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.

The Erbstreit papyri, nineteen papyri with twenty texts, now dispersed over five different collections, represent a bilingual dossier that was collected in Antiquity as a result of inheritance disputes. They were once part of a family archive kept in the Upper-Egyptian town of ancient Pathyris, modern Gebelein. The disputes started after the death of the woman Tamenos, daughter of Panas alias Hermokrates, when members from several branches of her family claimed the plots of land she had bequeathed to her children. A series of lawsuits ensued which were dealt with by a wide range of officials, starting with the local Provost Nechoutes up to the Viceroy Boethos, to be settled eventually before the Greek high court from Ptolemais in Middle Egypt when in session in Thebes. The dossier is composed of written evidence produced by the parties, court minutes, court decisions, copies of temple oaths and amicable settlements. One of the attractive features of the dossier are the Greek translations of Egyptian pieces of evidence presented in the Greek courts. The volume provides a substantial introduction outlining the respective stages in the juridical dealings as well as (re-)editions of and comments in detail on the Greek and demotic texts. Appendixes on bilingualism and on Graeco-Egyptian double names as well as indexes and photographic plates complete the volume.

The Festivals of Opet, the Valley, and the New Year: Their socio-religious functions compares the religious and social functions of these three Festivals, the first two of which were often regarded by the Egyptians as a pair; the New Year Festival stands out on account of its corpus of surviving material and importance. Until now, detailed study of the New Year Festival has only been carried out with reference to the Greco-Roman period; this study turns its attention to the New Kingdom. The book analyses the broad perspectives that encompass Egyptian religion and cult practices which provided the context not only for worship and prayer, but also for the formation of social identity and responsibility. The festivals are examined in the whole together with their settings in the religious and urban landscapes. The best example is New Kingdom Thebes where large temples and burial sites survive intact today with processional routes connecting some of them. Also presented are the abundant written sources providing deep insight into those feasts celebrated for Amun-Re, the king of the gods. The volume also includes a list of dated records which provides a concordance for the Egyptian calendars.

The Tomb in question was built for a Chief of Police and his wife in the city of Thebes (modern Luxor) at the height of the ancient Egyptian empire. It was reused by numerous people over the next few hundred years before being sealed and lying undisturbed until it was excavated in 1857. Many of the objects found were among the first to be acquired by what is now called the National Museum of Scotland. This is the souvenir guide to the exhibition The Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Burial which was shown at the National Museum of Scotland in 2017.

In this interdisciplinary study, Leire Olabarria examines ancient Egyptian society through the notion of kinship. Drawing on methods from archaeology and sociocultural anthropology, she provides an emic characterisation of ancient kinship that relies on performative aspects of social interaction. Olabarria uses memorial stelae of the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom (ca.2150-1650 BCE) as her primary evidence. Contextualising these monuments within their social and physical landscapes, she proposes a dynamic way to explore kin groups through sources that have been considered static. The volume offers three case studies of kin groups at the beginning, peak, and decline of their developmental cycles respectively. They demonstrate how ancient Egyptian evidence can be used for cross-cultural comparison of key anthropological topics, such as group formation, patronage, and rites of passage.

The excavations at Ramat Rahel, just south of Jerusalem, revealed a complex of structures that existed for hundreds of years in which the Kingdom of Judah was a vassal of diverse empires. Over some 500 years, jars bearing seals were stored at the site. The findings throw new light on the late First Temple period and on most of that of the Second Temple. During these centuries Ramat Rahel was the administrative contact point between Judah and the ruling empires. This is what enabled independent Judean control of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the ability to maintain Jewish identity within Jerusalem almost without outside intervention and supervision. All this came to an end during the Hasmonean revolt.

This book is intended for biblical scholars, scholars of ancient Judaism and Christianity. With contributions by: Vaux, R. De; Unknown function: Crowfoot, G. M. Unknown function: Plenderleith, H. J. Unknown function: Harding, G. L.

Originally published 1962, this volume is being reissued to make the entire series available to students and scholars of biblical and post-biblical Judaism and early Christianity. A companion volume contains the text found in the original one-volume publication.

