This book provides an innovative analysis of the conditions of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship in the light of the archaeology of production, linguistic analysis, visual representation and ethnographic research. During the past decades, the "imaginative" figure of ancient Egyptian material producers has moved from "workers" to "artisans" and, most recently, to "artists". In a search for a fuller understanding of the pragmatics of material production in past societies, and moving away from a series of modern preconceptions, this volume aims to analyse the mechanisms of material production in Egypt during the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BC), to approach the profile of ancient Egyptian craftsmen through their own words, images and artefacts, and to trace possible modes of circulation of ideas among craftsmen in material production. The studies in the volume address the mechanisms of ancient production in Middle Bronze Age Egypt, the circulation of ideas among craftsmen, and the profiles of the people involved, based on the material traces, including depictions and writings, the ancient craftsmen themselves left and produced.

This catalogue presents the ancient Egyptian footwear in the collection of the Coptic Museum in Cairo. The catalogue contains detailed descriptions and measurements, photographs and drawings. Each description of a footwear category is followed by short discussions, addressing topics such as typology and dating. In addition a fairly large corpus of comparative material is presented as well, none of which has been published before. The present work will form an important resource for future study. This catalogue is one of the results of the Nuffic Tailor Made Training for the curators of the Coptic Museum in Cairo, jointly organized by the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo and the American University in Cairo in close collaboration with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Coptic Museum Authorities and the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs.

'Ritual Failure' is a new concept in archaeology adopted from the discipline of anthropology. Resilient religious systems disappearing, strict believers and faithful practitioners not performing their rites, entire societies changing their customs: how does a religious ritual system transform, change or disappear, leaving only traces of its past glory? Do societies change and then their ritual? Or do customs change first, in turn provoking wider cultural shifts in society? Archaeology possesses the tools and methodologies to explore these questions over the long term; from the emergence of a system, to its peak, and then its decay and disappearance, and in relation to wider social and chronological developments. The collected papers in this book introduce the concept of 'ritual failure' to archaeology. The analysis explores ways in which ritual may have been instrumental in sustaining cultural continuity during demanding social conditions, or how its functionality might have failed - resulting in discontinuity, change or collapse. The collected papers draw attention to those turbulent social times of change for which ritual practices are a sensitive indicator within the archaeological record. The book reviews archaeological evidence and theoretical approaches, and suggests models which could explain socio-cultural change through ritual failure. The concept of 'ritual failure' is also often used to better understand other themes, such as identity and wider social, economic and political transformations, shedding light on the social conditions that forced or introduced change. This book will engage those interested in ritual theory and practices, but will also appeal to those interested in exploring new avenues to understanding cultural change. From transformations in the use of ritual objects to the risks inherent in practicing ritual, from ritual continuity in customs to sudden and profound change, from the Neolithic Near East to Roman Europe and Iron Age Africa, this book explores what happens when ritual fails. With a foreword by Timothy Insoll and a discussion by Richard Bradley.

Papyrus Leiden I 343 + 345 is one of the most extraordinary manuscripts providing a deeper insight into magic and medicine in Ancient Egypt. The main part of the papyrus deals with the ancient Near Eastern disease demon Samanu, who is well known from Sumerian and Akkadian incantations and medical texts. In addition, a broad range of other conjurations and spells against any pain and feet swelling are included. The papyrus also contains two curious spells dealing with 'falling water from the sky'. Eight out of fourteen incantations against the demon Samanu were incorporated twice in this papyrus. The texts are not only presented as parallel text edition but also with photographs of the papyrus. This re-edition of papyrus Leiden I 343 + 345 is a revised transliteration, transcription, translation and up-to-date commentary.

This book provides an overview of the sites of Mycenaean pottery finds in Egypt and Nubia. Data from thirty-six sites in Egypt and twelve sites in Nubia are presented. The context of the vessels and sherds dates from the reign of Akhenaten (18th Dynasty) to that of Ramesses VI (20th Dynasty). The imported vessels were found in the capital cities as well as in fortresses, other cities and tombs. Stirrup jars and flasks came to light frequently. Copies of Mycenaean stirrup jars made from clay, faience and stone were also found. The oldest sherd of an imitation vessel was found in Amarna; hence, the Mycenaean vessel shape (stirrup jar prevailing) was copied outside of Mycenaean Greece in the 18th Dynasty and filled with local liquids-possibly oil-and traded with Egypt. Egyptians not only imported vessels from the Levant but also produced imitation vessels themselves. Apparently, these vessels circulated only within Egypt. Chemical analyses of sherds from different sites reveal that the vessels found in 18th Dynasty contexts were made on the Mycenaean mainland. During the Ramesside period (19th-20th Dynasty) trading contacts with Mycenaean Greece shifted to Cyprus, where high quality Mycenaean pottery was produced.

