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The author of this technical study, an engineer and specialist in industrial heating systems, developed this work from his interest in temperature conditions in ancient buildings that were heated by early types of central heating with hypocausts and tubuli, warming floors and walls with hot air from wood-fuelled fires outside the building. The author applies technical processes and related mathematical formulae used today for the caloric calculation.
This book investigates the practical and ritual dimensions of trees and timber in the Bronze Age and Iron Age of Scandinavia. The arguments are developed through the study of a broad range of materials including rock-art images depicting trees, charcoal from archaeological contexts identified to species, and prehistoric long-houses. The archaeological remains are related to a wider discussion in anthropology and historical ecology concerning the multifaceted relationship between humans and trees.
This research deals with the coin circulation in Hispania in the 2nd century AD, and is based on the numismatic findings compiled in many and varied works and researches. Chronologically, it covers the period between the government of Nerva and the death of Commodus, from AD 96 to 192. Geographically, it spans the Roman territories of the Iberian Peninsula, which includes the modern countries of Spain and Portugal.
Although the earliest known literary evidence for a dual-sexed divinity on Cyprus dates to the fifth century BCE, archaeological evidence indicates there was a tradition on the island of sexually ambiguous imagery which predates the literary sources. This information prompted the present research, which traces the tradition back to the earliest known examples on Late Neolithic Cyprus, and tracks its evolution through to the Cypro-Archaic period. Rather than rely upon descriptions, photographs and drawings presented in consulted publications, the various international museums that house the figures were visited by the writer in order to physically examine the images. A catalogue of the sexually ambiguous imagery for Cyprus from the Neolithic to the Cypro-Archaic period has been compiled and is included in this work. It is proposed that the imagery is of Cypriot innovation, and consists of proto-anthropomorphic, anthropomorphic and half-animal, half-human representations. The genre is influenced from its earliest period by the figurative art of the Syro-Anatolian mainland, but from the Late Bronze Age onwards, influences from the western Mediterranean and Aegean are also evident. Despite the periods in which there is little evidence for figurine production, sexually ambivalent imagery re-emerges when figurative evidence is once more apparent in the archaeological records. Furthermore, stylistic continuity of the genre from one period to the next is also apparent. This continuity is regardless of the cultural changes which occur intermittently during the seven millennia period relevant to this study. Although it is not until the Cypro-Geometric period that there is firm evidence to support a religious interpretation of sexually equivocal imagery, it is suggested that the genre from the earliest period was at least associated with fertility, and perhaps religious cult.
Molise, southern Italy, formerly linked with the region of Abruzzo, has recently attracted further archaeological interest since becoming the newest Italian region in 1963. The history of the discoveries and studies of Late-Antique Molise is a recent one. The history of Roman discoveries in the large Samnitic hinterland begins from the second half of the 19th century. In this period a network of local researchers linked to the Archaeological Institute of Correspondence in Rome (founded in 1829) recorded ad hoc information about ruins and inscriptions that proved most helpful for the newly founded administrative institutions of the new Kingdom of Italy. In the second half of the 20th century the archaeological data concerned not only inscriptions, but also monuments and the urban and rural topography of the Roman-Hellenistic period. Recently, the stratigraphic excavations of the Soprintendenza of Molise, and some university projects, have provided a significant amount of archaeological data about the Late Antique and Early Medieval history of this regional territory (Molise), as presented by the historical and archaeological data. Focusing on Late Antiquity, the author in this study looks specifically at the Roman towns of Larinum, Buca, Terventum, Fagifulae, Aesernia, Bovianum, Venafrum, and Saepinum.
This monograph is concerned with understanding the behaviours and land use practices associated with earlier Palaeolithic hominins in Syria, through consideration of key archaeological assemblages from two important regions: the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys. The focus here is on three temporal bands - Earliest occupations (1.50 mya - 0.80 mya); the Lower Palaeolithic (800 kya - 350 kya); the Middle Palaeolithic (350 kya - 50 kya. The areas of the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys possess some of the most significant artefact collections from Syria, and indeed, the wider Near East. This is due to the fact that fluvial archives - such as those represented by the terrace staircases of the Rivers Orontes and Euphrates - are major repositories for earlier Palaeolithic material, and have historically been a primary research resource. They therefore provide a combination of an abundance of archaeological evidence and a significant archive of research activity.
