‘Moving on from Ebla, I crossed the Euphrates’ collects six articles by leading international scholars on the culture of the Assyrian world as a homage to Paolo Matthiae on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Paolo Matthiae is known internationally for the discovery of the site of ancient Ebla in Syria, but he also wrote groundbreaking books and scientific contributions about the Assyrians, predominantly from an art historical perspective. The articles deal with different aspects of this culture, with innovative and sometimes unexpected points of view, including the reception of some elements of the Assyrian culture in the contemporary world.

The Ka.Y.A. project began in Ahlat (East Turkey) in 2007, by Centro Studi Sotterranei / Centre for Underground Studies of Genoa (Italy), in the main project 'Eski Ahlat Sehri Kazis' (The Ahlat ancient city excavation) directed from 2005 to 2010 by Dr. Prof. Nakis Karamagarali (Gazi University, Ankara). The Ka.Y.A. project aims to identify and study the rock-cut sites around Ahlat, as completion of major archaeological excavations in the ancient city located on the northern shores of Lake Van. The Ahlat region is a huge area, at an altitude between 1,700 and 2,500 m, and wedged between massive volcanic systems. During four years of research (2007-2010) the archaeo-speleologist team documented 395 rock-cut sites and underground structures most of which date back to medieval and post-medieval times, relating to different cultures and religions: Armenian, Seljuk, Ilkhanid, Kara Koyunlu, Ak Koyunlu and Ottoman. The results of the first survey campaign were completed in 2007 and published as BAR S2293 (2011), the second campaign 2008 is available as BAR S2560 (2013). These volumes are now supplemented by the new discoveries uncovered during the third season in 2009, with the hope to publish as soon as possible the results of the last mission completed in 2010.

This study deals with the significance of ritual scenes on 21st Dynasty coffins. The images on these coffins are studied as texts referring to the passage of the deceased to the next life. The aim of this study is also to argue how the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts were replaced at this later date by such images on coffins. The work focusses on a group of coffins belonging to the priest known as PA-dj-imn, and date to the reign of the High Priest Pinudjem II. They were found in 1891 at the tomb of Bab el-Gassus, as part of the find generally known as the Second Find of Deir el-Bahri.

The present work is an attempt to give a comprehensive overview of turquoise and its role in Ancient Egypt. Turquoise was mined mainly in Sinai, at Maghara and at Serabit el Khadim, where the stone occurs in the sandstone rock. Ancient Egyptian mineralogical studies have neglected turquoise, focussing instead on the study of other minerals and metals such as gold, silver, and copper.

An examination of archaeology in Jordan and Palestine, Competitive Archaeology in Jordan explores how antiquities have been used to build narratives and national identities. Tracing Jordanian history, and the importance of Jerusalem within that history, Corbett analyzes how both foreign and indigenous powers have engaged in a competition over ownership of antiquities and the power to craft history and geography based on archaeological artifacts. She begins with the Ottoman and British Empires—under whose rule the institutions and borders of modern Jordan began to take shape—asking how they used antiquities in varying ways to advance their imperial projects. Corbett continues through the Mandate era and the era of independence of an expanded Hashemite Kingdom, examining how the Hashemites and other factions, both within and beyond Jordan, have tried to define national identity by drawing upon antiquities. Competitive Archaeology in Jordan traces a complex history through the lens of archaeology’s power as a modern science to create and give value to spaces, artifacts, peoples, narratives, and academic disciplines. It thus considers the role of archaeology in realizing Jordan’s modernity—drawing its map; delineating sacred and secular spaces; validating taxonomies of citizens; justifying legal frameworks and institutions of state; determining logos of the nation for display on stamps, currency, and in museums; and writing history. Framing Jordan’s history in this way, Corbett illustrates the manipulation of archaeology by governments, institutions, and individuals to craft narratives, draw borders, and create national identities.

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.

