The Sasanian Empire (third-seventh centuries) was one of the largest empires of antiquity, stretching from Mesopotamia to modern Pakistan and from Central Asia to the Arabian Peninsula. This mega-empire withstood powerful opponents in the steppe and expanded further in Late Antiquity, whilst the Roman world shrunk in size. Recent research has revealed the reasons for this success, notably population growth in some territories, economic prosperity and urban development, made possible through investment in agriculture and military infrastructure on a scale unparalleled in the late antique world. This volume explores the empire's relations with its neighbours and key phenomena which contributed to its wealth and power, from the empire's armed forces to agriculture, trade and treatment of minorities. The latest discoveries, notably major urban foundations, fortifications and irrigations systems, feature prominently. An empire whose military might and urban culture rivalled Rome and foreshadowed the caliphate will be of interest to scholars of the Roman and Islamic world.

Egyptian Prehistory Monographs 5

This book presents the comprehensive report of the excavations of the Belgian Middle Egypt Prehistoric Project at the site of Taramsa 1, near Qena in Upper Egypt. Human groups exploited chert cobbles at this locale throughout the entire Middle Stone Age.

Having worked on projects around the world, strengthening and restoring historically significant structures from Windsor Castle to the parliament buildings in Canada, Peter James brings insight to the structural engineering of ancient Egypt. After fourteen years working on the historic buildings and temples of Egypt, and most recently the world's oldest pyramid, he now presents some of the more common theories surrounding the `collapsing' pyramid - along with new and innovative projections on the construction of the pyramids and the restoration of some of Cairo's most monumental structures from the brink of ruin. The decoding of historic construction from a builder's perspective is examined and explained - at times against many existing theories - and the book provides a new outlook on long-held assumptions, to embrace modern theories in a bid to preserve the past.

The Safaitic rock art of the North Arabian basalt desert is a unique and understudied material, one of the few surviving traces of the elusive herding societies that inhabited this region in antiquity. Yet little is known about this rock art and its role in the desert societies. Why did these peoples make carvings in the desert and what was the significance of this cultural practice? What can the rock art tell us about the relationship between the nomads and their desert landscape? This book investigates these questions through a comprehensive study of over 4500 petroglyphs from the Jebel Qurma region of the Black Desert in north-eastern Jordan. It explores the content of the rock art, how it was produced and consumed by its makers and audience, and its relationship with the landscape. This is the first-ever systematic study of the Safaitic petroglyphs from the Black Desert and it is unique for the study of Arabian rock art. It demonstrates the value of a material approach to rock art and the unique insights that rock art can provide into the relationship between nomadic herders and the wild and domestic landscape.

What do the pyramids of Egypt really represent? What could have driven so many to so great, and often so dangerous, an effort? Was the motivation religious or practical?

Richly illustrated with more than 300 photographs and drawings, Sticks, Stones, and Shadows presents an entirely original approach to the subject of pyramid building. Unlike other books discussing these majestic structures, this book reveals the connection between devices that served both a practical need for survival and a spiritual belief in gods and goddesses. Few have closely examined Egyptian technologies and techniques from the origins of pyramid development to the step-by-step details of how the ground was leveled, how the site was oriented, and how the stone was raised and placed to meet at a distant point in the sky.

Nevertheless, this is much more than a how-to-do-it book. Martin Isler also asks and answers questions virtually ignored for the last century. He discloses, for example, the ancient use of shadows--now denigrated to the ornamental back-yard sundial--but once an important tool for telling the height of an object, geographical directions, the seasons of the year, and the time of day. Isler also reinterprets the ancient "stretching of the cord" ceremony, which once was thought to have only religious significance but here is shown as the means of establishing the sides of a pyramid.

A catalogue of the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period Egyptian stelae in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. Many of them are lost in WWII. The publication uses old archive photographs. Includes full translations. Presented as 153 loose pages and a 28-page booklet, all elegantly held in a fine paper wrapping.

Hieroglyphs were far more than a language. They were an omnipresent and all-powerful force in communicating the messages of ancient Egyptian culture for over three thousand years; used as monumental art, as a means of identifying Egyptianness, and for rarefied communication with the gods. In this exciting new study, Penelope Wilson explores the cultural significance of the script with an emphasis on previously neglected areas such as cryptography, the continuing decipherment into modern times, and examines the powerful fascination hieroglyphs still hold for us today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This authoritative English translation of the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts is an essential resource for all Egyptologists. The new edition reprints Faulkner's whole work in one volume. Filling the gap between the Pyramid Texts and the New Kingdom Book of the Dead, these writings were intended to supply the deceased with the speeches he would need to achieve a secure and important position in the next world. As such they supply valuable insights into Egyptian beliefs and mortuary practices. Concise textual notes are kept to a minimum, allowing the character of the texts to be experienced as a whole. Indexes cover divinities, localities, celestial bodies, selected Egyptian words in translation and also the parts of boats and sailing gear that figure prominently in some spells.

