Domesticating Empire is the first contextually-oriented monograph on Egyptian imagery in Roman households. Caitlin Barrett draws on case studies from Flavian Pompeii to investigate the close association between representations of Egypt and a particular type of Roman household space: the domestic garden. Through paintings and mosaics portraying the Nile, canals that turned the garden itself into a miniature "Nilescape," and statuary depicting Egyptian themes, many gardens in Pompeii offered ancient visitors evocations of a Roman vision of Egypt. Simultaneously faraway and familiar, these imagined landscapes made the unfathomable breadth of empire compatible with the familiarity of home. In contrast to older interpretations that connect Roman "Aegyptiaca" to the worship of Egyptian gods or the problematic concept of "Egyptomania," a contextual analysis of these garden assemblages suggests new possibilities for meaning. In Pompeian houses, Egyptian and Egyptian-looking objects and images interacted with their settings to construct complex entanglements of "foreign" and "familiar," "self" and "other." Representations of Egyptian landscapes in domestic gardens enabled individuals to present themselves as sophisticated citizens of empire. Yet at the same time, household material culture also exerted an agency of its own: domesticizing, familiarizing, and "Romanizing" once-foreign images and objects. That which was once imagined as alien and potentially dangerous was now part of the domus itself, increasingly incorporated into cultural constructions of what it meant to be "Roman." Featuring brilliant illustrations in both color and black and white, Domesticating Empire reveals the importance of material culture in transforming household space into a microcosm of empire.

Among the numerous deities in the ancient Egyptian mythology, whose nature and function are still vague and obscure, are ms.w Bdst - 'Children of Weakness'. These beings are twice mentioned in the Book of the Dead chapter 17. The text fragments contain two local versions of the myth with ms.w Bdst - Hermopolitan (Urk. V: Abs. 1), and Heliopolitan (Urk. V: Abs. 22). Since the last text describes the combat between Re and the 'Children of Weakness', the same is likely to be reflected on the vignette, which depicts the battle of Re against ms.w Bdst, metaphorically shown in the form of a serpent. This book is a comprehensive study of the 'Children of Weakness' myth and the scene depicting the cat, cutting off the head of the serpent under the branches of the isd-tree found on the number of Book of the Dead chapter 17 vignettes.

Pottery of Manqabad presents a catalogue of selected pottery from the monastic site of Manqabad (Asyut, Egypt), which has, since 2011, been the object of an ongoing study and conservation project at the University of Naples 'L'Orientale' (UNIOR). The ceramic material, dated to the Late Antique Period, derives mostly from the SCA warehouse of el-Ashmunein, where it was kept soon after its accidental discovery in 1965. About 40 items derive from the surface collection and survey conducted on the site during the last fieldwork season (2018). The typologies identified include the most relevant Byzantine classes and a particular link with production from the Middle Egypt region. Part of the field survey was devoted to the analysis of the pottery material still in situ, found in the Northern Sector of the site where a 230m long row of monastic housing units is located. Further investigations will hopefully support the hypothesis of a local pottery production area, which could be identified in a large 'dump' at the southern end of the site. More generally, the analysis of the ceramics from Manqabad has underlined the undoubtedly high cultural level of the local monastic community, which can be deduced also from the textual, architectural and wall depiction evidence from the site. Manqabad was largely unknown to the scientific community, but since the first season of work by the Italian-Egyptian project, it has emerged as an important venue for the religious development of Coptic culture between the second half of the Vth to the end of the VIII- early IXth century AD.

This volume is a collection of paper by colleagues, friends and students, in honor of Jeffrey Chadwick. The papers cover the various topic that he has dealt with in his career, including biblical historical geography, and the archaeology and history of the Levant and its environs during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and the Second Temple Period. Following a preface and introduction about the honoree, the volume is divided into 4 sections: Biblical Historical Geography; Bronze Age Canaan and its Neighbors; Iron Age Israel and its Neighbors; Second Temple Israel.