This volume is the last to be printed in a series describing in detail the results of the so-called West Bank Survey, an archaeological survey in the northernmost part of Sudanese Nubia, undertaken on the West Bank between the villages of Faras in the north and Gemai in the south during the period 1960-64. This project was carried out in anticipation of the flooding of the Aswan High Dam. The whole series has been divided into three volumes, no. 2 including sites from the Meroitic and Ballana periods (BAR S1335: Adams 2004), no. 3 including sites of the Christian age (BAR S1421: Adams 2005), while the present volume, no. 1, consists of detailed descriptions of sites and finds of the Early Nubian, Middle Nubian and Pharaonic New Kingdom periods.

Between the Roman annexation of Egypt and the Arab period, the Nile Delta went from consisting of seven branches to two, namely the current Rosetta and Damietta branches. For historians, this may look like a slow process, but on a geomorphological scale, it is a rather fast one. How did it happen? How did human action contribute to the phenomenon? Why did it start around the Roman period? And how did it impact on ancient Deltaic communities? This volume reflects on these questions by focusing on a district of the north-eastern Delta called the Mendesian Nome. The Mendesian Nome is one of the very few Deltaic zones documented by a significant number of papyri. To date, this documentation has never been subject to a comprehensive study. Yet it provides us with a wealth of information on the region's landscape, administrative geography, and agrarian economy. Starting from these papyri and from all available evidence, this volume investigates the complex networks of relationships between Mendesian environments, socio-economic dynamics, and agro-fiscal policies. Ultimately, it poses the question of the 'otherness' of the Nile Delta, within Egypt and, more broadly, the Roman Empire. Section I sets the broader hydrological, documentary, and historical contexts from which the Roman-period Mendesian evidence stem. Section II is dedicated to the reconstruction of the Mendesian landscape, while section III examines the strategies of diversification and the modes of valorization of marginal land attested in the nome. Finally, section IV analyses the socio-environmental crisis that affected the nome in the second half of the second century AD.

Cultural Expression in the Old Kingdom Elite Tomb considers the material and immaterial culture left behind by the ancient Egyptian elite in their tombs starting some 5000 years ago. The book intends to understand this culture reflecting the 'intention' of the ancient Egyptians. All these 'intentions' are now inaccessible to us, a paradox indeed. The author starts by examining the ways in which other Egyptologists have understood tomb culture over the past century. Two main clusters of thought dominate the history of this topic, the literal and/or the symbolic meaning. The literal is a popular approach for the modern world; the symbolic encompasses the ancient Egyptians' ideas about the meaning of life in this and the next world, and metaphysical perfection. The author uses a third mid-way course between the literal and the symbolic; i.e. an attempt to study the evidence in its reality and to search for common, universal factors which may be present and which may aid understanding. The result is an inventory, analysis and synthesis of the core components of Egyptian cultural dynamics as reflected in the iconographic evolution of Old Kingdom elite tombs. New horizons are opened up for describing and interpreting cultural data of many different levels (identity, ideology as social layers, and static versus dynamic as cultural mechanisms). The work goes beyond mainstream Egyptology, because the findings, apart from a specific Egyptian core, also have universal implications since comparison with other cultures shows comparable phenomena.

The subject of this study is an examination of the resources at the disposal of the elite class of Old Kingdom officials who administered the state on behalf of the crown. Their assets included one or more rural estates either owned outright or held in usufruct and/or enjoyed according to a land-owning system referred to as the pr Dt (estate), and all that the estate produced: a workforce if in some way bound to the estate, buildings, means of transport, household and personal effects.

This book is the first investigation of the relationship between Palmyra and its surrounding territory from the Roman to the early Islamic period since D. Schlumberger's pioneer campaigns in the mountains northwest of Palmyra in the late 1930s. It discusses the agricultural potential of the hinterland, its role in the food supply of the city, and the interaction with the nomadic networks on the Syrian dry steppe. The investigation is based on an extensive joint Syrian-Norwegian surface survey north of Palmyra in 2008, 2010 and 2011 and on studies of satellite imagery. It contains a gazetteer of 70 new sites, which include numerous villages, estates, forts, stations and water management systems.