The Old Kingdom of Egypt (Dynasties 4-6, c. 2600-2180 BC) is famous as a period of the builders of the largest Egyptian pyramids. It is generally accepted that the evidence on the use of copper alloy tools from this era is meagre. Martin Odler gathers the textual, iconographic and palaeographic evidence and examines Old Kingdom artefacts in order to revise this view on the use of copper alloy tools and model tools. Furthermore, he provides updated definitions of tool classes and tool kits, together with the context of their use. Besides rare specimens of full-size tools, the largest corpora of the material have been preserved in the form of model tools in the burial equipment of the Old Kingdom elite and were most probably symbols of their power to commission and fund craftwork. Moreover, the size and elaboration of the model tools were probably connected to the social status of the buried persons. The long-standing division in the Egyptological literature between full-size tools and model tools is questioned. The ancient sources also enable to show that the preservation of material culture from the Old Kingdom was largely dependent on a conscious selection made within the past culture, with completely different settlement and funerary contexts and a conspicuous absence of weapons. The volume is completed by co-authored case studies on archaeometallurgy of selected Old Kingdom artefacts in the collection of the Egyptian Museum of Leipzig University, on morphometry of Old Kingdom adze blades and on the finds of stone and ceramic vessels associated with the findings of so-called Old Kingdom model tools.

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.

Radu Cinamar stunned the world when he released his first book, "Transylvanian Sunrise", which described the greatest archaeological find of all time: a hidden chamber some 50,000 years old with beneath the Romanian Sphinx in the Bucegi Mountains. This chamber includes holographic technology with a visual data bank of infinite DNA permutations in addition to three tunnels: one leading to the inner earth, one to Tibet and one to Egypt. After being allowed to explore some of these artefacts, Radu was befriended by an enigmatic alchemist named Elinor who introduced him to an equally mysterious Tibetan Lama. This book begins with Radu becoming the guardian of Elinor's exotic villa in Bucharest which contains a remarkable alchemical laboratory in the basement. Radu is soon thereafter recruited for Department Zero, Romania's most secret intelligence unit, by his old friend, Cezar Brad, and becomes part of an expedition to explore a mysterious tunnel which leads from the chamber beneath the Romanian Sphinx to a different type of chamber beneath the Giza Plateau which contains ancient artefacts that look more futuristic than they do ancient, one of them being a bioresonant device through which one can visit past and future events. This amazing expedition includes an American from the Pentagon with a top secret laptop computer he is intuitively connected to that not only displays intricate holograms but is also linked to Hilbert (inter-dimensional) Space. Ancient archeology meets future science in this true life adventure that penetrates the secrets of Egypt in a way that has not been previously conceived of in our society.

The volume collects the papers of the International Conference on Disaster and Relief Management in Ancient Israel/Palestine, Egypt and the Ancient Near East held from the 4th of October to the 6th of October 2010 in Leipzig. Scholars from different fields are having a close look at the concepts of disasters in antiquity, their impact on society, possible dynamics and cultural dimensions. They give insights into their actual research on the destructivity and productivity of disasters, including the possibility that disasters were used as topoi in ideological, mythological and theological discourses. Their contributions in this volume represent a first step to a cultural history of disasters in antiquity.

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

First published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What is sacrifice? How can we identify it in the archaeological record? And what does it tell us about the societies that practice it? Sacred Killing: The Archaeology of Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East investigates these and other questions through the evidence for human and animal sacrifice in the Near East from the Neolithic to the Hellenistic periods. Drawing on sociocultural anthropology and history in addition to archaeology, the book also includes evidence from ancient China and a riveting eyewitness account and analysis of sacrifice in contemporary India, which engage some of the key issues at stake. Sacred Killing vividly presents a variety of methods and theories in the study of one of the most profound and disturbing ritual activities humans have ever practiced.

Hellenistic Alexandria: Celebrating 24 Centuries' presents the proceedings of a conference held at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, on December 13-15, 2017, and includes high-level dialogues and philosophical discussions between international experts on Hellenistic Alexandria. The goal was to celebrate the 24 centuries which have elapsed since its foundation and the beginning of the Library and the Museum of Alexandria. The conference was divided into two parts, to include in the first part archaeology, history, philosophy, literature, art, culture and legal issues and in the second part science, medicine, technology and environment. A total of 28 original and peer-reviewed articles point to the importance of the brilliantly-original ideas that emerged during the Hellenistic age and the curious modernity of the whole atmosphere of the time. The range of presented topics covers a variety of new data on the foundation of Alexandria to comparison between Ptolemaic Alexandria and Ptolemaic Greece through philosophy, culture and drama to the forgotten revolution of science, medicine and the prevailing climatological and geophysical conditions throughout the Hellenistic Period. The conference and its proceedings were co-sponsored by the arianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation, the Acropolis Museum, the Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies at Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for the Environmental Sciences. The Publication also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies, a joint collaboration between the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Vardinoyannis Foundation and the University of Alexandria. Scholars from around the world follow the Center's programme in various specialisations, ranging from historyliterature- art, to archaeology and architecture-philosophy, and science.