This study re-evaluates the previous understanding of the Later Village Period in Greater Susiana (southwestern Iran) by focusing mostly on settlement and landscape. This is addressed from the perspective of the small and previously least explored plain known in this study as the Eastern Plain. By providing a picture of the previously unknown prehistoric human occupations in the Eastern plain through an examination and assessment of recent survey and excavation results and contextualizing this information with the results of previous research carried out in the Greater Susiana plains, it is hoped that this study will contribute to our understanding of human occupation and settlement pattern between ca. 5000 and 3500 B.C. in southwestern Iran. After the Introduction, Chapter 2 consists of a general review of the available evidence on the Later Village period (Middle Susiana to the Uruk period), its characteristics and interpretation. Chapter 3 looks at the geographical and geomorphological characteristicsof the Eastern Plain. Chapter 4 reviews the new evidence of human occupation in the Eastern Plain from LMS to the Islamic era. Chapter 5 focuses on Tall-e Abu Chizan, an extensive settlement in the Eastern Plain and its place in the wider context of the Naft Sefid alluvial fan system. Chapter 6 presents the summary and conclusions. Appendices: 1. Excavation Pottery Collection; 2. Archaeobotanical Analysis at Tall-e Abu Chizan (Margareta Tengberg); 3. Observations on the Faunal Remains of Tall-e Abu Chizan (Marhjane Mashkour and Azadeh Mohaseb); 4. Chipped Stone from Tall-e Abu Chizan; 5. Radiocarbon Dates from Tall-e Abu Chizan.
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. The resources available to these officials were the products of the estate: livestock, annually grown field crops and what could be procured from the desert margins, waterways and marshlands. Their assets and resources contributed to officials' status and authority and provided the crown with an elite class of administrators available for state service. This examination of Old Kingdom estates is based on a study of funerary images and inscriptional material that may throw light on the economic basis of high officials and on the value that they attached to the different resources at their disposal.
This book includes papers from an international Egyptological conference entitled Evolving Egypt: Innovation, Appropriation, and Reinterpretation in Ancient Egypt held in February 2006 at BYU-Hawaii (Oahu).
This study aims to identify patterns of warfare in the southern French Iron Age through examination of the documentary, settlement, iconographic and osteological evidence for warfare in this region, each within its chronological context and in tandem with one another. The Iron Age of southern France remains relatively unknown in the English-speaking archaeological world. The best known aspects of the archaeological material suggest a society in which warfare was an overriding preoccupation. Major, fortified centres, such as Entremont and Saint-Blaise, and the tradition of 'warrior statues' like those from Entremont and Roquepertuse, suggest that conflict was a recurrent theme. Literary sources, such as Poseidonius have described the indigenous populations of this area as a volatile and warlike people who took the heads of their enemies from the battlefield and displayed or preserved them in their settlements. Finds of skulls, some with nails still embedded in the bone, appear to verify such reports. The pattern of warfare which emerges from this analysis is then discussed within some of the more prominent models of social-anthropological study. This case study offers a more nuanced and contextual interpretation of warfare in the southern French Iron Age and demonstrates how, if treated as a form of social interaction, rather than a breakdown in social norms, might be integrated into wider archaeological interpretations of social and political change.
This study examines in depth the pugio (pl. pugiones), a short dagger-sword and one of the weapons of choice of the Roman army - it was the weapon that killed Julius Caesar. Its rich decoration and the use of precious metals have given it legendary status, which has been enhanced by a scarcity of literary sources and the lack of a clear explanation of its function or the specific use soldiers made of it. This work tries to fill this gap, basing its finds exclusively on undisputed data and sources. This study of the pugio takes us through the history and evolution of the Roman army itself.
The city of Nicopolis (Epirus, northern Greece) was founded by Augustus to mark his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BC at the nearby Battle of Actium. The city flourished during the period of the Roman empire and its civic coinage was one ofthe most important and most interesting of the empire. It continued in production for over 250 years from the reign of Augustus to that of Gallienus. It has many unusual features, such as the very rare silver coins produced for the emperor Antoninus Piusand his wife Faustina, and, more particularly, the long series of coins with the name and portrait of Augustus. It was originally thought that they were all produced during Augustus' reign, but it is now known that, even though their exact chronology is difficult, they were minted for most of the time that the mint was active. This new study builds on existing scholarship but establishes a new level of understanding of the mint. The author has been able to find many new specimens of the coinage, often with previously unknown designs, and has found much new important material which was previously unknown in both Italian and Greek museums. The new collection of material is incorporated in a new and well-illustrated catalogue. The catalogue is accompanied by a series of analytical chapters that place the coinage very securely in the context of our literary and archaeological knowledge of Nicopolis, and which analyse how it can contribute to our understanding of Roman provincial coinage - its rhythm of production, its extent of circulation, its pattern of denominations and its iconography. The discussion is based on a very full understanding of the coinage and of the literature concerning other provincial coinages and will make a very lasting contribution, not just to the understanding of the coinage of Nicopolis and of ancient Achaea, but also of the problems and issues of the Roman provincial coinage more generally. [Taken from the Preface by Andrew Burnett, British Museum]
Studies in Early Medicine 2The series Studies in Early Medicine was established to allow scholars from all disciplines a forum for presenting new, groundbreaking or challenging research into aspects of disease, disability, health, medicine and society in the ancient and early medieval world, from prehistory to the Middle Ages. This present volume is the second in the series and presents some recent research into disability and impairment in Antiquity.