First runner-up for the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies 2015. In ancient Egypt, wrapping sacred objects, including mummified bodies, in layers of cloth was a ritual that lay at the core of Egyptian society. Yet in the modern world, attention has focused instead on unwrapping all the careful arrangements of linen textiles the Egyptians had put in place. This book breaks new ground by looking at the significance of textile wrappings in ancient Egypt, and at how their unwrapping has shaped the way we think about the Egyptian past. Wrapping mummified bodies and divine statues in linen reflected the cultural values attached to this textile, with implications for understanding gender, materiality and hierarchy in Egyptian society. Unwrapping mummies and statues similarly reflects the values attached to Egyptian antiquities in the West, where the colonial legacies of archaeology, Egyptology and racial science still influence how Egypt appears in museums and the press. From the tomb of Tutankhamun to the Arab Spring, Unwrapping Ancient Egypt raises critical questions about the deep-seated fascination with this culture - and what that fascination says about our own.

Addresses a much-contested archaeological discovery In 1980 archaeologists unearthed a tomb near Jerusalem that contained a family's ossuaries inscribed with some familiar New Testament names, including Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. In 2007 the Discovery Channel produced and broadcast a documentary called The Lost Tomb of Jesus, raising interest -- and controversy -- among the public and specialists alike. Could this actually be the tomb of Jesus and his family? In January of 2008 a group of internationally renowned scholars from a broad range of disciplines met in Jerusalem to discuss that very question. Covering the archaeological facts about the discovery, Jewish burial customs during the late Second Temple period, first-century inscriptions, the Talpiot tomb, the James ossuary, the Holy Sepulcher, and more, this volume presents their expert perspectives on a much-publicized topic.Contributors Mordechai Aviam, Wolfgang E. Krumbein, James H. Charlesworth, Andre Lemaire, Claude Cohen-Matlofsky, Lee Martin McDonald, April D. DeConick, Charles Pellegrino, Casey D. Elledge, Stephen Pfann, Mark Elliott, Petr Pokorny, Howard R. Feldman, Jonathan J. Price, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Christopher A. Rollston, Camil Fuchs, Amnon Rosenfeld, Shimon Gibson, Jane Schaberg, Rachel Hachlili, Andrew V. Sills, Eldad Keynan, Mark Spigelman, Kevin Kilty, James D. Tabor, Amos Kloner, Konstantinos Th. Zarras, , Watch an interview with James H. Charlesworth below:,

This work examines one section of southern Karnak from the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. Excavations at the site uncovered extensive remains from the late New Kingdom (12th-11th c. BCE), Third Intermediate Period (11th-7th c. BCE), and Late Period occupation of the area (7th-4th c. BCE). The research questions focused on determining the function of this section of the city and the nature of its relationship to the neighbouring Mut temple. A close study of the architectural and ceramic evidence traces the changing roles of the area through time, with special emphasis on a large-scale mud-brick building discovered at the site.

The study of furniture and its production is a window into both the social position of its owner and the techniques and social organization of the craftsmen. This book comprises an examination and analysis of chairs, stools and footstools of the New Kingdom (ca.1550-1069 B.C.) which are preserved in the Cairo Egyptian Museum. The first chapter is dedicated to woodworking processes and techniques of manufacturing chairs and stools. The second chapter analyses the chairs, stools, and fragments that constitute the main corpus of this study (131 pieces in total). The third chapter focuses primarily on two-dimensional scenes and how these can increase our understanding of the study objects. The fourth chapter is devoted to a lexicographical analysis of the terms used to designate different types of chairs, stools and footstools. This is followed by a typological study of chairs and stools in the New Kingdom based on actual pieces of furniture that my corpus includes and those preserved in other collections.