Current Research in Egyptology 2017 presents papers delivered during the eighteenth meeting of this international conference, held at the University of Naples "L'Orientale", 3-6 May, 2017. Some 122 scholars from all over the world gathered in Naples to attend three simultaneous sessions of papers and posters, focussed on a large variety of subjects: Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Egypt, Nubian Studies, Language and Texts, Art and Architecture, Religion and Cult, Field Projects, Museums and Archives, Material Culture, Mummies and Coffins, Society, Technologies applied to Egyptology, Environment. The participants attended seven keynote presentations given by Rosanna Pirelli (Egyptologist), Irene Bragantini (Roman Archaeologist) and Andrea Manzo (Nubian Archaeologist) from the University of Naples "L'Orientale"; Marilina Betro (Egyptologist) from Pisa University; Patrizia Piacentini (Egyptologist) from Milan University; Christian Greco (Director of Turin Egyptian Museum) and Daniela Picchi (Archaeological Museum of Bologna). Delegates were able to take advantage of a guided tour of the Oriental Museum Umberto Scerrato (University of Naples "L'Orientale"), access to the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN) and guided tours of the archaeological site of Pompeii and the Gaiola Underwater Park. The editors dedicate this volume to the late Prof. Claudio Barocas who inaugurated the teaching of Egyptology and Coptic Language and Literature in Naples.

The hypocephalus is an element of Late Period and Ptolemaic funerary equipment - an amuletic disc placed under the head of mummies. Its shape emulates the sun's disc, and its form is planar, although it occasionally has a concave shape (in such cases, it protects the head as a funerary cap). The earliest known example can be dated to the 4th century BC and the latest to the 2nd/1st century BC. The Hypocephalus: an Ancient Egyptian Funerary Amulet analyses both the written records and iconography of these objects. So far, 158 examples are known; several, unfortunately, from old descriptions only. The relatively low number shows that the object was not a widespread item of funerary equipment. Only priest and priestly families used them, those of Amon in Thebes, of Min in Akhmim, and the ones of Ptah in Memphis. Among the examples, no two are identical. In some details, every piece is an individualized creation. Ancient Egyptian theologians certainly interpreted hypocephali as the iris of the wedjat-eye, amidst which travels the sun-god in his hidden, mysterious and tremendous form(s). The hypocephalus can be considered as the sun-disk itself. It radiates light and energy towards the head of the deceased, who again becomes a living being, feeling him/herself as 'one with the Earth' through this energy. The texts and the iconography derive principally from the supplementary chapters of the Book of the Dead. Some discs directly cite the text of spell 162 which furnishes the mythological background of the invention of the disc by the Great Cow, who protected her son Re by creating the disc at his death.

In this book, Dr Vyron Antoniadis presents a contextual study of the Near Eastern imports which reached Crete during the Early Iron Age and were deposited in the Knossian tombs. Cyprus, Phoenicia, North Syria and Egypt are the places of origin of these imports. Knossian workshops produced close or freer imitations of these objects. The present study reveals the ways in which imported commodities were used to create or enhance social identity in the Knossian context. The author explores the reasons that made Knossians deposit imported objects in their graves as well as investigates whether specific groups could control not only the access to these objects but also the production of their imitations. Dr Antoniadis argues that the extensive use of locally produced imitations alongside authentic imports in burial rituals and contexts indicates that Knossians treated both imports and imitations as items of the same symbolic and economic value.

Flint Procurement and Exploitation Strategies in the Late Lower Paleolithic Levant examines twelve lithic assemblages from Qesem Cave. Potential flint sources were located, petrographic thin sections of archaeological and geologic samples were studied, and a geochemical analysis was performed. The results show that flint from local Turonian sources was often brought to the cave, forming most of the identified flint. Flint from non-Turonian geologic origins was also used in noteworthy proportions, in specific typotechnological categories. The availability of desired flints around the cave, highly suitable for the production of the commonly-used blades, as well as for the production of other tools, probably played a role in the decision to settle there. The notable proportions of non-Turonian flint types, a pattern that repeats itself through time, demonstrate consistency in accessing sources containing non-local flint, implying the existence of knowledge transmission mechanisms concerning the distribution of sources and the suitability of specific flint types for the production of specific blanks/tools.