This volume serves as a catalog and handbook for the description for Pan-Grave ceramics, and that considers the Pan-Grave tradition and its ceramic production within the broader socio-cultural framework of Ancient Egypt and Nubia during the mid-Second Millennium BC.

This book casts light on a much neglected phase of the UNESCO world heritage site of Palmyra, namely the period between the fall of the Palmyrene 'Empire' (AD 272) and the end of the Umayyad dominion (AD 750). The goal of the book is to fill a substantial hole in modern scholarship - the late antique and early Islamic history of the city still has to be written. In late antiquity Palmyra remained a thriving provincial city whose existence was assured by its newly acquired role of stronghold along the eastern frontier. Palmyra maintained a prominent religious role as one of the earliest bishoprics in central Syria and in early Islam as the political centre of the powerful Banu Kalb tribe. Post-Roman Palmyra, city and setting, provide the focus of this book. Analysis and publication of evidence for post-Roman housing enables a study of the city's urban life, including the private residential buildings in the sanctuary of Ba'alshamin. A systematic survey is presented of the archaeological and literary evidence for the religious life of the city in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. The city's defences provide another focus. After a discussion of the garrison quartered in Palmyra, Diocletian's military fortress and the city walls are investigated, with photographic and archaeological evidence used to discuss chronology and building techniques. The book concludes with a synthetic account of archaeological and written material, providing a comprehensive history of the settlement from its origins to the fall of Marwan II in 750 AD.

The definitive book on the archaeology of Palestine from Alexander the Great's conquest to Constantine's reign Drawing on the most recent, groundbreaking archaeological research, Eric M. Meyers and Mark A. Chancey re-narrate the history of ancient Palestine in this richly illustrated and expertly integrated book. Spanning from the conquest of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE until the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century CE, they synthesize archaeological evidence with ancient literary sources (including the Bible) to offer a sustained overview of the tumultuous intellectual and religious changes that impacted world history during the Greco-Roman period. The authors demonstrate how the transformation of the ancient Near East under the influence of the Greeks and then the Romans led to foundational changes in both the material and intellectual worlds of the Levant. Palestine's subjection to Hellenistic kingdoms, its rule by the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties, the two disastrous Jewish revolts against Rome, and its full incorporation into the Roman Empire provide a background for the emergence of Christianity. The authors observe in the archaeological record how Judaism and Christianity were virtually undistinguishable for centuries, until the rise of imperial Christianity with Emperor Constantine. The only book-length overview available that focuses on the archaeology of Palestine in this period, this comprehensive and powerfully illuminating work sheds new light on the lands of the Bible.

The round and octagonal churches of Jerusalem were the earliest of their kind. Powerful, monumental structures, recalling imperial mausolea and temples, they enshrined the holiest sites of Christianity. Constantine himself ordered the building of the first ones immediately after the council of Nicaea (325), his main objective being the authentication of Jesus's existence in Jerusalem in accordance with the council's resolutions, but the sites he chose in Palestine also obliterated reminiscences of Jewish or Pagan domination. Holy Sites Encircled demonstrates that all four concentric churches of Jerusalem encircled new holy sites exclusively relating to the corporeal existence of Jesus or Mary, and that they were self-contained, and apse-less because the liturgy, including the Mass, was performed from the venerated centre. Offering intimate concentric spaces, as well as perpetual processions around these sites, they promoted the development of new feasts, shaping the city's liturgy and that of the whole Christian world. They were found especially suitable to compete with former religious landmarks and therefore many of their descendants outside Jerusalem were cathedrals. This volume begins with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which replaced a pagan temple in Jerusalem city centre, and concludes with the Dome of the Rock, a unique Muslim structure, which was built by the Umayyads on the very site of the ruined Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah, using the concentric architecture of Jerusalem to establish their new authority. Illustrating how architectural form links together culture, politics, and society it explores the perceptions and architectural models that shaped these unusual churches and their impact, in both ideas and design, on future architecture.

This volume is devoted to the publication of forty five Coptic documents written on papyri and boards, found in the ruins of houses at Kellis, the Roman predecessor of the village of Ismant el-Kharab in the Dakhleh Oasis. The documents date from the fourth century AD and relate to the domestic life of the people over at least two generations. Most of the documents are personal letters, and many of them have a Manichaean content reflecting the beliefs of the writers; there are also several business accounts. The documents are transcribed and translated with commentary and there is an introduction setting them in context, and discussing the people who wrote them. A second volume of similar documents is in preparation.