The aim of this book is to understand the development of the social structure of Germanic society in selected parts of "Germania Libera" in Europe from around c. 200 AD to 600 AD. Social structure here is primarily defined as the way the Germanic tribes perceived and expressed themselves and their worldview through their texts, their person, gender, family, lineage, tribe, and internal social and religious relations in the material culture. This book incorporates a relatively large time span which highlights aspects of Germanic social structure not identified in traditional shorter studies dictated by arbitrarily defined periods and areas. The focus is especially on the way Migration period cemeteries are differently or similarly structured within Germanic society. The Migration period is defined widely as the time from c. AD 200-600. In England, the equivalent time period is called late Roman and Early Saxon. When the cemeteries are analysed, other find categories are discussed in broader terms, together with analogies from social anthropology and from written sources, in this case, contemporary and later sources. One of the aims of the work is to look more closely at the singularity of the archaeological material in south-eastern Europe as a means of assessing the relevance of the written sources in the same area about social structure in both Southern and Northern Europe, especially in Scandinavia. (It also involves exploring the controversial source of Beowulf). The nine chapters focus on Germanic social structure; theoretical and methodological approaches to burials; south Scandinavian and Central European archaeology; social analysis of South Scandinavian cemeteries; a survey of the Sintana de Mures/Chernyakhovo culture; social analysis of Gothic cemeteries; survey of Anglo-Saxon scholarship; analysis of Anglo-Saxon graves, with special reference to Spong Hill; and conclusion.
Contents: 1) Let not the 19th Century Paradigms Continue to haunt us! (B.B. Lal); 2) Reflections on -Dots on a Map- (C. Lamberg-Karlovsky); 3) T-Shaped Pillars and Mesolithic -Chiefdoms- in the Prehistory of Southern Eurasia: A Preliminary Note (M.
Contents: 1) Fori Imperiali: la storia di un paesaggio urbano attraverso i contesti ceramici (Monica Ceci); 2) La ceramica d impasto del Foro di Cesare (Marina Ricci); 3) I materiali rinvenuti nell insula della salita del Grillo nell area dei Mercati di Traiano (con premessa di Roberto Meneghini) (Daniela Tabo); 4) Un contesto ..."
The first section of this volume presents previously unpublished and other finds from museums and collections, included on the basis of their importance in relation to Roman Siscia (Croatia). The second part of the volume encompasses recent finds from the excavations performed in 2003 at the site of St. Quirinus in Sisak (central Croatia). These Roman era finds are kept in the Municipal Museum of Sisak, the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, in the Zagreb collection of Matej Pavleti¿, the Sisak collection of Marko Golan, and in one anonymous numismatic collection in Zagreb. 216 finds are catalogued.
This study is primarily concerned with computer-generated reconstruction models of architecture. It offers a collection of possible methodologies for dealing with individual problems concerning visualisation aims and highlights methods of adding value to virtual models in archaeology. Several avenues of enquiry are therefore explored, such as: What use have virtual models in archaeology?; How are they perceived?; Who is the intended audience?; Which applied ethical issues exist?; How can ethical awareness lead to added value? How are these models created? There is no easy answer to any of these but this work approaches the issues through a series of projects. These are international, but exhibit a European focus, which is also mirrored by the three case studies. The three case studies were selected because of their differences but they also have two properties in common: they were all begun at approximately the same time (2001) and they all pay attention to ethical issues. Otherwise an effort was made to find projects which were produced and concerning sites in three different countries: Casa del Centenario in Pompeii (Italy), Ename (Belgium) and Avebury (U.K.). The projects are concerned with architecture from three different periods, i.e. a Roman house, a medieval settlement (with the focus on St. Lawrence's church) and a Neolithic monument complex. The projects also had different aims: while the Casa del Centenario was primarily intended as a museum application and as a visualisation tool for the restorers, in the Ename 974 project the reconstructions were to illustrate the work and interpretation in progress for the local population while the church was closed due to excavation and building research. The model of Avebury was designed for research purposes and not intended for public display. So far, no comprehensive synopsis of different approaches with a critical stance on computer-generated visualisations has ever been attempted and this work provides a detailed and stimulating overview and analysis and serves as a foundation for further research.
