Lost in Egypt's honeycombed hills, distanced by its western desert, or rendered inaccessible by subsequent urban occupation, the monumental decorated tombs of the Graeco-Roman period have received little scholarly attention. This volume serves to redress this deficiency. It explores the narrative pictorial programs of a group of decorated tombs from Ptolemaic and Roman-period Egypt (c.300 BCE-250 CE). Its aim is to recognize the tombs' commonalities and differences across ethnic divides and to determine the rationale that lies behind these connections and dissonances. This book sets the tomb programs within their social, political, and religious context and analyzes the manner in which the multicultural population of Graeco-Roman Egypt chose to negotiate death and the afterlife.

Elam was an important state in southwestern Iran from the third millennium BC to the appearance of the Persian Empire and beyond. Less well-known than its neighbors in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Levant or Egypt, it was nonetheless a region of extraordinary cultural vitality. This book examines the formation and transformation of Elam's many identities through both archaeological and written evidence, and brings to life one of the most important regions of Western Asia, re-evaluates its significance, and places it in the context of the most recent archaeological and historical scholarship. The new edition includes material from over 800 additional sources, reflecting the enormous amount of fieldwork and scholarship on Iran since 1999. Every chapter contains new insights and material that have been seamlessly integrated into the text in order to give the reader an up-to-date understanding of ancient Elam.

The surgeon William Ainsworth (1807-96) acted as the geologist of the 1835 Euphrates Expedition, his account of which is also reissued in this series. Great interest was aroused by the scientific and archaeological findings of that journey, and a further expedition was funded, ostensibly to make contact with the Nestorian Christians of the region, but covertly to make further mineralogical investigations. Ainsworth was the leader of the expedition, and his two-volume account was published in 1842. Starting from Istanbul in 1839, Ainsworth took a route through Asia Minor, northern Syria, Kurdistan, Persia and Armenia, returning to Istanbul in 1840. The expedition was regarded as unsuccessful, as Ainsworth had massively overspent on the budget originally allotted by the sponsors, and his secret activities were discovered by the Ottoman authorities, but the work remains a vivid account of the area. Volume 1 covers events up to the battle of Nezib in 1839.

The surgeon William Ainsworth (1807-96) acted as the geologist of the 1835 Euphrates Expedition, his account of which is also reissued in this series. Great interest was aroused by the scientific and archaeological findings of that journey, and a further expedition was funded, ostensibly to make contact with the Nestorian Christians of the region, but covertly to make further mineralogical investigations. Ainsworth was the leader of the expedition, and his two-volume account was published in 1842. Starting from Istanbul in 1839, Ainsworth took a route through Asia Minor, northern Syria, Kurdistan, Persia and Armenia, returning to Istanbul in 1840. The expedition was regarded as unsuccessful, as Ainsworth had massively overspent the budget originally allotted by the sponsors, and his secret activities were discovered by the Ottoman authorities, but the work remains a vivid account of the area. Volume 2 describes the journey through Armenia, and the return via Trebizond.

Elam was an important state in southwestern Iran from the third millennium BC to the appearance of the Persian Empire and beyond. Less well-known than its neighbors in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Levant or Egypt, it was nonetheless a region of extraordinary cultural vitality. This book examines the formation and transformation of Elam's many identities through both archaeological and written evidence, and brings to life one of the most important regions of Western Asia, re-evaluates its significance, and places it in the context of the most recent archaeological and historical scholarship. The new edition includes material from over 800 additional sources, reflecting the enormous amount of fieldwork and scholarship on Iran since 1999. Every chapter contains new insights and material that have been seamlessly integrated into the text in order to give the reader an up-to-date understanding of ancient Elam.

This beautifully illustrated book is the first to include translations of over 200 of the texts recovered from the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina, a uniquely rich source of information about daily life in Ancient Egypt. Each translation is introduced by a commentary that provides the context and explains the contribution the text makes to the understanding of Egyptian society in 1539-1075 BC.