'Well, as for Nineveh, skipper, it was wiped out long ago. There's not a trace of it left, and one can't even guess where it was' (Lucian, 2nd century AD). Nineveh, the once-flourishing capital of the Assyrian Empire, has fascinated writers, travellers and historians alike since its complete annihilation by allied forces in 612 BC. It was said to have been a great and populous city with 90-km walls, stunning palaces and colossal statues of pure gold. Since 1842 archaeologists have been investigating the ruins of Nineveh, which are located on the eastern banks of the river Tigris, near the modern Iraqi city of Mosul. The hundreds of thousands of objects that have been collected tell an intriguing story of life and death in a remarkable Mesopotamian city. The edited volume Nineveh, the Great City contains more than 65 articles by international specialists, providing the reader with a detailed and thorough study of the site of Nineveh. It describes the history of the city, the excavations and the dispersed material culture that can today be appreciated in more than 100 museums and institutes around the world. Special attention is paid to the endangered heritage of Nineveh, which recently faced destruction for the second time in its history. This lavishly illustrated volume is intended to appeal to readers interested in culture and heritage, as well as to students and professional academics.

The eleventh International Congress of Egyptologists took place at the Florence Egyptian Museum (Museo Egizio Firenze), Italy from 23- 30 August 2015. The conference was organised by the International Association of Egyptologists (IAE), the Soprintendenza Archeologia della Toscana (Ministero dei Beni e delle Attivita Culturali e del Turismo), CAMNES (Center for Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies), the University of Florence (SAGAS department), and with the support of the Istituto Lorenzo de' Medici. From animal mummies to Ancient Egyptian vocabulary to Imperial Cult Temples: of intriguing topics there was no shortage. The proceedings volume will present approximately 130 peer-reviewed papers alongside a selection of posters.

This volume illustrates lamps from the Byzantine period excavated in the Holy Land and demonstrates the extent of their development since the first enclosing/capturing of light (fire) within a portable man-made vessel. Lamps, which held important material and religious functions during daily life and the afterlife, played a large role in conveying art and cultural and political messages through the patterns chosen to decorate them. These cultural, or even more their religious affinities, were chosen to be delivered on lamps (not on other vessels) more than ever during the Byzantine period; these small portable objects were used to 'promote' beliefs like the 'press' of today. Each cultural group marked the artifacts / lamps with its symbols, proverbs from the Old and New Testaments, and this process throws light on the deep rivalry between them in this corner of the ancient world. The great variety of lamps dealt with in this volume, arranged according to their various regions of origin, emphasizes their diversity, and probably local workshop manufacture, and stands in contrast to such a small country without any physical geographic barriers to cross, only mental ones (and where one basket of lamps could satisfy the full needs of the local population). The lamps of the Byzantine period reflect the era and the struggle in the cradle of the formation of the four leading faiths and cultures: Judaism (the oldest), Samaritanism (derived from the Jewish faith), newly-born Christianity - all three successors to the existing former pagan culture - and the last, Islam, standing on a new threshold. Unlike during the former Greek and Roman periods of rule, the land of Israel during the Byzantine period did not really have a central government or authority. The variety of the oil lamps, their order and place of appearance during the Byzantine period can be described as a 'symphony played by a self-conducted orchestra, where new soloists rise and add a different motet, creating stormy music that expresses the rhythm of the era'. This volume, like the author's earlier books on this subject, is intended to create a basis for further study and evaluation of the endless aspects that lamps bring to light and which are beyond the capacity of any single scholar.

