Offers a very compact study on the relationship between geography and history in the ancient Mediterranean, specifically and uniquely focused on how cultural development was shaped by human mobility and interaction with their surroundings.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In his illuminating, well-researched book examining the site of Et-Tell, also known as Bethsaida, Carl E. Savage explores archaeological evidence to offer readers a portrait of the religious beliefs and practices of the community living near the north shore of the Sea of Galilee during the first century CE. In the study of the cultural and social matrix of the first century in the Galilee, scholars have commonly prioritized written sources over archaeological evidence because written sources seem to contribute more directly to an understanding of the religious beliefs and practices of a community. However, there exist many competing views of the landscape during that time due to the varying interpretations of the textual sources. Using archaeological data from Bethsaida itself, Savage investigates the material practices of Bethsaida's ancient inhabitants, describing these practices as significant indicators of their sense of place both ideologically and geographically. He evaluates the historical plausibility of various social reconstructions for the region, and finds that the image that emerges of first-century Bethsaida is one similar to those of other Jewish communities in the Galilee.

The Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) is the oldest exploration society of the Levant which is active today. Since its founding meeting in 1865 in Westminster Abbey of London, the PEF scholars have conducted systematic exploration of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Prominent archaeologists such as C.W. Wilson, C. Warren, C. Schick, C. Conder, W.M.F Petrie, H. Kitchener, and R.A.S Macalister, were sent to dig the Holy Land on behalf of the PEF. A remarkable enterprise carried out by the PEF, in cooperation with the Royal Engineers, was the first precise scientific survey of the region - The Survey of the Western Palestine - which yielded the pioneering high-quality detailed maps of the Holy Land. Marking the 150 years since the PEF emerged, the studies collected in this volume provide a retrospective on the endeavours in the light of the findings of the contemporary archaeological research.

This volume is a critical study of recent archaeology in the Western Wall Plaza area, Jerusalem. Considered one of the holiest places on Earth for Jews and Muslims, it is also a place of controversy, where the State marks 'our' remains for preservation and adoration and 'theirs' for silencing. Based on thousands of documents from the Israel Antiquities Authority and other sources, such as protocols of planning committees, readers can explore for the first time this archaeological 'heart of darkness' in East Jerusalem. The book follows a series of unique discoveries, reviewing the approval and execution of development plans and excavations, and the use of the areas once excavation has finished. Who decides what and how to excavate, what to preserve - or 'remove'? Who pays for the archaeology, for what aims? The professional, scientific archaeology of the past happens now: it modifies the present and is modified by it. This book 'excavates' the archaeology of East Jerusalem to reveal its social and political contexts, power structures and ethics. Readers interested in the history, archaeology and politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will find this book useful, as well as scholars and students of the history and ethics of Archaeology, Jerusalem, conservation, nationalism, and heritage.

Michael Rice's bold and original work evokes the fascination and wonder of the most ancient period of Egypt's history, from c.5000 to 2000 BC. It draws on Jungian theory to explore the psychological forces that contributed to the nation's special character, and which also account for Egypt's continuing allure up to the present day. The author covers a huge range of topics, including formative influences in the political and social organisation and art of Egypt, the origins of kingship, the age of pyramids, the nature of Egypt's contact with the lands around the Arabian Gulf, and the earliest identifiable developments of the historic Egyptian personality. Wholly revised and updated in the light of the many discoveries made since its first publication, Egypt's Making is a scholarly yet readable and imaginative approach to this compelling ancient civilization.

The ancient history of Greece holds a great deal of interest to many, particularly to those whose culture and religion grew from early Greek civilisation. Originally published in 1913, Hall provides a thorough history of the origins of Ancient Greek civilisation as well as commenting on Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Babylon amongst others. This title will be of interest to students of Classics and Ancient History.

This book draws on ancient Egyptian inscriptions in order to theorize the relationship between accounting and order. It focuses especially on the performative power of accounting in producing and sustaining order in society. It explores how accounting intervened in various domains of the ancient Egyptian world: the cosmos; life on earth (offerings to the gods; taxation; transportation; redistribution for palace dependants; mining activities; work organization; baking and brewing; private estates and the household; and private transactions in semi-barter exchange); and the cult of the dead. The book emphasizes several possibilities through which accounting can be theorized over and above strands of theorizing that have already been explored in detail previously. These additional possibilities theorize accounting as a performative ritual; myth; a sign system; a signifier; a time ordering device; a spatial ordering device; violence; and as an archive and a cultural memory. Each of these themes are summarized with further suggestions as to how theorizing might be pursued in future research in the final chapter of the book. This book is of particular relevance to all accounting students and researchers concerned with theorize accounting and also with the relevance of history to the project of contemporary theorizing of accounting.