This fresh categorisation and examination grew from the author's innate curiosity about the shapes and forms of the ships and boats of the Ancient World and particularly of the Ancient Egyptians. Many years sailing and the book by Nancy Jenkins, "The Boat beneath the Pyramid" which considered the vessel buried alongside the Great Pyramid of Giza sparked this curiosity, and from this start point, the focus of the research moved to the catalogue of model vessels in the Cairo Museum collection, published by Reisner, and the surviving hulls from Dahshur. These sources were augmented and supported by the work by Boreux. Finds such as the timbers from Lisht added valuable information. An interest in the greater variety of vessels to be known from the Old and Middle Kingdoms concentrated the researcher's attention upon the craft of these periods. Three fragmentary examples of hull forms, supposedly not known until the Old Kingdom, have been included, as the categorization system proposed in this research attempts to push back the previously accepted dates of some Egyptian hull shapes.

This volume celebrates the contribution of Diana V. Edelman to the field and celebrates her personally as researcher, teacher, mentor, colleague, and mastermind of new research paths and groups. It salutes her unconventional, constantly thinking and rethinking outside the box and her challenging of established consensuses. It includes essays addressing biblical themes and texts, archaeological fieldwork, historical method, social memory and reception history. Contributors include Yairah Amit, James Anderson, Bob Becking, Ehud Ben Zvi, Kare Berge, Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Lester L. Grabbe, Philippe Guillaume, David Hamidovic, Lowell K. Handy, Maria Hausl, Kristin Joachimsen, Christoph Levin, Aren M. Maeir, Lynette Mitchell, Reinhard Muller, Jorunn Okland, Daniel Pioske, Thomas Romer, Benedetta Rossi, Cynthia Shafer-Elliott, Jason Silverman, Steinar Skarpnes, Pauline A. Viviano, Anne-Mareike Wetter.