The major part of the Near East was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (934-610BC) in a few centuries. If the geopolitical map of the region was altered, the concrete impact it exerted on the territories with which it came into contact is difficult to appraise. Until recently, there was a general tendency to consider that the Assyrians tightly controlled their whole periphery by maintaining a high number of soldiers and personnel while initiating a process of 'Assyrianization'. Présence et influence assyriennes dans le royaume de Hamat assesses the importance and nature of the Assyrian presence in the kingdom of Hamat (in northwest Syria) to determine whether there is a link between the presence and influence of the Assyrians. The results of an analysis of historical and archaeological sources show that the Assyrian presence in Hamat was much more subtle than what might have been imagined. On the one hand, the Assyrian provincial elite insisted on being legitimized with the natives and cooperating with the local elite rather than using force to maintain the yoke of the Empire. On the other hand, far from indicating Assyrian colonization or a change of culture, the influence of Assyrian culture in Hamat would rather translate into the local elite adopting new objects of prestige that contributed to conspicuous consumption and competitive emulation.

In Dhofar, the southern Governorate of the Sultanate of Oman, the deep canyons cutting the Nejd plateau once flowed with perennial rivers, feeding wetland environments, forests, and grasslands across the now desiccated interior. The first peoples of Oman flourished along these waterways, drawn to the freshwater springs and abundant game, as well as the myriad chert outcrops with which to fashion their hunting implements and other tools. The landscapes of the Nejd Plateau are a natural museum of human prehistory, covered in carpets of chipped stone debris. The archaeological evidence presented in this work encompasses the cultural remains of over a million years of successive human occupations, from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Late Palaeolithic. Once considered an evolutionary backwater or merely a migratory way station, the archaeology of Dhofar requires a fundamental reconsideration of the role of Southern Arabia in the origin and dispersal of our species.

The themes of sedentarisation, urbanisation and state formation are fundamental ones in the archaeology of many diverse parts of the world but have been little explored in relation to early societies of the Saharan zone. Moreover, the possibility has rarely been considered that the precocious civilisations bordering this vast desert were interconnected by long-range contacts and knowledge networks. The orthodox opinion of many of the key oasis zones within the Sahara is that they were not created before the early medieval period and the Islamic conquest of Mediterranean North Africa. Major claims of this volume are that the ultimate origins of oasis settlements in many parts of the Sahara were considerably earlier, that by the first millennium AD some of these oasis settlements were of a size and complexity to merit the categorisation 'towns' and that a few exceptional examples were focal centres within proto-states or early state-level societies.

Amazing discoveries of over 35 major links between the enigmatic and beautiful 'Amarna Period' of Pharoah Akhenaten and the Biblical Exodus, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that the Exodus actually happened, and who the relevant Pharoahs were, together with astounding photos and hundreds of translated ancient texts as well as mummy analyses which exactly match the Biblical account in detail and explain the likely motivations and reasons for most of the strange but vitally significant phenomena and features. Other writers have puzzled over Akhenaten's missing army and gold as well as his monotheism, together with his father's (Amenhotep III) loss of a firstborn heir... but these things are just the starting point for solid answers in this astounding collection of discoveries. The style of the book is progressive, for the benefit of those less familiar with the topic, whilst providing more scholarly detail as the book progresses.

In this book, Philip Zhakevich examines the technology of writing as it existed in the southern Levant during the Iron Age II period, after the alphabetic writing system had fully taken root in the region. Using the Hebrew Bible as its corpus and focusing on a set of Hebrew terms that designated writing surfaces and instruments, this study synthesizes the semantic data of the Bible with the archeological and art-historical evidence for writing in ancient Israel. The bulk of this work comprises an in-depth lexicographical analysis of Biblical Hebrew terms related to Israel's writing technology. Employing comparative Semitics, lexical semantics, and archaeology, Zhakevich provides a thorough analysis of the origins of the relevant terms; their use in the biblical text, Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient Hebrew inscriptions; and their translation in the Septuagint and other ancient versions. The final chapter evaluates Israel's writing practices in light of those of the ancient world, concluding that Israel's most common form of writing (i.e., writing with ink on ostraca and papyrus) is Egyptian in origin and was introduced into Canaan during the New Kingdom. Comprehensive and original in its scope, Scribal Tools in Ancient Israel is a landmark contribution to our knowledge of scribes and scribal practices in ancient Israel. Students and scholars interested in language and literacy in the first-millennium Levant in particular will profit from this volume.