After the death of RamesesII, the Nineteenth Dynasty, soon fell into decline and familial conflict, culminating in a final civil war that ended with the accession of a new dynasty. Sethy I and Rameses II's promotion of a concept of a wider 'royal family' may have sown the seeds for the conflicts among their descendants.Aidan Dodson explores the mysteries of the origins of the usurper-king Amenmeses and the career of the 'king-maker' of the period, the chancellor Bay. Having helped to install at least one pharaoh on the throne, Bay's life was ended by his abrupt execution, ordered by the woman with whom he had shared the regency of Egypt for the young and disabled King Siptah. Finally, the author considers how that woman-Tawosret-became the last true female pharaoh, and how she finally lost her throne to the founder of the Twentieth Dynasty, Sethnakhte.

This volume contains a collection of compositions from cave 4 at Qumran written during the Second Temple period and linked to the Hebrew Bible through text, characters, themes, or genre. While some of the documents represent a reworking, rewriting, or paraphrase of biblical books, all greatly enhance our understanding of biblical interpretation during the period and the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy.

The ancient Mesoptamian city of Ur was a Sumerian city state which flourished as a centre of trade and civilisation between 2025-1738 BCE. However, in the recent past it suffered from the disastrous Gulf war and from neglect. It still remains a potent symbol for people of all faiths and will have an important role to play in the future This account of Ur's past looks at both the ancient city and its evolution over centuries, and its archaeological interpretation in more recent times. From the nineteenth century explorers and their identification of the site of Mukayyar as the Biblical city of Ur, the study proceeds to look in detail at the archaeologist Leonard Woolley and his key discoveries during the 1920s and 30s. Using the findings as a framework and utilising the latest evidence from environmental, historical and archaeological studies, the volume explores the site's past in chronological order from the Ubaid period in the 5th millennium to the death of Alexander. It looks in detail at the architectural remains: the sacred buildings, royal graves and also the private housing which provides a unique record of life four thousand years ago.The volume also describes the part played by Ur in the Gulf war and discusses the problems raised for archaeologists in the war's aftermath.

Pen, Stylus, and Chisel: An Ancient Egypt Sourcebook helps students understand the world of the ancient Egyptians by introducing them to primary sources that cover a broader spectrum, both temporally and geographically, than most ancient Egyptian readers. Beginning with The Old Kingdom in the third millennium BCE, the book covers 3,000 years of history, progressing through the Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, Late Kingdom, Persian Period, and ending with the Ptolemaic Dynasty in the first century BCE. Students will learn about the Egyptians' political ideas, social customs, religious views, economy, ethics, and forms of expression. The material includes documents written both by the Egyptians and by those who observed them, which gives students a well-rounded view of the Egyptian people, their history, and their culture. The book includes maps, introductions to the readings to place them in context and enhance comprehension, discussion questions to be used in class or as writing assignments, and a glossary. Pen, Stylus, and Chisel can be used in history and humanities courses on ancient Egypt.

'The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Moon: Coffin Texts Spells 154-160' argues that Coffin Texts spells 154-160, recorded at around the beginning of the 2nd millennium bce, form the oldest composition about the moon in ancient Egypt and in the whole world. The detailed analysis of these spells, based on a new translation, reveals that the spells provide a chronologically ordered account of the phenomena that happen during a lunar month. It is argued that through a wide variety of mythological allusions, the separate texts - after an introduction which explains the origins of the month (spell 154) - describe the successive stages of the monthly cycle: the period of invisibility (spell 155), waxing (spell 156), events around the full moon (spell 157), waning (spell 158), the arrival of the last crescent at the eastern horizon (spell 159), and again the conjunction of the sun and the moon when a solar eclipse can occur (spell 160). After highlighting the possible lunar connotations of each spell, further chapters in the book investigate the origins of the composition, its different manuscripts preserved on coffins coming from Hermopolis and Asyut, and the survival of the spells in the later mortuary collection known as the Book of Going Forth by Day.

Recent archaeological and biblical research challenges the traditional view of the history of ancient Israel.This book presents the latest findings of both academic disciplines regarding the United Monarchy of David and Solomon ('One Nation') and the cult reform under Josiah ('One Cult'), raising the issue of fact versus fiction. The political and cultural interrelations in the Near East are illustrated on the example of the ancient city of Beth She'an/Scythopolis and are discussed as to their significance for the transformation in the conception of God ('One God'). The volume contains 17 contributions in English by internationally eminent scholars from Israel, Finland and Germany.