A collection of papers in honour of Eyptologist Ulrich Luft. Contents: 1) The Greek subliterary texts and the Demotic literature (Adrienn Almasy); 2) Die drei Kartuschen im Naoseingang (Edith Bernhauer); 3) Eine archaisierende Konigsfigur der spaten Libyerzeit (Helmut Brandl) 4) A Phantom Debate ? (Edward Brovarski); 5) Inscriptions of the high priest Pinudjem I on the walls of the Eighteenth Dynasty Temple at Medinet Habu (Gabriella Dembitz); 6) News from Old Kingdom Thebes (Zoltan Imre Fabian); 7) Who was Sinuhe? (Hans Goedicke); 8) Memphis in der fruhen 6. Dynastie als Fallbeispiel agyptologischer Residenzenforschung (Rolf Gundlach); 9) Massbezeichnungen auf koptischen Papyri und Ostraka (Monika Hasitzka); 10) A Greek Coptic Glossary Found at TT65 (Andrea Hasznos); 11) Zum koptischen Alphabet des Bernhard von Breydenbach (1486) (Balazs J. Irsay-Nagy); 12) Die Naoi und die Kulttopographie von Saft el-Henneh (Dieter Kessler); 13) The protagonist-catalogues of the apocryphal acts of Apostles in the Coptic Manichaica a re-assessment of the evidence (Gabor Kosa); 14) Feudalisms of Egyptology (Katalin Anna Kothay); 15) Der Sennefer Brief, Berlin P 10463 die Lesung des Papyrusmaterials (Myriam Krutzsch) 16) Shakespeares The Tempest and the Latin Asclepius (Ildiko Limpar); 17) From Middle Kingdom apotropaia to Netherworld Books (Eva Liptay); 18) Zu einer Formulierung in Totenbuch Kapitel (Alexander Manisali); 19) Les Proces. Un genre litteraire de lEgypte ancienne (Bernard Mathieu); 20) Vom schonen Erzahlen. Buchstablich fabelhafte Bilder (Ludwig D. Morenz); 21) Die administrativen Texte der Berliner Lederhandschrift (Matthias Muller); 22) Letters from Gurna. The mix-and-match game of an excavation (Bori Nemeth); 23) Zum Tempel des Amonre Der die Bitte hort in Karnak (Jurgen Osing); 24) The forms of the shadow: The birth-stories of the first archon in the ancient Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi (Csaba Otvos); 25) Elkasai (Monika Pesthy-Simon); 26) Foreign groups at Lahun during the late Middle Kingdom (Mate Petrik); 27) Geschlechtsidentitatsstorungen im altagyptischen Pantheon? Einige Bemerkungen zum Phanomen wechselnder Genuskorrelationen von Gotternamen (Andreas H. Pries); 28) Eine agyptische Bezeichnung der Perle? (Joachim Friedrich Quack); 29) The domestic servant of the palace rn-snb (Helmut Satzinger and Danijela Stefanovic); 30) An Early Stela of the High Priest Amenhotep of the 20th Dynasty? (Julia Schmied); 31) The Burial Shaft of the Tomb of Amenhotep, Overseer of the First Phyle Theban Tomb No. -64- (Gabor Schreiber); 32) The Epistolary topos and War (Anthony Spalinger); 33) He did its Like: Some Uses of Repetition in Demotic Narrative Fiction (John Tait); 34) Aegyptio-Afroasiatica XXIV(Gabor Takacs); 35) The Demons of the Air and the Water of the Nile. Saint Anthony the Great on the Reason of the Inundation (Peter Toth); 36) Der gottliche Ramses II. im Grossen Tempel von Abu Simbel (Martina Ullmann); 37) Excavation in the Tomb of Piay in Dra Abu el Naga (TT 344) (Zsuzsanna Vanek); 38) Deux etiquettes de momie) (Edith Varga); 39) One seal and two sealings of the Fifth Dynasty and their historical implications (Miroslav Verner); 40) Zur Homonymie in den Kxoe-Varietaten des Zentralkhoisan (Rainer Vossen); 41) Ein Sphinxkopf aus der 12. Dynastie (Munchen AS 7110) (Gabriele Wenzel); 42) Eine ptolemaische Abrechung uber inneragyptischen Finanzausgleich. (P. Fitzhugh D.4 + P. Wangstedt 7) (Karl-Theodor Zauzich).

‘Tanbûr Long-Necked Lutes Along the Silk Road and Beyond’ explores the origin, history, construction, and playing techniques of tanbûrs, a musical instrument widely used over vast territories and over many centuries. The diffusion of the tanbûr into the musical cultures along the Silk Road resulted in a variety of tanbûrs with two or more, occasionally doubled or tripled courses, a varying number and variously tuned frets, each having its own characteristic sound, playing technique, and repertory. Since the last century, tanbûrs spread beyond the Silk Road while new versions continue to appear due to changing musical and tonal demands made on them. Similar or identical instruments are also known by other names, such as saz or bağlama, dotâr or dutâr, setâr, dömbra, and dambura.

In Pottery and Economy in Old Kingdom Egypt, Leslie Anne Warden investigates the economic importance of utilitarian ceramics, particularly beer jars and bread moulds, in third millennium BC Egypt. The Egyptian economy at this period is frequently presented as state-centric or state-defined. This study forwards new methodology for a bottom-up approach to Egyptian economy, analyzing economic relationships through careful analysis of variation within the utilitarian wares which formed the basis of much economic exchange in the period. Beer jars and bread moulds, together with their archaeological, textual, and iconographic contexts, thus yield a framework for the economy which is fluid, agent-based, and defined by small scale, face-to-face relationships rather than the state.