Since their discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have become an icon in popular culture that transcends their status as ancient Jewish manuscripts. Everyone has heard of the Scrolls, but amidst the conspiracies, the politics, and the sensational claims, it can be difficult to separate the myths from the reality. In this Very Short introductions, Timothy Lim discusses the cultural significance of the finds, and the religious, political and legal controversies during the seventy years of study since the discovery. He also looks at the contribution the Scrolls have made to our understanding of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, and the origins of early Christianity. Exploring the most recent scholarly discussions on the archaeology of Khirbet Qumran, and the study of the biblical texts, the canon, and the history of the Second Temple Period, he considers what the scrolls reveal about sectarianism in early Judaism. Was the archaeological site of Qumran a centre of monastic life, a fortress, a villa, or a pottery factory? Why were some of their biblical texts so different from the ones that we read today? Did they have 'a Bible'? Who were the Essenes and why did they think that humanity is to be divided between 'the sons of light' and those in darkness? And, finally, do the Scrolls reflect the teachings of the earliest followers of Jesus? 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.

Winifred Lamb was a pioneering archaeologist in the Aegean and Anatolia. She studied classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, and subsequently served in naval intelligence alongside J. D. Beazley during the final stages of the First World War. As war drew to a close, Sydney Cockerell, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, invited Lamb to be the honorary keeper of Greek antiquities. Over the next 40 years she created a prehistoric gallery, marking the university's contribution to excavations in the Aegean, and developed the museum's holdings of classical bronzes and Athenian figure-decorated pottery. Lamb formed a parallel career excavating in the Aegean. She was admitted as a student of the British School at Athens and served as assistant director on the Mycenae excavations under Alan Wace and Carl Blegen. After further work at Sparta and on prehistoric mounds in Macedonia, Lamb identified and excavated a major Bronze Age site at Thermi on Lesbos. She conducted a brief excavation on Chios before directing a major project at Kusura in Turkey. She was recruited for the Turkish language section of the BBC during the Second World War, and after the cessation of hostilities took an active part in the creation of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.

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.

Catalog of bronze figures in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The museum houses 510 statuettes or fragments of statuettes made of bronze. Most of them represent Egyptian gods, but there are also Hellenistic and Roman figures.

Rural Cult Centres in the Hauran: Part of the broader network of the Near East (100 BC-AD 300) challenges earlier scholars' emphasis on the role played by local identities and Romanisation in religion and religious architecture in the Roman Empire through the first comprehensive multidisciplinary analysis of rural cult centres in the Hauran (southern Syria) from the pre-Roman to the Roman period. The Hauran is an interesting and revealing area of study because it has been a geographical cross-point between different cultures over time. Inspired by recent theories on interconnectivity and globalisation, the monograph argues that cult centres, and the Hauran itself, are part of a human network at a macro level on the basis of analysis of archaeological, architectural, sculptural and epigraphic evidence and landscape. As a result of this multi-disciplinary approach, the text also re-assesses the social meaning of these sanctuaries, discusses the identity of the elite group that contributed financially to the building of sanctuaries, and attempts to reconstruct ritual and economic activities in cult centres. This book re-evaluates the significance of contacts between the elite of the Hauran and other cultures of the Near East in shaping cult sites; it includes a first catalogue of rural cult centres of the Hauran in the appendix.