This study concerns Early Bronze Age burials excavated on the mound of Tell Bi'a (northern Syria). Following the introduction, the author discusses the material evidence, the theoretical basis, and the methods used for inferring the structure of a living society from funerary remains. This is followed by an overview of the chronological framework as well as a historical outline of the Syrian Bronze Age in accordance with the current state of epigraphic and archaeological research, and finally by a formulation of the questions raised in this study.
Contents: Introduction (Alex Gibson); Earthen Enclosures in Britain & Ireland: An Introduction to the study of henges: time for a change? (Alex Gibson); Henging, mounding and blocking: the Forteviot henge group (Kenneth Brophy & Gordon Noble); Henges in Ireland: new discoveries and emerging issues (Muiris O'Sullivan, Stephen Davies & Geraldine ...
Report from a Marie Curie Project 2009-2012 with Concluding Conference at Aarhus University, Moesgaard 2012: Volume 1With a strong emphasis on data, the two volumes of this book demonstrate that mobility was essential to the European Bronze Age by exploring the shared cultural expression of Bronze Age societies in contrast to their simultaneous development of new local and regional characteristics. During this seminal époque, cultural and social formations of an entirely new kind and magnitude came to characterize Europe. The intense and dynamic relations between local and large-scale change processes coincided with increased mobility in different domains and forms, forging new identities and shaping the emergence of Europe as a distinct cultural zone. Through over fifty essays by leading Bronze Age scholars, the reader engages with cultural mobility and connectivity and the ways in which these forces affected and transformed human behaviour. The two volume set includes four parts; this volume contains parts 1 (Materiality and Construction of Identities) and 2 (Economic and Political Foundations of Interaction and Mobility).
This book is about fish and fish-eating in Greece from the Classical period to the Late Roman period (5th c. B.C.-7th c. A.D.). In Classics fish-eating appears to be one of the most prominent and ideologically charged activities related to food. This work is an investigation of the way in which fish and its consumption was incorporated in the economic, social and ideological life of Greeks. It is also an exercise in the integration of different classes of data in dealing with questions about ancient societies. Although the focus of this work is archaeological, it takes advantage of historical, philological, anthropological and ichthyological data and methodologies.
Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 5The shape of this collection of essays has emerged over time from an original session from the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference held at Cardiff in 1999. A few years later the original theme evolved through the then fledgling Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory organisation, with its own series of books and conferences. This seemed an obvious home for 'Defining Moments' and the present volume appears after a decade-long gestation.
Studies in Early Medicine 1Series Editors: Sally Crawford and Christina Lee
This volume derives from a session held at the 2010 Theoretical Archaeology Group conference (Bristol University). The aims of this session were to explore occurrences of compromise (or making do) and repair (mending) in the past, with a particular focus on material culture. This original scope broadened to encompass reuse - inextricably linked to the central themes, particularly when considered through a biographical approach.
The idea for this volume emerged from critical self-reflection about diverse archaeological practices in a session presented at the 13th European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting (Zadar, Croatia, 2007), in particular the conflicting relationship between the 'mainstream' and the 'alternative'. The field of so-called 'fringe' or 'alternative' archaeology is vast and multifaceted, ranging from pseudoarchaeology, 'bad' archaeology practices, conspiracy theories and claims about lost civilizations to extraterrestrial cultures, (neo)shamanism, religious and/or nationalist demands. All these agendas have in common the fact that, through their differentiated readings and appropriations of the past, they create solidarities amongst their supporters.
