.

Concepts in Middle Kingdom Funerary Culture presents a collection of archaeological and philological papers discussing how ancient Egyptians thought, and modern scholars may think, about Egyptian funerary practices of the early 2nd millennium BCE. Targeting the concepts used by modern scholars, the papers address both general methodological questions of how concepts should be developed and used and more specific ones about the history and presuppositions behind particular Egyptological concepts. In so doing, the volume brings to the fore occasionally problematic intellectual baggage that have hindered understanding, as well highlighting new promising avenues of research in ancient Egyptian funerary culture in the Middle Kingdom and more broadly. "New and insightful suggestions are made, many of which challenge the basic frames of reference of Western Egyptological study, from funerary practice to issues of identity. The methodological models should be of considerable interest to those studying aspects of the HB and ancient Levant related to funerary culture, where studies have often tended towards the etic." -David Beadle, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44.5 (2020)

The book presents the results of a complete detailed survey of the eastern region of Samaria, mainly the Middle Jordan Valley, within the territory of Israel/Palestine. It is Volume 5 of the Manasseh Hill Country Survey publications. This project, in progress since 1978, and covering 2500 sq. km, is a thorough, metre-by-metre mapping of the archaeological-historical area between the River Jordan and the Sharon Plain, and between Nahal 'Iron and the north-eastern point of the Dead Sea. This territory is one of the most important in the country from the Biblical and archaeological view; and the survey is a valuable tool for scholars of the Bible, archaeology, Near Eastern history and other aspects of the Holy Land. This volume describes the area of the Jordan Valley between Wadi Fasael in the north and Wadi 'Aujah in the south. It is a fully revised and updated version of the Hebrew publication of 2012. "This rich volume makes an important contribution to the corpus of archaeological and historical knowledge about the land of Israel, and it will be a necessary acquisition for academic libraries. It will be of great interest to all those concerned with the study of the history and ar-chaeology of the land of Israel." - Ralph K. Hawkins, Averett University, Danville, VA, in: Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin 64 (2019)

In The Egyptian Elite as Roman Citizens Giorgia Cafici offers the analysis of private, male portrait sculptures as attested in Egypt between the end of the Ptolemaic and the beginning of the Roman Period. Ptolemaic/Early Roman portraits are examined using a combination of detailed stylistic evaluation, philological analysis of the inscriptions and historical and prosopographical investigation of the individuals portrayed. The emergence of this type of sculpture has been contextualised, both geographically and chronologically, as it belongs to a wider Mediterranean horizon. The analysis has revealed that eminent members of the Egyptian elite decided to be represented in an innovative way, echoing the portraits of eminent Romans of the Late Republic, whose identity was surely known in Egypt.

This book presents the results of a complete detailed survey of the north-eastern region of Samaria, mainly the northern area of the Jordan Valley, in the territory of Israel/Palestine. It is Volume 4 of the Manasseh Hill Country Survey publications. This project, in progress since 1978 and covering 2500 sq. km, is a thorough, metre-by-metre mapping of the archaeological-historical area between the River Jordan and the Sharon Plain, and between Nahal 'Iron and the north-eastern point of the Dead Sea. This territory is one of the most important in the country from the Biblical and archaeological points of view; and the survey is a valuable tool for scholars of the Bible, Archaeology, Near Eastern history and other aspects of the Holy Land. This volume (covering ca. 250 sq. km) describes the area of the Jordan Valley between Nahal Bezeq (Wadi Shubash) in the north and the Sartaba range in the south. It is a fully revised and updated version of the Hebrew publication of 2005.

Memory is a constructed system of references, in equilibrium, of feeling and rationality. Comparing ancient and contemporary mechanisms for the preservation of memories and the building of a common cultural, political and social memory, this volume aims to reveal the nature of memory, and explores the attitudes of ancient societies towards the creation of a memory to be handed down in words, pictures, and mental constructs. Since the multiple natures of memory involve every human activity, physical and intellectual, this volume promotes analyses and considerations about memory by focusing on various different cultural activities and productions of ancient Near Eastern societies, from artistic and visual documents to epigraphic evidence, and by considering archaeological data. The chapters of this volume analyse the value and function of memory within the ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian societies, combining archaeological, textual and iconographical evidence following a progression from the analysis of the creation and preservation of both single and multiple memories, to the material culture (things and objects) that shed light on the impact of memory on individuals and community.

In Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean, Anna Collar and Troels Myrup Kristensen bring together diverse scholarship to explore the socioeconomic dynamics of ancient Mediterranean pilgrimage from archaic Greece to Late Antiquity, the Greek mainland to Egypt and the Near East. This broad chronological and geographical canvas demonstrates how our modern concepts of religion and economy were entangled in the ancient world. By taking material culture as a starting point, the volume examines the ways that landscapes, architecture, and objects shaped the pilgrim's experiences, and the manifold ways in which economy, belief and ritual behaviour intertwined, specifically through the processes and practices that were part of ancient Mediterranean pilgrimage over the course of more than 1,500 years.