A collection of 29 papers on a wide range of Egyptological and Coptic subjects. Aspects of epigraphy, art history, architecture, artefactual studies, philology, and the history of Egyptology and Coptic studies are among the many topics discussed. Papers predominantly in Italian , with a few in French and one in English.

Contents: Mikhail Abramzon: A hoard of bronze Pontic and Bosporan coins of the reign of Mithradates VI from Phanagoria, 2007; Anna Alexandropoulou: The Late Classical and Hellenistic pottery of Sinope and Amisos; William Anderson and Abby Robinson: Marginal or mainstream? The character of settlement in Late Roman Paphlagonia; Sumer Atasoy: New exploration of the southern Black Sea coast: Filyos - Tios; Eka Avaliani: Ancient Anatolia: cultural mosaic, not melting pot; Lucretiu Mihailescu-Birliba: Les Pontobithyniens en Dacie romaine; Thomas Bruggemann: Paphlagonia between Goths, Sasanids and Arabs (3rd-8th centuries AD); Ertekin Doksanalti and Gungor Karauguz: The Hellenistic and Roman ceramics from field surveys at Devrek and its environs, west Black Sea region of Turkey; Sevket Donmez: A new excavation in Pontus: Amasya-Oluz Hoyuk. Preliminary results for the Hellenistic period and Iron Age layers; Dimitris P. Drakoulis: Regional transformations and the settlement network of the coastal Pontic provinces in the Early Byzantine period; Cristian E. Ghita: The Pontic army: integrating Persian and Macedonian traditions; J.G.F. Hind: Milesian and Sinopean traders in Colchis (Greeks at Phasis and the ransoming of shipwrecked sailors); Monica M. Jackson: The Amisos Treasure: a Hellenistic tomb from the age of Mithradates Eupator; Gungor Karauguz, Ozsen Corumluoglu, Ibrahim Kalayci and Ibrahim Asri: A 3D digital photogrammetric model of a Roman 'birdrock monument' in the north-west region of Anatolia; Merab Khalvashi and Emzar Kakhidze: Sinopean amphorae in Apsarus; Liudmila G. Khrushkova: Chersonesus in the Crimea: Early Byzantine capitals with fine-toothed acanthus leaves; Liudmila G. Khrushkova and Dmitri E. Vasilinenko: Basilica Lesnoe-1 near Sochi in the north-eastern Black Sea region; Sergei A. Kovalenko The Hestiatorion of the Chaika settlement in the north-western Crimea; Ergun Lafli und Eva Christof: Drei neu entdeckte Phallossteine aus der Chora von Hadrianopolis; Boris Agomedov and Sergey Didenko: Red Slip Ware in Chernyakhov culture; Iulian Moga: Strabo on the Persian Artemis and Men in Pontus and Lydia; Kyrylo Myzgin: Finds of Roman coins of Asia Minor provincial mintage in the territory of Chernyakhov Culture; Alexander V. Podossinov: Bithynia, Paphlagonia and Pontus on the Tabula Peutingeriana; Jean-Louis Podvin: Cultes isiaques en Pont et Paphlagonie; Elena A. Popova and Tatiana V. Egorova: Investigation of the Late Scythian cinder heap on the site of Chaika near Evpatoria in the north-west Crimea; Annette Teffeteller: Strategies of continuity in the construction of ethnic and cultural identity: the lineage and role of Zeus Stratios in Pontus and Paphlagonia; Bruno Tripodi: Paphlagonian horseman in Cunaxa (Xenophon Anabasis 1. 8. 5); Gocha R. Tsetskhladze: The southern Black Sea coast and its hinterland: an ethno-cultural perspective; Maya Vassileva: The rock-cut monuments of Phrygia, Paphlagonia and Thrace: a comparative overview; Jose Vela Tejada: Stasis and polemos at Pontus in the first half of the 4th century BC according to Aeneas Tacticus: the Datames' siege of Sinope; Fred C. Woudhuizen; The saga of the Argonauts: a reflex of Thraco-Phrygian maritime encroachment on the southern Pontic littoral; Luca Zavagno: Amastris (Paphlagonia): a study in Byzantine urban history between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages; Elena A. Zinko: Peculiarities of the paintings of Bosporan crypts of the 3rd-6th centuries AD; Two Appendices: Pessinus in Phrygia: Brief Preliminary Report of the 2010 Field Season.

Cross-referencing visual depictions with the more meagre archaeological record, this study presents a typology of this significant artefact. It examines the ritual uses of the amulet, and discusses its symbolic place in Egyptian theology, drawing on the work of Jan Assman.