This research examines the archaeological protection system and antiquarian collecting in northern Sicily, in particular in the coastal strip from Palermo to Messina during the first half of the nineteenth century. Substantially, the most represented historical period is the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1814-1861). The strength of the research, which is relevant to the history of Sicilian coin collecting and archaeology, is a substantial set of materials, discovered at the State Archive of Palermo and Fondazione Mandralisca of Cefalù. It comprises 141 archival records, which have been transcribed, ordered and studied thoroughly. Chapter 1 contains a general introduction about Sicilian archaeological protection systems and antiquarianism from the end of the eighteenth century to the post-Unification period. Chapter 2, based mainly on archival records, focuses on Palermo, the most important city of the Bourbon Sicily, where authorities managed and protected island antiquities. Sections describe the collections of Tommaso Gandolfo and Antonino Astuto, acquired by the Museum of the University, and the discovery of coins at Giarre in 1832. Enrico Pirajno's activities at Cefalù and Lipari are also examined in this chapter - he is considered one of the most skilful Sicilian antiquarians during the first half of the nineteenth century. The last section reports a significant numismatic discovery in the Cefalù Valley in 1824. Chapter 4 describes Tindari, where the Sciacca della Scala family led antiquarian research from the late eighteenth century until the late nineteenth century. Their collection of finds, kept in a private museum at the Castle of Scala di Patti is now lost. Chapter 5 discusses Giuseppe Grosso Cacopardo, the well-known coin collector from Messina (including the recent discovery of a special 'export' of ancient coins, found in Messina in 1845, to the King of Bavaria). The work's conclusion offers a final historical reconstruction of the numismatic and archaeological collecting in northern Sicily, according to new and substantial records. Five appendices report archival documentation, arranged in thematic sections.
A collection of papers on the archaeology of water installation from a session presented at the EAA conference in The Hague, September 2010.
Recent archaeobotanical results from early Neolithic sites on Cyprus have put the island in the forefront of debates on the spread of Near Eastern agriculture, with domestic crops appearing on the island shortly after they evolved. The results from these early sites changed what was known about the timing of the introduction of farming to the island. However, what happened after the introduction of agriculture to Cyprus has been less discussed. This book explores the role of new crop introductions, local agricultural developments, and intensification in subsequent economic and social developments on Cyprus corresponding with the island's evidence of ongoing social transformations and changing off-island patterns of contacts. In addition to contributing to discussions on the origins and spread of Near Eastern agriculture, it contributes to current archaeological debates on external contact and the influence of the broader Near East on the development of the island's unique prehistoric economy. This research is a chronological and regional analysis of the botanical record of Cyprus and a comparison of data from similarly dated sites in the Levantine mainland, Turkey, and Egypt. Further, it includes data from four recently excavated Cypriot prehistoric sites, Krittou Marottou-'Ais Yiorkis, Kissonerga-Skalia, Souskiou-Laona, and Prastion-Mesorotsos.
The notion of a "crescent-shaped cultural-communication belt" stretching from Northeast China and Korea along the Tibetan borderlands all the way to Yunnan stands as the late Tong Enzheng's most-cited contribution to the Chinese archaeological discourse (Tong Enzheng 1987). In the 1980s, suggesting such long-distance contact was a bold move. At the time, Chinese and Western scholars alike were afraid of being accused of diffusionistic tendencies in their work, and they thus mostly decided to concentrate on local developments. Only in recent years has it again become acceptable and even desirable to discuss far-reaching exchange networks. Interestingly, the emerging scholarship on such topics has some noticeable lacunae. Discussions on China's long distance contacts, for instance, focus mostly on steppe connections and Western influences on the cultures of the Central Plains. By contrast, material from Southwest China has received much less attention and has but rarely been mentioned in connection with Northeast China; neither have Tong Enzheng's considerable theoretical contributions to the understanding of culture contact and cultural exchange received the consideration they deserve. While Tong Enzheng remains a household name to anyone working in the Southwest, in other parts of China his work is less well known, and even though Tong still carries some name recognition outside of China, few scholars are fully aware of his important contributions. This volume stems from the session "Reconsidering the Crescent-Shaped Exchange Belt - Methodological, Theoretical and Material Concerns of Long-Distance Interactions in East Asia Thirty Years after Tong Enzheng" held at the Fifth World Conference of the Society for East Asian Archaeology (SEAA), held in Fukuoka (Japan) in 2012. The papers collected in the present volume touch on four main topics: Tong Enzheng's life and research, and his place within the development of modern Chinese archaeology; recent developments in the archaeology of Southwest China; material traces and geographic, cultural, and historical preconditions of possible movements and inter-group contacts along Tong's crescent shaped cultural-communication belt; and theoretical and methodological issues in the study of culture contacts and cultural exchange, and of their reflections in the material record.
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