Beneath the waters of Abukir Bay, at the edge of the Nile Delta, lie the submerged remains of the ancient Egyptian cities Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion, which sank over 1,000 years ago but were dramatically rediscovered in the 20th century and brought to the surface by marine archaeologists in the 1990s. These pioneering underwater excavations continue today, and have yielded a wealth of ancient artefacts, to be exhibited in Britain for the first time in 2016. Through these spectacular finds, this book tells the story of how two iconic ancient civilizations, Egypt and Greece, interacted in the late first millennium bc. From the foundation of Naukratis and Thonis-Heracleion as trading posts to the conquest of Alexander the Great, through the ensuing centuries of Ptolemaic rule to the ultimate dominance of the Roman Empire on the world stage, Greeks and Egyptians lived alongside one another in these lively cities, sharing their politics, religious ideas, languages, scripts and customs. Greek kings adopted the regalia of the pharaoh; ordinary Greek citizens worshipped in Hellenic sanctuaries next to Egyptian temples; and their ancient gods and mythologies became ever more closely intertwined. This book showcases a spectacular collection of artefacts, coupled with a retelling of the history by world-renowned experts in the subject (including the sites' long-term excavator), bringing the reader face-to-face with this vibrant ancient society. Accompanies the most sensational exhibition of ancient Egyptian and Greek discoveries to be held in the UK for decades, opening at the British Museum.

Of the Nubian Archaeological Campaigns responding to the construction of the Aswan High Dam, the survey and excavations carried out within Sudanese Nubia represent the most substantial achievement of the larger enterprise. Many components of the larger project of the UNESCO - Sudan Antiquities Service Survey have been published, in addition to the reports of a number of other major projects assigned separate concessions within the region. However, the results of one major element, the Archaeological Survey of Sudanese Nubia (ASSN) between the Second Cataract and the Dal Cataract remain largely unpublished. This volume, focusing on the pharaonic sites, is the first of a series which aims to bring to publication the records of the ASSN. These records represent a major body of data relating to a region largely now lost to flooding. This is also a region of very considerable importance for understanding the archaeology and history of Nubia more generally, not least in relation to the still often poorly understood relationships between Lower Nubia to the north and the surviving areas of Middle and Upper Nubia, to the south. The ASSN project fieldwork was undertaken over six years between 1963 and 1969, investigating c.130km of the river valley between Gemai, at the south end of the Second Cataract, and Dal.

Perspectives on materiality in ancient Egypt - agency, cultural reproduction and change expresses the authors' broad theoretical interest on materiality and how it helps us to understand the crucial role of material culture in ancient Egyptian society in a more complex way. In the volume, mainly young scholars in Brazil, France, Germany and the UK approach the potential of materiality based on several case studies covering a wide range of topics such as Egyptian art, recent perspectives on sex and gender, hierarchies, and the materiality of textual sources and images. The idea of gathering young scholars to discuss 'materiality' first took place in the form of a colloquium organised in Sao Paulo, but soon after became a more encompassing project aspiring to produce a publication. The editors' aimed to include researchers from various places, which makes the volume a materialisation of fruitful collaborations between individuals coming from different scholarly traditions. The combination of different ways of looking at the ancient material culture can hopefully contribute to the renovation of theory and practice in Egyptology. The editors believe that the emphasis on diversity- of background histories, national traditions and mind-sets-is one the main elements that can be used to boost new perspectives in a connected, globalised and hopefully less unequal world.

Introduction - The Nabataeans in focus (Laila Nehme & Lucy Wadeson); 1) Landscapes north of Petra: the Petra Area and Wadi Silaysil Survey (Brown University Petra Archaeological Project, 2010-2011) (Susan E. Alcock & Alex R. Knodell); 2) Nabataean or Late Roman? Reconsidering the date of the built sections and milestones along the Petra-Gaza road (Chaim Ben David); 3) Reinventing the sacred: from shrine to monastery at Jabal Harun (Zbigniew T. Fiema, ); 4) Dating the early phases under the temenos of the Qa r al-Bint at Petra (F. Renel, M. Mouton, C. Auge, C. Gauthier, C. Hatte, J-F. Saliege & A. Zazzo); 5) A Nabataean shrine to Isis in Wadi Abu Ullayqah, in the south-west of Petra (Marie-Jeanne Roche); 6) The palaces of the Nabataean kings at Petra (Stephan G. Schmid, Piotr Bienkowski, Zbigniew T. Fiema & Bernhard Kolb); 7) The funerary landscape of Petra: results from a new study (Lucy Wadeson); 8) The International Aslah Project, Petra: new research and new questions (Robert Wenning in cooperation with Laurent Gorgerat).