Landlord villages dominated Iranian land tenure for hundreds of years, whereby one powerful landlord owned the village structures, surrounding farmland, and to all intents and purposes, the village occupants themselves, a system that in some cases remained in place up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In Oman, mud-brick oases were home to most of the rural population right up until Sultan Qaboos came to power in 1970, and required inhabitants of mud-brick houses to relocate into new concrete block buildings. Historical Archaeology and Heritage in the Middle East explores these everyday, rural communities in Iran and Oman in the 19th and 20th centuries, through a combination of building analysis, excavation, artefact analysis and ethnographic interviews. Drawing on the results of original field projects, the book considers new ways of exploring traditional lifeways, giving voice to hitherto largely ignored sections of the population, and offers new and different ways of thinking about how these people lived and what shaped their lives and the impact of major political and social changes on them. Place, memory and belonging are considered through the lens of material culture within these villages. The first of its kind, the book brings together methodologies, research questions, and themes that have never been used or addressed in the Middle East. Helping to establish historical archaeology in the Middle East and providing new ways in which the memorable, quotidian past can be exploited for its social and economic value in contemporary community and heritage developments, it is an ideal resource for students, scholars and practitioners of historical archaeology and heritage of and in the Middle East.

The career of Arthur Weigall (1880-1934) encompassed Egyptology but also stage design, film criticism and journalism, as well as fiction and books about ancient Egypt. After studying in Germany, he worked at Abydos with Flinders Petrie, but in 1905 he was unexpectedly promoted to Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, when Howard Carter was forced to resign. His work in Egypt, especially in the area of Luxor, focused on the conservation of monuments and the prevention of the shipping of artefacts abroad, until 1911, when he returned to London. In the preface to this illustrated two-volume work, published in 1925, Weigall likens the writing of a history of Egypt to the piecing together of a jigsaw puzzle consisting of thousands of pieces, but intends to present a chronological narrative at a level to satisfy both the scholar and the interested amateur. Volume 1 covers the first eleven dynasties.

Examine the Evidence Surrounding Jesus No other figure has impacted history like Jesus. Yet today, he's often seen as a mythical character whose legend increased over time. So what does the historical and archaeological evidence say about Jesus? Archaeologist Dr. Titus Kennedy has investigated firsthand the discoveries connected to Jesus' birth, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection. He has visited and excavated where Jesus walked, and examined the artifacts connected to Jesus' life. Here, he presents an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the research and findings that illuminate the historicity of Christ as presented in the Bible. Excavating the Evidence for Jesus progresses chronologically through the Gospels, noting the many relevant archaeological, historical, geographic, and literary findings. As you read, you'll be able to decide for yourself whether the evidence confirms the existence and story of Jesus, and determine whether the Gospels are worthy of being approached not as legends, but as history. Further, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the historic basis of Christianity, a richer knowledge of the ancient world, and an evidence-based perspective on the reliability of the Bible.

Arthur Weigall (1880-1934) is chiefly remembered as an Egyptologist, although he also wrote novels, screenplays and film reviews. Following a period spent working with Flinders Petrie at Abydos, he succeeded Howard Carter in 1905 as Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt at Luxor. Here he worked diligently to protect Egyptian artefacts from the ravages of thieves, antiques dealers, public works, and amateur excavators. Ill health then forced a return to London, where Weigall became a successful set designer and later moved into journalism. He returned to Egypt to report on Carter's discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb for the Daily Mail. This collection of essays, accessible to non-specialists, appeared in 1923. Written in response to the extraordinary surge of public interest in Egyptology, the book covers various archaeological and historical subjects, taking Tutankhamun's magnificent tomb in the Valley of the Kings as its starting point.