This fresh approach to the study of Islamization proposes an innovative conceptual framework that treats the subject as a particular case of cultural change. The aim of the volume is to make Islamization amenable to archaeological and historical analyses of changes in material conditions of life without forsaking the specific history of Islam. Islam and Islamization must be understood in their particular social context, but also in relation to the conditions that hold them together over large geographical and chronological expanses. Archaeologists and historians have considered Islamization from a range of different perspectives, from conversion to cultural change, though these studies have tended to be underpinned by a normativist conception of Islam. In contrast, Jose C. Carvajal Lopez takes a hermeneutical stance, wherein Islam is the result of exploration, and adopts a New Materialist theoretical analysis to explore Islamization and its impact on identities, communities and their material culture. The consequences for the study of Islamization are examined through examples that include some of the author's own experiences. This innovative take on Islamization is not exclusively interested in the spread of the religion or of the polity, and therefore it overcomes the theoretical limits imposed by the concepts of religious conversion and ideological imposition. This book will appeal to scholars interested in associating cultural and religious change and, in particular, those working on Islam, whether within or outside the discipline of archaeology.

In this volume, Niels Peter Lemche and Emanuel Pfoh present an anthology of seminal studies by Mario Liverani, a foremost scholar of the Ancient Near East. This collection contains 18 essays, 11 of which have originally been published in Italian and are now published in English for the first time. It represents an important contribution to Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies, exposing the innovative interpretations of Liverani on many historical and ideological aspects of ancient society. Topics range from the Amarna letters and the Ugaritic epic, to the 'origins' of Israel. Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel will be an invaluable resource for Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical scholars, as well as graduate and post-graduate students.

Violence and Gender in Ancient Egypt shifts the focus of gender studies in Egyptology to social phenomena rarely addressed through the lens of gender - war and violence, exploring the complex intersections of violence and gender in ancient Egypt. Building on current discussions in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, and on analysis of relevant historic texts, iconography, and archaeological remains by looking at possible gender patterns behind evidence of trauma, the book bridges the gap between modern understandings of gendered violence and its functioning in ancient Egypt. Areas explored include the following: differences in gendered aggression and violent acts between people and deities; sexual violence; the taking of men, women, and children as prisoners of war; and feminization of enemies. By examining ancient Egyptian texts and images with evidence for violence from different periods and contexts - private tombs, divine temples, royal stelae, papyri, and ostraca, ranging over 3,000 years of cultural history - Violence and Gender in Ancient Egypt highlights the complex intersection between gender and violence in ancient Egyptian culture. The book will appeal to scholars and students working in Egyptology, archaeology, history, anthropology, sociology, and gender studies.

Violence and Gender in Ancient Egypt shifts the focus of gender studies in Egyptology to social phenomena rarely addressed through the lens of gender - war and violence, exploring the complex intersections of violence and gender in ancient Egypt. Building on current discussions in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, and on analysis of relevant historic texts, iconography, and archaeological remains by looking at possible gender patterns behind evidence of trauma, the book bridges the gap between modern understandings of gendered violence and its functioning in ancient Egypt. Areas explored include the following: differences in gendered aggression and violent acts between people and deities; sexual violence; the taking of men, women, and children as prisoners of war; and feminization of enemies. By examining ancient Egyptian texts and images with evidence for violence from different periods and contexts - private tombs, divine temples, royal stelae, papyri, and ostraca, ranging over 3,000 years of cultural history - Violence and Gender in Ancient Egypt highlights the complex intersection between gender and violence in ancient Egyptian culture. The book will appeal to scholars and students working in Egyptology, archaeology, history, anthropology, sociology, and gender studies.

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor has lived in Jerusalem for 48 years, during which time he has taught graduate students its history and archaeology, and also compiled a bestselling archaeological guidebook for visitors. The current volume provides an initial survey of the history, archaeology and theology of Jerusalem, but the twelve articles that make up the body of the book deal with problems that the author feels have not been given a satisfactory solution. Thus Murphy-O'Connor discusses the precise location of a number of important buildings, i.e. the Temple, the Antonia and the Capitol and also treat of events in the life of Jesus that are located in Jerusalem; his dispute with the money-changers in the Temple, his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, his route from Pilate to Golgotha. The previously unpublished chapters dealing with the Christian Quarter are perhaps the most original. They describe the creation of the Christian Quarter in 1063 and define its limits relative to the present Old City. Its two most important buildings, the Holy Sepulchre and the great Hospital of the Knights of St John, are treated in great detail. The concluding chapter is a classified bibliography of sources for the study of Jerusalem. Thoughtfully illustrated with maps, photographs, and diagrams, this book is a mine of information for specialists working on Jerusalem, and for the interested reader with some prior knowledge of this fascinating and complex city.