This collection of papers orignally given at a 2008 conference at Alexandria University presents recent archaeological work on the Lake Mareotis region of Alexandria, of considerable importance in antiquity as a hub of economic activity and of transport links. The volume brings together recent results from several different national expeditions and research projects in the region, including the Lake Mareotis Research Project, established jointly by the departments of Maritime Archaeology at Southampton and Alexandria Universities, and the Department of Underwater Antiquities Alexandria.

Egyptian mummies are perennially popular with visitors to museums but what is their relevance in the twenty-first century? And what can we learn from the study of these ancient remains? Mummies are an unparalleled source of scientific data, addressing a host of questions about life in one of the most highly developed societies of the ancient world. Although the ancient Egyptians left many written records, these tell only part of the story, and researchers rely heavily on human remains to complete the picture. These throw light on many important issues about which the inscriptions are often silent: physical anthropology, family relationships, life expectancy, nutrition and health, disease and the causes of death. They also of course provide a unique insight into the fascinating and complex processes of mummification; including not only the artificial preservation of the corpse, but also the ritual elements which played such an important part: the placing of amulets, the putting on of wrappings and the equipping of the body with religious texts and images. For many years, the only way to extract this data from Egyptian mummies was to unwrap them a process both destructive and irreversible. Then, the advent of modern non-invasive imaging techniques X-rays and Computerized Tomography (CT) scanning made it possible to look inside a mummy without disturbing the wrappings in any way. Now this technology has advanced still further. Thanks to the latest computer-generated images, we are able to perform a virtual unwrapping of a mummy and to embark on a journey within the body, visualizing every feature and amulet in 3D. The subject chosen for this ground-breaking experiment, the priest Nesperennub, has been one of the British Museums treasured exhibits for over a hundred years. His beautifully painted mummy-case has never been opened since it was sealed up by embalmers on the West Bank at Thebes shortly before he was buried, but now after 2,800 years technology has unlocked its secrets. This book takes the reader on a journey of discovery, gathering information about Nesperennub from a variety of sources. First, his place in history and his role in Egyptian society are pieced together from the inscriptions the formal record of his life which was intended for posterity. Then the 3D technology makes it possible to enter the mummy case and to explore the body, collecting data about Nesperennub as a person, seeing his face, assessing his health, and looking over the shoulders of the embalmers as they prepared him for eternal life.

This book gives a structured account of Egypt's transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule by identifying key relationships between ecology, land tenure, taxation, administration and politics. It introduces theoretical perspectives from the social sciences and subjects them to empirical scrutiny using data from Greek and Demotic papyri as well as comparative evidence. Although building on recent scholarship, it offers some provocative arguments that challenge prevailing views. For example, patterns of land ownership are linked to population density and are seen as one aspect of continuity between the Ptolemaic and Roman period. Fiscal reform, by contrast, emerges as a significant mechanism of change not only in the agrarian economy but also in the administrative system and the whole social structure. Anyone seeking to understand the impact of Roman rule in the Hellenistic east must consider the well-attested processes in Egypt that this book seeks to explain.

Between 2004 and 2008 the Centre for Maritime Archaeology (CMA), University of Southampton and the Department of Underwater Antiquities of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA), in conjunction with the Centre for Maritime Archaeology and Underwater Cultural Heritage (CMAUCH), University of Alexandria, conducted five seasons of survey along the shores of the western arm of Lake Mareotis, Alexandria, Egypt. This was to be the first systematic, comprehensive survey of the region, the aim being to more fully appreciate the nature of Lake Mareotis and the role it played in the economy of ancient Alexandria. An initial visit to the region in 2002 alerted the co-directors of the subsequent project, Lucy Blue (CMA) and Sameh Ramses (SCA), to the huge potential of the area, as well as the immediate threats that the archaeology of the region faced.

In this study the author focuses on trade and markets in New Kingdom, Egypt. Contents: 1) Introduction and overview of internal exchange systems and the Egyptian economy; 2) Theoretical approaches to the Egyptian economy; 3) Local markets; 4) Economic transactions of movable goods (in particular relation to Thebes; 5) The 'Swtyw' ('traders'; 6) Real estate and land exchange; 7) Trade in slaves.

This volume reports on the use of conventional X-ray and CT-scanning to investigate a sample of 127 mummified animals in British museums. It presents a methodology for this relatively new field of study, showing how radiographic technologies can be used to identify species, the age and sex of the animal, body cavity contents, pathology and cause of death, as well as aspects of the mummification process.

Ash-sharq is a journal devoted to short articles on the archaeology, history and society of the Ancient Near East.

This volume collates and analyses petroglyphs from the eastern desert of Egypt. Images of wild animals, domestic animals, anthropoids and boats, together with geometric patterns, are classified and assessed by statistical means to reach conclusions about the preferences of the artists in terms of subject matter, style, context and geographical distribution. The dataset is compared with petroglyphs from the Nile Valley and further afield to establish possible connections, contacts and influences. Issues of dating and meaning are also addressed.