For the Gods are the opening words or incipit of the first inscribed votive artefacts dedicated to the principal deities of the Sumerian pantheon. They commemorate the construction or renovation of cities, temples, rural sanctuaries, border steles, in sum all the symbolically charged features of archaic states belonging thus metaphorically to supernatural tutelary overlords. Girsu (present-day Tello) is one of the earliest known cities of the world together with Uruk, Eridu, and Ur, and was considered to be in the 3rd Millennium the sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic god Ningirsu who fought with the demons of the Kur (Mountain) and thus made possible the introduction of irrigation and agriculture in Sumer. Girsu was the sacred metropolis and central pole of a city-state that lay in the Southeasternmost part of the Mesopotamian floodplain. The pioneering explorations carried out between 1877 and 1933 at Tello and the early decipherment of the Girsu cuneiform tablets were ground-breaking because they revealed the principal catalytic elements of the Sumerian takeoff - that is, a multiplicity and coalescence of major innovations, such as the appearance of a city- countryside continuum, the emergence of literacy, of bronze manufacture, and the development of monumental art and architecture. Because of the richness of information related in particular to the city's spatial organization and geographical setting, and thanks to the availability of recently declassified Cold War space imagery and especially the possibility to launch new explorations in Southern Iraq, Girsu stands out as a primary locale for re-analyzing through an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological and textual evidence the origins of the Sumerian city-state.

'Leatherwork from Elephantine' describes, illustrates and analyses the finds from the excavations at Elephantine island (Aswan, Egypt) that are conducted by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Architectural and Archaeological Research on Ancient Egypt (SI). The majority of the finds are dated to periods well after the pharaonic era (4th century AD onwards), save for a few finds from the New Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom. The majority of finds are sandals and shoes. Most important for leatherwork/footwear studies, however, is the footwear from the Persian layers (6th-5th c. BC), which is distinctly different from ancient Egyptian leatherwork. Ample attention will be given to this important group.

The technological capabilities of the ancient world have long fascinated scholars and the general public alike, though scholarly debate has often seen material culture not as the development of technology, but as a tool for defining chronology and delineating the level of interactions of neighbouring societies. These fourteen papers, arising from a conference held in Oxford in September 2000, take the approach that technology plays a vital role in past socio-economic systems. They cover the Near East and associated areas, including Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia and Egypt from the end of the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age (1650-1150 BC), a period when many technological innovations appear for the first time.

The Muristan is situated in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem and was a prime property in medieval times with numerous churches, a hospice, and a large hospital complex. This monograph contains fifteen chapters written by leading scholars from around the world dealing with the archaeological and historical aspects of the Muristan from the Iron Age through to Ottoman times. A number of chapters also address its immediate urban surroundings, notably the complex of structures associated with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the north and the Church of St John the Baptist to the south-west. Key chapters in this monograph are dedicated to the history of the Church of the Redeemer and on its underlying archaeological remains. Many of the chapters are based on research that was originally presented at an international workshop held in Jerusalem in 2014.

Collections management practice is an often ignored aspect of archaeological research and salvage activities in many Middle Eastern countries, yet literally thousands of artefacts are recovered every year with no real strategies for managing them sustainably into the future. In this guide, archaeologist Dianne Fitzpatrick sees archaeological collections management not in terms of a last-ditch effort to solve on-site storage crises and preservation problems at the end of a project, but as a means of integrating achievable good-practice strategies into research designs and site management plans from the start, or for that matter, at any time that assist project directors and local Antiquities Directorates. Strategies designed to protect and preserve ensure the cultural significance and research potential of artefacts is maintained throughout the archaeological process and encourages those creating, managing and preserving archaeological collections to work toward the same goals. Merging together conservation-led principles with current on-site practice in a practical manner, Managing Archaeological Collections in Middle Eastern Countries aims to be a good practice standard or checklist.

The Seventh annual Current Research in Egyptology Symposium (CRE 2006) was held on 6-8 April 2006, at the University of Oxford, and brought together graduate and postgraduate students of Egyptology from institutions world-wide. A total of 44 students presented their new and on-going research on a variety of topics including archaeology, art and architecture, history and society, literature and language, religion, museum studies, scientific analysis, history of Egyptology and 'egyptomania, ' spanning the entire period of Egyptian history from Predynastic to Coptic times. The papers published here cover the same wide range of research areas and multi-disciplinary approaches.