This book follows the life story of Amenhotep III, one of the most important rulers of ancient Egypt, from his birth and into the afterlife. Amenhotep III ruled for thirty-eight years, from c.1391-1353 BC, during the apex of Egypt's international and artistic power. Arielle P. Kozloff situates Amenhotep in his time, chronicling not only his life but also the key political and military events that occurred during his lifetime and reign, as well as the evolution of religious rituals and the cult of the pharaoh. She further examines the art and culture of the court, including its palaces, villas, furnishings and fashions. Through the exploration of abundant evidence from the period, in the form of both textual and material culture, Kozloff richly re-creates all aspects of Egyptian civilization at the height of the Mediterranean Bronze Age.

This volume, published in honour of Egyptologist Professor Rosalie David OBE, presents the latest research on three of the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian civilisation: mummies, magic and medical practice. Drawing on recent archaeological fieldwork, new research on human remains, reassessments of ancient texts and modern experimental archaeology, it attempts to answer some of Egyptology's biggest questions: how did Tutankhamun die? How were the Pyramids built? How were mummies made? Leading experts in their fields combine traditional Egyptology and innovative scientific approaches to ancient material. The result is a cutting-edge overview of the discipline, showing how it has developed over the last forty years and yet how many of its big questions remain the same. -- .

This book focuses on conflict, diplomacy and religion as factors in the relationship between Rome and Sasanian Persia in the third and fourth centuries AD. During this period, military conflict between Rome and Sasanian Persia was at a level and depth not seen mostly during the Parthian period. At the same time, contact between the two empires increased markedly and contributed in part to an increased level of conflict. Edwell examines both war and peace - diplomacy, trade and religious contact - as the means through which these two powers competed, and by which they sought to gain, maintain and develop control of territories and peoples who were the source of dispute between the two empires. The volume also analyses internal factors in both empires that influenced conflict and competition between them, while the roles of regional powers such as the Armenians, Palmyrenes and Arabs in conflict and contact between the two "super powers" receive special attention. Using a broad array of sources, this book gives special attention to the numismatic evidence as it has tended to be overshadowed in modern studies by the literary and epigraphic sources. This is the first monograph in English to undertake an in-depth and critical analysis of competition and contact between Rome and the early Sasanians in the Near East in the third and fourth centuries AD using literary, archaeological, numismatic and epigraphic evidence, and one which includes the complete range of mechanisms by which the two powers competed. It is an invaluable study for anyone working on Rome, Persia and the wider Near East in Late Antiquity.

It is the quintessential nature of humans to communicate with each other. Good communications, bad communications, miscommunications, or no communications at all have driven everything from world events to the most mundane of interactions. At the broadest level, communication entails many registers and modes: verbal, iconographic, symbolic, oral, written, and performed. Relationships and identities - real and fictive - arise from communication, but how and why were they effected and how should they be understood? The chapters in this volume address some of the registers and modes of communication in the ancient Near East. Particular focuses are imperial and court communications between rulers and ruled, communications intended for a given community, and those between families and individuals. Topics cover a broad chronological period (3rd millennium BC to 1st millennium AD), and geographic range (Egypt to Israel and Mesopotamia) encapsulating the extraordinarily diverse plurality of human experience. This volume is deliberately interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, and its broad scope provides wide insights and a holistic understanding of communication applicable today. It is intended for both the scholar and readers with interests in ancient Near Eastern history and Biblical studies, communications (especially communications theory), and sociolinguistics.

Collected Studies CS1070 The present book collects 31 articles that Jacques van der Vliet, a leading scholar in the field of Coptic Studies (Leiden University / Radboud University, Nijmegen), has published since 1999 on Christian inscriptions from Egypt and Nubia. These inscriptions are dated between the third/fourth and the fourteenth centuries, and are often written in Coptic and/or Greek, once in Latin, and sometimes (partly) in Arabic, Syriac or Old Nubian. They include inscriptions on tomb stones, walls of religious buildings, tools, vessels, furniture, amulets and even texts on luxury garments. Whereas earlier scholars in the field of Coptic Studies often focused on either Coptic or Greek, Van der Vliet argues that inscriptions in different languages that appear in the same space or on the same kind of objects should be examined together. In addition, he aims to combine the information from documentary texts, archaeological remains and inscriptions, in order to reconstruct the economic, social and religious life of monastic or civil communities. He practiced this methodology in his studies on the Fayum, Wadi al-Natrun, Sohag, Western Thebes and the region of Aswan and Northern Nubia, which are all included in this book.