Grafton Elliot Smith rose from a colonial Australian background to dizzying heights in the British scientific establishment. He became a world authority on neuroanatomy and human prehistory, holding chairs at Cairo, Manchester and University College, London. He was best known publicly for his challenging theory of cultural diffusion, crossing the boundaries of anthropology, archaeology and history, stemming from his expert knowledge of evolution. Most controversy raged about his "Egyptian" theory, which placed ancient Egypt as the dynamic source from which major elements of civilisation were spread by the migration of peoples and mores. This vision stemmed from his ground-breaking dissection of thousands of mummies in Egypt during the great excavations of the 1900s. His speculations, made in association with thinkers such as W H R Rivers and W J Perry, bore fruit in a spate of publications that sparked global debate, arousing particular anger from American ethnologists opposed to ideas of foreign influence upon Mesoamerican cultures. Elliot Smith's ideas were regarded at the time as authentic, if problematic, approaches to important issues in human history. They were subsequently to be caricatured or ignored in anthropological and archaeological disciplines that had moved on to other paradigms. Paul Crook shows how his ideas were developed in the context of his life and times, examining the debates they aroused, his attempts to incorporate anthropology within a broader interdisciplinary school under his leadership in London, and his opposition to Nazi race theory in the 1930s. There has been no full-scale biography of Elliot Smith and little of substance analysing his works. Despite shortcomings, his theory and reputation deserve rehabilitation. An Afterword brings general readers up to date about the whole "diffusion" debate.

This highly original study locates the question of scribes and scribal schools in monarchic Judah in a socio-archaeological context. It departs from earlier studies by assigning priority to interpreting archaeological data within a broad interdisciplinary framework before trying to assess biblical and epigraphic sources. The book provides an analysis of data on settlement, public works, and luxury items in order to produce an archaeologically based picture of the development of state level administrative systems in Judah. The study questions the consensus that the Judahite monarchy became a state at some point in the tenth century BCE. The evidence for the increase in population, building, production, centralization and specialization in the eighth century suggests that Judah did not function as a state before the eighth century BCE. This incisive study challenges the assumption of widespread literacy and the traditional picture of the development of the Judahite monarchy. This volume is a reprint of the 1991 edition with a new preface by Keith W. Whitelam setting the work in the context of recent debates on the history of ancient Israel.

"Peoples of the Sea" is, in some sense, the culmination of the series "Ages in Chaos." In this volume the erroneous time shift of classical history reaches its maximum span - 800 years With carefully documented evidence and indisputable arguments, Velikovsky places Ramses III firmly into the 4th century B.C. thereby solving, once and for all, numerous conundrums that historians had been confronted with in the past. He unveils the surprising identity of the so-called "Peoples of the Sea," clarifies the role of the Philistines and solves the enigma of the Dynasty of Priests. This volume leads Velikovsky's revised chronology up to the time of Alexander where it links-up with the records of classical chronology. In an extensive supplement Velikovsky delves into the fundamental question of how such a dramatic shift in chronology could have come about. Analyzing the main pillars of Egyptian chronology, he points out where the most dramatic mistakes were made and addresses the misunderstanding underlying the "astronomical chronology." In a further supplement he discusses the very interesting conclusions that can be drawn from radiocarbon testing on Egyptian (archeological) finds.

"In Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit Jodi Magness unearths 'footprints' buried in both archaeological and literary evidence to shed new light on Jewish daily life in Palestine from the mid-first century b.c.e. to 70 c.e. the time and place of Jesus' life and ministry. Magness analyzes recent archaeological discoveries from such sites as Qumran and Masada together with a host of period texts, including the New Testament, the works of Josephus, and rabbinic teachings. Layering all these sources together, she reconstructs in detail a fascinating variety of everyday activities dining customs, Sabbath observance, fasting, toilet habits, burial customs, and more" -- BACK COVER.

Papers from a seminar held at the University of Copenhagen in September 2006. Contents: A New Look at the Conception of the Human Being in Ancient Egypt (John Gee); 2) Between Identity and Agency in Ancient Egyptian Ritual (Harold M. Hays); 3) Material Agency, Attribution and Experience of Agency in Ancient Egypt: The case of New Kingdom private temple statues (Annette Kjolby); 4) Self-perception and Self-assertion in the Portrait of Senwosret III: New methods for reading a face ((Maya Muller); 5) Taking Phenomenology to Heart: Some heuristic remarks on studying ancient Egyptian embodied experience (Rune Nyord); 6) Anger and Agency: The role of the emotions in Demotic and earlier narratives (John Tait); 7) Time and Space in Ancient Egypt: The importance of the creation of abstraction (David A. Warburton); Index of Egyptian and Greek words and expressions."