Growing up in Egypt's Nile Delta, Wafaa El Saddik was fascinated by the magnificent pharaonic monuments from an early age, and as a student she dreamed of conducting excavations herself and working in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. At a time when Egyptology was dominated by men, especially those with close connections to the regime, she was determined to succeed, and secured grants to study in Boston, London, and Vienna, eventually becoming the first female general director of the country's most prestigious museum. She launched the first general inventory of the museum's cellars in its more than hundred-year history, in the process discovering long-forgotten treasures, as well as confronting corruption and nepotism in the antiquities administration.In this very personal memoir, she looks back at the history of her country and asks, What happened to Egypt? Where did Nasser's bright new beginning go wrong? Why did Sadat fail to bring peace? Why did the Egyptians allow themselves to be so corrupted by Mubarak? And why was the Muslim Brotherhood able to achieve power? But her first concern remains: How can the ancient legacy of her country truly be protected?

This highly illustrated 1900 work on Egypt old and new by John Ward (1832-1912) seeks to guide the visitor to the ancient sites while also remarking on the radical changes to the economy and the development of the modern state since the intervention of the British government in 1883 and the appointment of Lord Cromer as consul-general and effective ruler. This blending of ancient and modern can be seen in discussions of Port Said ('not an Egyptian town at all') alongside the abandoned and silted-up delta ports of the Egyptians, Ptolemies and Ottomans. Thebes is discussed both as a city of the living and a city of the dead, and Ward notes approvingly the flattening of the ancient town of Assouan (Aswan), to form the foundations for new public buildings, on the orders of Lord Kitchener. Ward's subsequent book, Our Sudan (1905), is also reissued in this series.

The most lasting achievement of the German Egyptologist Heinrich Karl Brugsch (1827-94) is perhaps his work on the Egyptian demotic script, which had been relatively neglected since Champollion's death. This illustrated two-volume history of Egypt, 'derived entirely from the monuments', was first published in an English translation (by H. D. Seymour, from the 1876 first German edition, and edited by Philip Smith) in 1879. Brugsch brings to bear his wide experience of the archaeological sites together with his linguistic expertise, and deliberately eschews later Greek and Roman accounts of Egypt. Volume 1 gives a detailed survey of the physical environment of Egypt before considering the pre-dynastic period, and the emergence of Menes, the first known pharaoh. He then takes the narrative through the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and the intermediate period, to the emergence of the New Kingdom and the flowering and end of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

The most lasting achievement of the German Egyptologist Heinrich Karl Brugsch (1827-94) is perhaps his work on the Egyptian demotic script, which had been relatively neglected since Champollion's death. This two-volume illustrated history of Egypt, 'derived entirely from the monuments', was first published in an English translation (by H. D. Seymour, from the 1876 first German edition, and edited by Philip Smith) in 1879. Brugsch brings to bear his wide experience of the archaeological sites together with his linguistic expertise, and deliberately eschews later Greek and Roman accounts of Egypt. Volume 2 covers the period from the Nineteenth Dynasty, the time of the empire's widest extent under Seti I and Rameses II, through the later decline and disintegration, with ruling dynasties from Nubia and Assyria, to the Persian conquest in 525 BCE. An appendix discusses the biblical account of Exodus in the context of Egyptian material remains.

The career of Arthur Weigall (1880-1934) encompassed Egyptology but also stage design, film criticism and journalism, as well as fiction and books about ancient Egypt. After studying in Germany, he worked at Abydos with Flinders Petrie, but in 1905 he was unexpectedly promoted to Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, when Howard Carter was forced to resign. His work in Egypt, especially in the area of Luxor, focused on the conservation of monuments and the prevention of shipping of artefacts abroad, until 1911, when he returned to London. He did not revisit Egypt until, as a journalist, he covered the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. In this 1910 guide, writing 'from careful and prolonged personal observation and thought', Weigall describes the less frequented ancient sites of Upper Egypt, beginning north of Thebes and descending to the Second Cataract and the Sudanese border.