Sais was Egypt's capital in the 26th Dynasty, but it also had an earlier history, unknown before the EES/Durham University/SCA work at the site. This volume is the final excavation report for work carried out in the Northern Enclosure area of the site at Kom Rebwa, funded by the British Academy through the Egypt Exploration Society and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Excavations between 2000 and 2004 uncovered levels dating between the 20th Dynasty and the Third Intermediate Period. The best preserved levels consisted of part of a house, whose roof had collapsed and an earlier kiln, used for firing faience beads as well as pottery. Lower, buried layers also included Old Kingdom material, hinting at the earlier history of the area. The report contains invaluable information about everyday rural life in the Delta, with anlayses of the different layers, the pottery and the small finds, as well as plant remains and animal bones.

This work explores the theological defences conceived by the Egyptians at Thonis-Heracleion to guard the Canopic gate, which in the Saite period was the main entrance to the port of Thonis-Heracleion, the entry-point to Egypt for foreign vessels. The divine forces, including Khonsu-Thoth and Neith, were deployed alongside military forces that were also located at the Canopic gate. The temple to Khonsu-Thoth, Lord of the Gezirah, was dedicated by Amasis, and also served to legitimate the power of the Saite kings. This study brings together a range of material evidence for these theological defences.

In the half-century between 1831 and 1881 three massive obelisks left Egypt for new lands. Prior to these journeys, the last large obelisk moved was the Vatican obelisk in 1586 - one of the great engineering achievements of the Renaissance. Roman emperors moved more than a dozen, but left no records of how they did it. The nineteenth-century engineers entrusted with transporting the obelisks across oceans had to invent new methods, and they were far from certain that they would work. As the three obelisks, bound for Paris, London and New York, sailed towards their new homes, the world held its breath. Newspapers reported the obelisks' daily progress, complete with dramatic illustrations of the heroic deeds of the engineers and crews struggling under nearly impossible conditions. When the obelisks finally arrived safely in their new homes, bands played Cleopatra's Needle Waltz and silver obelisk pencils dangled from fashionable ladies' necks. This turbulent era, caught up in obelisk mania, is recreated by Bob Brier in all its glory. Amid astounding tales of engineering dexterity and naval endurance, the individuals involved in transporting the obelisks and receiving them in their future homes are brought to life through their letters and diaries, newspaper articles and illustrations. Written by a renowned Egyptologist and author, this compelling book will fascinate all those interested in Egypt, its iconic monuments and the history of great endeavour.

The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later. This, the third of a three-volume history of Egyptology, follows the progress of the discipline from the trauma of the First World War, through the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, and into Egyptology's new horizons at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Wonderful Things affirms that the history of ancient Egypt has proved continually fascinating, but it also demonstrates that the history of Egyptology is no less so. Only by understanding how Egyptology has developed can we truly understand the Egyptian past.

The ancient Egyptians were firmly convinced of the importance of magic, which was both a source of supernatural wisdom and a means of affecting one's own fate. The gods themselves used it for creating the world, granting mankind magical powers as an aid to the struggle for existence. Magic formed a link between human beings, gods, and the dead. Magicians were the indispensable guardians of the god-given cosmic order, learned scholars who were always searching for the Magic Book of Thoth, which could explain the wonders of nature. Egyptian Magic, illustrated with wonderful and mysterious objects from European museum collections, describes how Egyptian sorcerers used their craft to protect the weakest members of society, to support the gods in their fight against evil, and to imbue the dead with immortality, and explores the arcane systems and traditions of the occult that governed this well-organized universe of ancient Egypt.

This book brings together our present-day knowledge about textile terminology in the Akkadian language of the first-millennium BC. In fact, the progress in the study of the Assyrian dialect and its grammar and lexicon has shown the increasing importance of studying the language as well as cataloging and analysing the terminology of material culture in the documentation of the first world empire. The book analyses the terms for raw materials, textile procedures, and textile end products consumed in first-millennium BC Assyria. In addition, a new edition of a number of written records from Neo-Assyrian administrative archives completes the work. The book also contains a number of tables, a glossary with all the discussed terms, and a catalogue of illustrations. In light of the recent development of textile research in ancient languages, the book is aimed at providing scholars of Ancient Near Eastern studies and ancient textile studies with a comprehensive work on the Assyrian textiles.