The period of the demise of the kingdom of Judah at the end of the 6th century B.C.E., the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, the exile of the elite to Babylon, and the reshaping of the territory of the new province of Judah, culminating at the end of the century with the first return of exiles-all have been subjects of intense scrutiny during the last decade. Lipschits takes into account the biblical textual evidence, the results of archaeological research, and the reports of Babylonian and Egyptian sources and provides a comprehensive survey and analysis of the evidence for the history of this 100-year-long era. He provides a lucid historical survey that will, no doubt, become the baseline for all future studies of this era.

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHORS OF FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS AND THE ORION MYSTERY 'An exciting book . . . deservedly a bestseller' SPECTATOR ___________________________________________ In Keeper of Genesis, Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval present a tour de force of historical and scientific detective work: * When and where did history begin? * When was the genesis of civilisation in Egypt? * How and why were the Great Sphinx and the three pyramids of Giza designed to serve as parts of an immense three-dimensional model of the sky of 'First Time'? * What is contained in the rectangular chamber that seismic surveys have located in the bedrock far below the paws of the sphinx? * What lies behind the mysterious doors recently discovered at the end of a previously unexplored shaft inside the Great Pyramid? * Does mankind have a rendezvous with destiny - a rendezvous not in the future, but in the distant past - at a precise place and time? Using sophisticated computer simulations of the ancient skies to crack the millennial code that the monuments transcribe, Bauval and Hancock set out a startling new theory of the Pyramid Texts and other archaic Egyptian scriptures. ___________________________________________ 'Reads like a detective story, with the reader enthusiastically trying to outguess the writers' Literary Review 'Start the book in the early evening and continue uninterrupted till you complete it in the small house. The effect is wonderful . . . Your entire world view has been shifted a hundred yards . . . You fall asleep thinking that nothing will ever be the same again' Sunday Telegraph

This book surveys four thousand years of pottery production and presents totally unexpected fresh information, using technical and analytical methods. It provides a study of ancient pottery of Jerusalem, from the earliest settlement to the medieval city and brings to light important aspects that cannot be discovered by the commonly accepted morphological pottery descriptions. New insights include the discovery that third millennium BCE pottery appears to have been produced by nomadic families, middle Bronze Age ceramics were made by professional potters in the Wadi Refaim, the pottery market of the Iron Age II pottery cannot be closely dated and is still produced during the first centuries after the exile, and the new shapes are made by Greek immigrant potters. The book contains a chapter on the systematics of ceramic studies and numerous notes about the potters themselves.

Papers from an international Egyptological conference entitled Evolving Egypt: Innovation, Appropriation, and Reinterpretation in Ancient Egypt held in February 2006 at BYU-Hawaii (Oahu). Contents: 1) Possibilities and Pitfalls in Identifying Innovation: The Early Ramesside Era as a Case Study (Kerry Muhlestein); 2) Les bateaux et le sacre dans l'ancienne Egypte (Ana Maria Rosso); 3) Symbolic Connotations of Pyramid Temples in the 5th and 6th Dynasties (Pal Steiner); 4) Dating of Stelae of the 12th Dynasty: A Statistical Approach (Des Bright); 5) The Expansionist Policies of the New Kingdom and the Increase in Craft Specialization in the Textile Industry (Giovanni Tata); 6) Copy and Reinterpretation in the Tomb of Nakht: Ancient Egyptian Hermeneutics (Valerie Angenot); 7) The Daily Cult: Space, Continuity and Change (Robyn Gillam); 8) Glossed Over: Ancient Egyptian Interpretations of Their Religion (John Gee); 9) The Hieratic Scribal Tradition in Preexilic Judah (David Calabro); 10) Ptolemaic Translation and Representation: The Hellenistic Sculptural Program of the Memphite Sarapieion (Shanna Kennedy-Quigley); 11) Appropriation of Egyptian Judgment in the Testament of Abraham? (Jared Ludlow); 12 New Evidence of Coptic Mummification Techniques From Tell El-Hibeh, Middle Egypt (Robert M. Yohe II, Jill K. Gardner, and Deanna Heikkinen).