This 1838 work by Samuel Sharpe (1799-1881) is the second of two volumes on the history of ancient Egypt; the first, dealing with the earlier period, is also reissued in this series. From a banking family, Sharpe was fascinated by Young's and Champollion's work in deciphering the hieroglyphs. He taught himself Coptic, and compiled his own hieroglyphic vocabulary lists. His facility for decipherment was assisted by a natural gift for solving cryptograms, but his inferences sometimes led him into error. This book, in which Sharpe follows his earlier technique of using inscriptions as well as historical works as sources, begins with a survey of the history of Egypt up to the time of Alexander the Great; the interested reader is referred to Sharpe's earlier volume for more details. He then surveys the Ptolemaic era by reigns, ending with the battle of Actium and the conquest of Egypt by Augustus.

This 1836 work by Samuel Sharpe (1799-1881) is the first of two volumes on the history of ancient Egypt; the second, dealing with the Ptolemaic period, is also reissued in this series. From a banking family, Sharpe was fascinated by Thomas Young's and Champollion's work in deciphering the hieroglyphs. He taught himself Coptic, and compiled his own hieroglyphic vocabulary lists. His facility for decipherment was assisted by a natural gift for solving cryptograms, but his inferences sometimes led him into error. His objective in this book is 'to collect out of the writings of the ancients every particular relating to the History of Egypt', marshalling ancient authorities including the Old Testament, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus and the Ptolemaic priest Manetho, whose division of the rulers into dynasties is still relied on. The second part of the book uses this evidence to discuss Egyptian life, language, beliefs and customs.

The career of Arthur Weigall (1880-1934) encompassed Egyptology but also stage design, film criticism and journalism. After studying in Germany, he worked at Abydos with Flinders Petrie, but in 1905 he was unexpectedly promoted to Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, when Howard Carter was forced to resign. His work in Egypt, especially in the area of Luxor, focused on the conservation of monuments and the prevention of shipping of artefacts abroad, until 1911, when he returned to London. This 1907 book on the condition of the monuments between the First Cataract and the Sudanese frontier arose from his work as inspector, and is intended as 'a preliminary description of monuments and ancient remains which require to be thoroughly studied'. Unlike Weigall's travellers' guides to Egypt, this is a factual and technical work, drawing attention to the threats to monuments from neglect, plunder, and the Nile floods.

Few topics are as broad or as daunting as the God of Israel, that deity of the world's three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who has been worshiped over millennia. In the Hebrew Bible, God is characterized variously as militant, beneficent, inscrutable, loving, and judicious. Who is this divinity that has been represented as masculine and feminine, mythic and real, transcendent and intimate? The Origin and Character of God is Theodore J. Lewis's monumental study of the vast subject that is the God of Israel. In it, he explores questions of historical origin, how God was characterized in literature, and how he was represented in archaeology and iconography. He also brings us into the lived reality of religious experience. Using the window of divinity to peer into the varieties of religious experience in ancient Israel, Lewis explores the royal use of religion for power, prestige, and control; the intimacy of family and household religion; priestly prerogatives and cultic status; prophetic challenges to injustice; and the pondering of theodicy by poetic sages. A volume that is encyclopedic in scope but accessible in tone, The Origin and Character of God is an essential addition to the growing scholarship of one of humanity's most enduring concepts.

This is the legacy report of an extensive joint US/Afghan archaeological project in the southwest quadrant of Afghanistan: the Smithsonian Institution/ Afghanistan Institute of Archaeology Helmand-Sistan Archaeological Project, 1971-1976. While the fieldwork was conducted in the 1970s, political events in Afghanistan over the past half century make this the first major archaeological synthesis of the region and the only one for decades to come. The Helmand River is one of the main routes between the Middle East, South, and Central Asia over the past 5,000 years and project findings reflect that cross-cultural mixing of cultures. The research identified key monuments from Bronze Age, Persian, Greek, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Islamic cultures, and explored the role of intensive irrigation agriculture in one of the world's driest regions. Volume 1 describes the 200 archaeological sites surveyed or excavated by the survey and their material culture.