The Eighth Annual Current Research in Egyptology Symposium (CRE 2007) was held at Swansea University on the 19th-21st April. The conference brought together graduate and postgraduate students of Egyptology from ten different countries, contributing to a total of 40 presentations. The range of topics included art and architecture, archaeology, literature and language, history and society as well as scientific analysis spanning the entire epoch of Egyptian history from the Predynastic to the Coptic era. The papers presented in the following volume represent a diverse range of topics and multidisciplinary approaches.

The contributions to this volume address the archaeology and history of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. Bringing together papers presented at a conference in Athens in December 2012 as a part of the Syrian-Norwegian research project Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan Trade between Orient and Occident, it reflects international research and fieldwork that was going on until the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.

This book is the result of more than a dozen years of research in the field of the hitherto unstudied medieval settlement pattern of the Syrian coastal region in the 12th and 13th centuries. The conclusions presented in this work were reached with the combined use of several source types including medieval documents, travellers' accounts, former research, map evidence, toponymy, archive and satellite photographs, oral sources and extensive archaeological field surveys accompanied by documentation between the years 2000 and 2015. After enumerating the historical events that influenced the settlement pattern of the coast, its centres, including the towns and castles (with special regard to the smaller fortifications of the countryside that seem to have been a Frankish introduction to the area) are analysed. Following the detailed examination of the written sources and the architectural material preserved at these lesser sites, a closer look at the villages and their environment aims to draw a general picture on the density of settlements and their basic characteristics. The book also discusses communication lines and provides an assessment of the medieval population that inhabited the region in the 12th and 13th centuries. The text is accompanied by a collection of maps, plan drawings, tables and illustrations on a selected number of sites visited during the field surveys.

This book seeks to explore the issues of production, use and importance of flint tools in the Archaic Period, known also as the Early Dynastic Period, and the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the epoch immediately following the unification of pre-state organisms of Upper and Lower Egypt into one political body. This volume provides an in-depth study of tools made of flint, which unceasingly fulfilled a major role in the period being considered. Flint, occurring in a number of varieties, substantially outnumbers other raw materials used for manufacturing tools, to wit: chalcedony, obsidian, quartzite, carnelian or rock crystal, all found in small or even minute amounts, which attests to their minor role in the first periods of Egyptian history. Notwithstanding a growing number of implements made of copper, then bronze, flint tools constituted an essential element of a broad-based culture, and not only material culture, in the Archaic Period, the Old Kingdom and beyond.

Sepphoris was an important Galilean site from Hellenistic to early Islamic times. This multicultural city is described by Flavius Josephus as the “ornament of all Galilee,” and Rabbi Judah the Prince (ha-Nasi) codified the Mishnah there around 200 CE. The Duke University excavations of the 1980s and 1990s uncovered a large corpus of clay oil lamps in the domestic area of the western summit, and this volume presents these vessels. Richly illustrated with photos and drawings, it describes the various shape-types and includes a detailed catalog of 219 lamps. The volume also explores the origins of the Sepphoris lamps and establishes patterns of their trade, transport, and sale in the lower city’s marketplace. A unique contribution is the use of a combined petrographic and direct current plasma-optical emission spectrometric (dcp-oes) analysis of selected lamp fabrics from sites in Israel and Jordan. This process provided valuable information, indicating that lamps found in Sepphoris came from Judea, the Decapolis, and even Greece, suggesting an urban community fully engaged with other regional centers. Lamp decorations also provide information about the cosmopolitan culture of Sepphoris in antiquity. Discus lamps with erotic scenes and mythological characters suggest Greco-Roman influences, and menorahs portrayed on lamps indicate a vibrant Jewish identity.

The history of archaeology is generally told as the making of a secular discipline. In nineteenth-century Britain, however, archaeology was enmeshed with questions of biblical authority and so with religious as well as narrowly scholarly concerns. In unearthing the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, travellers, archaeologists and their popularisers transformed thinking on the truth of Christianity and its place in modern cities. This happened at a time when anxieties over the unprecedented rate of urbanisation in Britain coincided with critical challenges to biblical truth. In this context, cities from Jerusalem to Rome became contested models for the adaptation of Christianity to modern urban life. Using sites from across the biblical world, this book evokes the appeal of the ancient city to diverse groups of British Protestants in their arguments with one another and with their secular and Catholic rivals about the vitality of their faith in urban Britain.