In the Ancient Near East, cutting off someone's head was a unique act, not comparable to other types of mutilation, and therefore charged with a special symbolic and communicative significance. This book examines representations of decapitation in both images and texts, particularly in the context of war, from a trans-chronological perspective that aims to shed light on some of the conditions, relationships and meanings of this specific act. The severed head is a "coveted object" for the many individuals who interact with it and determine its fate, and the act itself appears to take on the hallmarks of a ritual. Drawing mainly on the evidence from Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia between the third and first millennia BC, and with reference to examples from prehistory to the Neo-Assyrian Period, this fascinating study will be of interest not only to art historians, but to anyone interested in the dynamics of war in the ancient world.

Offers the latest research on the subject

Comprehensive overview of the entire Near East, including Egypt and ancient Israel, allowing students to work comparatively across cultures. New edition incorporates new insights from recent technological advances, and recent interest in subject territories and imperialism in the Near East. Incorporates archaeological and art historical evidence, encouraging students to engage with material culture as important evidence of the past. "Debating the evidence" section discusses controversial issues in Near Eastern studies, allowing students to engage with these important topics.

The main aim of this book is to reconstruct a philosophical context for the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, a late 5th century Greek study of hieroglyphic writing. In addition to reviewing and drawing on earlier approaches it explores the range of signs and meanings for which Horapollo is interested in giving explanations, whether there are characteristic types of explanations given, what conception of language in general and of hieroglyphic Egyptian in particular the explanations of the meanings of the glyphs presuppose, and what explicit indications there are of having been informed or influenced by philosophical theories of meaning, signs, and interpretation.

Comprehensive overview of the entire Near East, including Egypt and ancient Israel, allowing students to work comparatively across cultures. New edition incorporates new insights from recent technological advances, and recent interest in subject territories and imperialism in the Near East. Incorporates archaeological and art historical evidence, encouraging students to engage with material culture as important evidence of the past. "Debating the evidence" section discusses controversial issues in Near Eastern studies, allowing students to engage with these important topics.

Nearly two decades have passed since the last edition of Miroslav Verner's seminal The Pyramids. In that time, fresh explorations and new sophisticated technologies have contributed to ever more detailed and compelling discussions around Egypt's enigmatic and most celebrated of ancient monuments. A pyramid, as the posthumous residence of a king and the place of his eternal cult, was just a single, if dominant, part of a larger complex of structures with specific religious, economic, and administrative functions. The first royal pyramid in Egypt was built at the beginning of the Third Dynasty (ca. 2592-2544 BC) by Horus Netjerykhet, later called Djoser, while the last pyramid was the work of Ahmose I, the first king of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1539-1292 BC). This newly revised and updated edition of The Pyramids brings Verner's rich erudition and long years of site experience to bear on all the latest discoveries and archaeological and historical aspects of over 70 of Egypt's and Sudan's pyramids in the broader context of their more than one-thousand-year-long development. Lucidly written, with 300 illustrations, and filled with insights, this comprehensive study illuminates an era that is both millennia away and, thanks to the work of scientists like Verner, relevant today.

A fully updated and revised edition of a classic bestseller: the definitive guide to Tutankhamun and his tomb - what it contained, why, and what it means today. On 4 November 1922, Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter's long search in Egypt's Valley of the Kings drew to a triumphant close: Tutankhamun's tomb had been found. As news of the discovery spread, and as images of the breathtaking treasures began to circulate, this once-obscure pharaoh would capture the imagination of the entire world. A hundred years on, and both the fascination and the drama continue. Scientific research has pushed forward, and the results have been impressive: the tomb's ground-plan and setting are now fully remapped; CT-scanning and aDNA have begun to shed their unique light on Tutankhamun in life and in death; super-accurate recordings have been secured of the Burial Chamber's decorated walls; and we possess at last high-quality photography of Pharaoh's possessions. Our access to Carnarvon and Carter's extraordinary find is greater today than it has ever been, and from this fuller evidence comes one new realization among many - that both the tomb and its treasures had been intended for someone else. In this new edition of his landmark book Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves revisits Tutankhamun in the context of his time, the excavators in the context of theirs, and every aspect, old and new, of the tomb's discovery, archaeology, architecture and art. If what was discovered in 1922 had the ability to amaze, then what has been discovered since will simply astonish.