The story of copper and the role it has played since the dawn of metallurgy more than 7,000 years ago is a remarkable, at times breathtaking, often inspiring tale of evolution and innovation; it imparts some of the greatest technological achievements of man and his persistent striving towards efficacy in the transformation of stone into metal. The 37 chapters of this volume, dedicated to the memory of Beno Rothenberg, present a variety of new studies related to copper in antiquity, with case studies spanning from the British Isles to Oman, Cyprus, and Greece. Special emphasis is given to Timna and other copper ore districts of the Arabah Valley, which have been subjected to a surgeof research in recent years. This new research is a direct continuation of Rothenberg's pioneering work at Timna, and similarly takes advantage of the extraordinary preservation of archaeological sites there to shed new light on copper production technologies and the societies behind them. Rothenberg's collaborative work at Timna during the second half of the 20th century was an important milestone in the foundation of the research discipline of archaeometallurgy, the study of metal and metal production in antiquity. The present volume, the work of 66 scholars, reflects the current prosperity of this discipline in its broadest sense, with contributions that reach beyond technological reconstructions and analytical reports, including studies on metalworkers' diet and habitation and the metal trade. In this, the book aptly emphasizes Rothenberg's impact, as his research on ancient copper was always part of a comprehensive search for a better understanding of past societies and historical processes.

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 book presents the first detailed study of Tebtunis, a village in Egypt within the Roman Empire, in the first century AD. It is founded on the archive material of the local notarial office, or grapheion, which was run by a man named Kronion for most of the mid-first century. The archive, unparalleled in antiquity, includes over two hundred documents written on papyrus which attest a wide range of transactions made by the villagers over defined periods of time, in particular the years AD 42 and 45-7 under the reign of the emperor Claudius. This evidence provides a unique insight into various aspects of village life: the level of participation in the written contractual economy; the socio-economic stratification of the village, including the position of women, slaves, priests, and the role of the elite; the functions of associations; the types and importance of agriculture; and non-agricultural activities. This multitude of data reveals a highly diversified village economy, a large involvement in written transactions among all the strata of the population, and a rural society living mostly above subsistence level. Tebtunis provides a model of village society that can be used to understand the majority of the population within the Roman Empire who lived outside cities in the Mediterranean, particularly in the other eastern and more Hellenized provinces.

In the long tradition of the archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean bodies have held a prominent role in the form of figurines, frescos, or skeletal remains, and have even been responsible for sparking captivating portrayals of the Mother-Goddess cult, the elegant women of Minoan Crete or the deeds of heroic men. Growing literature on the archaeology and anthropology of the body has raised awareness about the dynamic and multifaceted role of the body in experiencing the world and in the construction, performance and negotiation of social identity. In these 28 thematically arranged papers, specialists in the archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean confront the perceived invisibility of past bodies and ask new research questions. Contributors discuss new and old evidence; they examine how bodies intersect with the material world, and explore the role of body-situated experiences in creating distinct social and other identities. Papers range chronologically from the Palaeolithic to the Early Iron Age and cover the geographical regions of the Aegean, Cyprus and the Near East. They highlight the new possibilities that emerge for the interpretation of the prehistoric eastern Mediterranean through a combined use of body-focused methodological and theoretical perspectives that are nevertheless grounded in the archaeological record.

Public interest in biblical archaeology is at an all-time high, as television documentaries pull in millions of viewers to watch shows on the Exodus, the Ark of the Covenant, and the so-called Lost Tomb of Jesus. Important discoveries with relevance to the Bible are made virtually every year--during 2007 and 2008 alone researchers announced at least seven major discoveries in Israel, five of them in or near Jerusalem. Biblical Archaeology offers a passport into this fascinating realm, where ancient religion and modern science meet, and where tomorrow's discovery may answer a riddle that has lasted a thousand years.
Archaeologist Eric H. Cline here offers a complete overview of this exciting field. He discusses the early pioneers, such as Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and William Foxwell Albright, the origins of biblical archaeology as a discipline, and the major controversies that first prompted explorers to go in search of objects and sites that would "prove" the Bible. He then surveys some of the most well-known biblical archaeologists, including Kathleen Kenyon and Yigael Yadin, the sites that are essential sources of knowledge for biblical archaeology, such as Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer, Lachish, Masada, and Jerusalem, and some of the most important discoveries that have been made, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Mesha Inscription, and the Tel Dan Stele. Subsequent chapters examine additional archaeological finds that shed further light on the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, the issue of potential frauds and forgeries, including the James Ossuary and the Jehoash Tablet, and future prospects of the field.
Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction captures the sense of excitement and importance that surrounds not only the past history of the field but also the present and the future, with fascinating new discoveries made each and every season.
About the Series Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.