This book is the first economic history of ancient Egypt covering the entire pharaonic period, 3000-30 BCE, and employing a New Institutional Economics approach. It argues that the ancient Egyptian state encouraged an increasingly widespread and sophisticated use of writing through time, primarily in order to better document and more efficiently exact taxes for redistribution. The increased use of writing, however, also resulted in increased documentation and enforcement of private property titles and transfers, gradually lowering their transaction costs relative to redistribution. The book also argues that the increasing use of silver as a unified measure of value, medium of exchange, and store of wealth also lowered transaction costs for high value exchanges. The increasing use of silver in turn allowed the state to exact transfer taxes in silver, providing it with an economic incentive to further document and enforce private property titles and transfers.

Literary sources suggest that Mt. Carmel was a sacred site for the pagans, for the veneration and worship of Ba'al, as practiced there since the 9th century BCE through the erection of altars and temples/shrines in his honour. According to Iamblichus, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, on his way to Egypt, visited the mountain in the second half of the 6th century BCE and sought solitude in a temple, or perhaps in a temenos. In the days of the Achaemenid king of Persia Darius I (521-486 BCE), the mountain seems to have been sacred to Zeus. Artistic and epigraphic evidence suggest that Elijah's Cave, on the western slope of Mt. Carmel, had been used as a pagan cultic place, possibly a shrine, devoted to Ba'al Carmel (identified with Zeus/Jupiter) as well as to Pan and Eros as secondary deities. The visual representation of the cult statue (idol) of Ba'al Carmel, a libation vessel (kylix?) and the presumed figure of the priest or, alternatively, the altar within the aedicula, strengthen the assumption that the Cave was used in the Roman period, and perhaps even earlier. In addition, one of the Greek inscriptions, dated to the Roman period, indicates the sacred nature of the Cave and the prohibition of its profanation. When Elijah's Cave ceased to be used for pagan worship it continued to be regarded as a holy site and was dedicated to Prophet Elijah, presumably in the Early Byzantine period. Following the tradition linking Elijah (so-called el-Khader) with Mt. Carmel, it became sacred to the Prophet and was used by supplicants (Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze) to Elijah for aid, healing and salvation, a tradition that still persists to this day. There are no literary or historical sources which are recording the existence of Elijah's Cave on Mt. Carmel prior to the 12th century. The earliest written testimony is that of the laconic description of the Russian Abbot Daniel, who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1106-1107, followed by Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the Land of Israel in 1165. Any earlier written material must have been lost over time, since it is unlikely that the Cave and its surroundings were entirely ignored before the 12th century.

Recent excavations on the border between Jordan and Syria have uncovered ancient building ruins that provide interesting materials revealing the domestic and working lives of the people who settled within the valley of Tall al Fukhar in Wadi ash-Shallale. The volume provides a detailed and thorough examination of the excavations conducted between 1990 and 2002. The Scandinavian expedition, located on a 375m natural spur, revealed a rare quantity of pottery, antiques and ancient building structures that provided archaeologists with an insight into the social, economic and material developments that emerged from the Early Bronze Age 3600 BC. Tall al-Fukhar commemorates centuries of historical artefacts that document the alternations mankind made to improve living standards, constructing modern day life as we know it.

The story of the duel of David and Goliath, the Philistine champion, is narrated in the Bible in several versions. While its symbolic importance in Judaism and later in Christianity gradually came to represent the battle between good and evil, true faith and paganism, attempts were made since ancient times to solve its ambiguities. In modern research, the story arouses many disputes. There is controversy about the degree of realism and fantasy in it and there is also no agreement as to the time it was composed. Some claim that this was close to the time when the event occurred at the beginning of the monarchy period. Others postpone the time of its writing to the end of the Judaean monarchy and even to Second Temple times by pointing out its similarities to Greek literature and the characteristics of Goliath as an Aegean hoplite. The purpose of the study is not only to shed light on the enigmas about the protagonists and the time of the story, but also to understand why the importance of its message did not lessen and in what circumstances the interest in it was prolonged. The study employs a textual analysis (literary and philological) of the story together with its comparison to Greek, Egyptian and Mesopotamian literary sources, historical analysis, and also a comparative analysis with archaeological findings. It examines sources which until now have not been included in research and suggests a new date, place and motive for the compilation of the duel story.