This book investigates the founding and building of cities in the ancient Near East. The creation of new cities was imagined as an ideological project or a divine intervention in the political narratives and mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, often masking the complex processes behind the social production of urban space. During the Early Iron Age (c.1200-850 BCE), Assyrian and Syro-Hittite rulers developed a highly performative official discourse that revolved around constructing cities, cultivating landscapes, building watercourses, erecting monuments and initiating public festivals. This volume combs through archaeological, epigraphic, visual, architectural and environmental evidence to tell the story of a region from the perspective of its spatial practices, landscape history and architectural technologies. It argues that the cultural processes of the making of urban spaces shape collective memory and identity as well as sites of political performance and state spectacle.

The traveller and archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows (1799-1860) made several trips through Asia Minor. This work is an account of the first of these, recording his careful observations of the lands he travelled through. On this trip, he found ancient cities which were unknown to Europeans at that time, including Xanthos, the capital of ancient Lycia, dating from the fifth century BCE. Fellows' narrative brings the journey to life with vivid descriptions of the people and places he encountered, and detailed sketches of notable antiquities and inscriptions. First published in 1839, this work generated significant interest, fuelling the British Museum's eagerness to acquire antiquities from the region. Fellows was later knighted for his role in these acquisitions, though controversy surrounds their removal. Two of his later works, An Account of Discoveries in Lycia (1841) and The Xanthian Marbles (1843), are also reissued in this series.

A companion volume to the third edition of the author's popular Middle Egyptian, this book contains eight literary works from the Middle Kingdom, the golden age of Middle Egyptian literature. Included are the compositions widely regarded as the pinnacle of Egyptian literary arts, by the Egyptians themselves as well as by modern readers. The works are presented in hieroglyphic transcription, transliteration and translation, accompanied by notes cross-referenced to the third edition of Middle Egyptian. These are designed to give students of Middle Egyptian access to original texts and the tools to practise and perfect their knowledge of the language. The principles of ancient Egyptian verse, in which all the works are written, are discussed, and the transliterations and translations are versified, giving students practice in this aspect of Egyptian literature as well. Consecutive translations are also included for reference and for readers more concerned with Middle Egyptian literature than language.

In this book, Lauren Ristvet rethinks the narratives of state formation by investigating the interconnections between ritual, performance, and politics in the ancient Near East. She draws on a wide range of archaeological, iconographic, and cuneiform sources to show how ritual performance was not set apart from the real practice of politics; it was politics. Rituals provided an opportunity for elites and ordinary people to negotiate political authority. Descriptions of rituals from three periods explore the networks of signification that informed different societies. From circa 2600 to 2200 BC, pilgrimage made kingdoms out of previously isolated villages. Similarly, from circa 1900 to 1700 BC, commemorative ceremonies legitimated new political dynasties by connecting them to a shared past. Finally, in the Hellenistic period, the traditional Babylonian Akitu festival was an occasion for Greek-speaking kings to show that they were Babylonian and for Babylonian priests to gain significant power.

An army officer and politician, Richard William Howard Vyse (1784-53) also made his mark as an Egyptologist. This three-volume work, published in 1840-2, has remained an instructive resource in Egyptology up to the present day. Adopting the style of a journal, with illustrations and diagrams throughout, it narrates in detail his excavations at Giza, surveying and measuring the pyramids. Following Vyse's return to England, the work was continued by the engineer and surveyor John Shae Perring (1813-69). Vyse gives observations of his travels, and of the landscape, people and architecture he encountered, as well as details of the important work he carried out. Most notable was his discovery, using gunpowder, of four new chambers in the Great Pyramid containing 'quarry marks' - graffiti by the pyramid builders. Volume 1 (1840) covers the start of his travels in Egypt and the early excavations on the Great Pyramid.