The building process of the Egyptian pyramids has been the subject of many publications. However, a thorough review of this literature reveals that only certain aspects of this process have been studied in isolation, without taking into account the interaction between various activities involved, such as quarrying, transportation and buThe building process of the Egyptian pyramids has been the subject of many publications. However, a thorough review of this literature reveals that only certain aspects of this process have been studied in isolation, without taking into account the interaction between various activities involved, such as quarrying, transportation and building and without a sound quantitative basis. The present study aims at filling this gap by means of an integrated mathematical model.

This thesis, sure to prove controversial, examines the geometry of Old Kingdom Royal tomb architecture, arguing for far greater levels of mathematical sophistication than hitherto admitted. Adding his own contribution to the Black Athena debate, Lightbody also claims that the debts in measurement, geometry and mathematics which the Greeks owe to the Egyptians has also not been fully recognised, not least due to an overfocusing on philological evidence.

Although Egyptian amphorae containing wine were labelled, these labels never state whether the wine inside was red or white. Using analysis of residue samples from amphorae this study determines what kind's of wine could be covered by this generic labelling, and also investigates a further product called shedeh, which transpired to be a more complex wine. The study also contains a well-illustrated cultural overview of wine in Ancient Egypt, and a comprehensive bibliography.

This volume focuses on the reconstruction of household organization during the Iron II period at Tell Halif. It centers in particular on one four-room, pillared-type building located in Area F7 of Field IV and on its remains, which were sealed in a massive destruction that eclipsed the site in the late eighth century B.C.E. This study was first prepared as a Ph.D. dissertation for the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona (Hardin 2001) and has since been amplified and embellished by further research. Published here are the results of research deliberately designed by the author to provide for more complete recovery and detailed recording in the field of all artifacts and other remains within a special refined three-dimensional grid matrix. These data in turn established a framework for studying the formation processes active on the materials and for conducting a spatial analysis of the assemblages in the building. Along with developing ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological inferences, these techniques are used to identify activities, activity areas, and social organization related to the building, ultimately defining an "archaeological household" consisting of the pillared dwelling and its occupants. Finally, these conclusions are also related to reconstructions of the Iron II-period household suggested by Hebrew Bible sources.

Glass and Glass Production in the Near East during the Iron Age: Evidence from objects, texts and chemical analysis examines the history of glass in Iron Age Mesopotamia and neighbouring regions (1000–539 BCE). This is the first monograph to cover this region and period comprehensively and in detail and thus fills a significant gap in glass research. It focusses on identification of the different types of glass objects and their respective manufacturing techniques from the the Iron Age period. Both glass as material and individual glass objects are investigated to answer questions such as as how raw glass (primary production) and glass objects (secondary production) were manufactured, how both these industries were organised, and how widespread glass objects were in Mesopotamian society in the Iron Age period. Such a comprehensive picture of glass and its production in the Iron Age can only be achieved by setting archaeological data in relation to cuneiform texts, archaeometric analyses and experimental-archaeological investigations. With regard to the different disciplines incorporated into this study, an attempt was made to view them together and to establish connections between these areas.

An important survey of the dental health of Ancient Egyptians, investigating the effects of diet and living conditions. Miller uses as evidence a selection of skulls from the Duckwoth collection in Cambridge and from the Department of Palaeopathology at the British Museum, ranging in date from the Neolithic (c.4000 BC) to the Greek period (c.300 BC). The study aims to trace trends in dental health through this period and relate findings to documentary and archaeological evidence for changes in diet.

This volume is the first in a planned series of reports on the investigations of the Lahav Research Project (LRP) at Tell Halif, located near Kibbutz Lahav in southern Israel. The LRP has focused widely on stratigraphic, environmental, and ethnographic problems related to the history of settlement at Tell Halif and in its immediate surroundings, from prehistoric through modern times. It is fitting that this LRP series begins by focusing on remains from Site 101, which was the first location excavated by the team in 1973. This initial effort involved investigation of a warren of shallow caves that had been exposed by efforts to widen the road into the kibbutz. In this volume, J. P. Dessel reports on the excavation undertaken at Site 101 during Phase II and is also supplemented by his later research. The excavation itself was guided throughout by Dessel's determination to require the total retrieval of all ceramic remains. It was his rigorous follow-through on all details involved in the analysis of materials that produced the pioneering results herein presented. Readers will find the book important for the archaeology and history of the southern Levant in the 4th millennium B.C.E. as well as for connections between the Levant and surrounding regions in that era.

Using Gerasa and Dura Europos as case studies this book analyses changes in spatial patterns in the Late Antique polis. It seeks to determine how much spatial change should be linked to religious change, as opposed, say to the decline of civic administration or economic change. March finds that enclosure of space is the most readily apparent feature of the Late Antique spatial transformation and that this is characteristic of an early Christian desire to seperate the sacred and the profane.