Books published by BAR Publishing

Dr. Zhushchikovskaya is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Division, Vladivostok. This is an original work of synthesis, expressly written for an international audience and not previously published in Russian. Before the research of quite recent years, the Incipient Jomon pottery vessels of Japan had clear claim to the distinction of being "first in the world," with an age of about 13,000 radiocarbon years, or close to 15,000 calendar years ago. Now many comparably early dates have appeared in the Russian Far East as well, and impressive though currently less well-documented dates for early pottery are also appearing in China, Korea, and other countries. The present work shows that it may be quite some time now before any question of "first" can be resolved, as continuing discoveries show quite comparably early pottery appearing over an increasingly broad front in eastern Asia. Obviously there were processes at work that were general in scope, and certainly not accidental. Zhushchikovskaya goes to the heart of this matter with her synthesis of the current evidence from the Russian Far East, which pays close attention to the environmental circumstances in which early pottery appears. Equally, she pays close attention to the properties of raw materials and the mechanics of shaping and firing. Ethnographic observations on aboriginal pottery-making and other craft processes contribute importantly as well. Zhushchikovskaya's account of the earliest pottery is only the beginning of her work. In later chapters she goes on to trace the development of the early Russian traditions down through additional millennia of environmental and cultural change to the Iron Age, addressing the relations of pottery-making to socio-economic structures, andthe range of structures reflected in pottery-making itself. Her concluding discussion sums up the implications of particular Russian evidence for understanding the role that the study of pottery-making plays in archaeologists' efforts to trace cultural continuities and discontinuities, periodization, tempo of cultural development, cultural contacts, and migrations. This book will be of interest to a broad cross-section of readers: those interested in the history, technology, and functions of pottery; those who will appreciate the attention it pays to ecology, context and process in the innovation and diversification of traditions; those who seek to expand the utility of pottery as a tool in archaeological synthesis and interpretation; and those who pursue specific interests in the cultural history of eastern Asia. It also offers the international community an interesting window on some of the ways in which Russian archaeologists conceptualize their subject matter.Translated and edited by Richard L. Bland and C. Melvin Aikens

This work has as its main objective to clarify the nature of the early Neolithic period in the Southern Levant, in as much as this represents a key period for the beginning of agrarian societies. This goal is achieved through the analysis of lithics recovered from Zahrat adh-Dhra' 2 (ZAD 2), a site located on the eastern side of the Lisan Peninsular of the Dead Sea, about 1.5 km north of adh-Dhra' village. The importance of ZAD 2 is its short period of occupation, which helps in clarifying the tool typology and technology of the PPNA period without the problem of admixtures from other periods. By combining the analyses of architecture, groundstone, lithics and radiocarbon dates, ZAD 2 provides decisive evidence for an extension of the PPNA in the Southern-Central Levant. In arguing this, sites from the Southern Levant are compared to their counterparts in the Central and Northern Levant and the role of diffusion or local innovation is presented.

This book joins a long series of studies conducted in recent years at the Department for Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University in the Unit for the History of Medicine in Ancient Times. Since the field of study is extensive, the special focus of this treatise is the study of medicine in Greater Jerusalem, but it may serve as a faithful reflection of the nature of medicine and the changes it underwent throughout Israel and Syria in ancient times. The study is based primarily on historical sources. The first part of the book consists of a short history of medicine in Jerusalem from various historical aspects, followed by an evaluation of the physicians, their status, professional training, etc. The second part presents a list of physicians who were active in Jerusalem between the 10th-18th centuries.

Relations between the separatist regime of Marcus Postumus (in about 260 AD) and the Central Empire have been the subject of academic speculation but notably little direct research. It has been postulated that there was no 'closed border' policy between the two empires, and that the apparent exchange of currency substantiates this view. This volume examines the hypothesis, as well as investigating whether the Central Empire coinage was excluded from circulation within the realms of the Gallic Empire, and, similarly, whether the coinage from the Gallic provinces did not circulate widely outside the areas of their control during the lifetime of the regime. The study is intended as a contribution to the development of a reliable method of translating numismatic data into historical language. The appendices include a concordance of the epigraphic sources, hoard tabulations, and a bibliography of hoards and find sites.

Rural landscapes constitute valuable records of our past, but given the silence of ancient Greek sources on rural life it is the archaeologists who have can provide the missing information. This volume studies the rural landscape of the ancient Greek city-state of Oropos in order to reach an understanding of the various processes that shaped its history. (The Oropia covered an area of roughly 100 sq km in the northeastern corner of modern Attica, some 50 km north of Athens, and included the important sanctuary of the hero Amphiaraos.) The monograph explores all evidence of occupation, from the third millennium to the decline of the famous sanctuary at the time of the expansion of Christianity. The rural history of the ancient Oropia can be viewed as a continuous struggle of a border area to adapt to the changing demands and policies of regional, national, and international powers. The final section of the book includes a detailed catalogue of findspots.Contributions by James Newhard, Nike Sakka and Lawrence Stene.

A collection of papers in honour of Henrietta Quinnell.

Proceedings of the 2nd meeting of the (ICAZ) Worked Bone Research Group Budapest, 31 August - 5 September 199936 papers (each with an additional abstract in French and German) presented at the Proceedings of the Worked Bone research Group, in Budapest, in 1999. Research was carried out on materials from Central and North America to various regions of Europe and Southwest Asia. The contributors represent scientific traditions from Estonia, Hungary, Romania, and Russia, European countries in which, until recently, ideas developed in relative isolation. Other European countries represented include Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, and Switzerland. Last but not least, the North American scholarly approach is also reflected here. Most of the papers include considerations of raw material exploitation, manufacturing and functional analyses, and all make some attempt to consider the social context from which the artifacts emerged.Technical editors: Krisztian Kolozsvari and Katalin Kovago-SzentirmaiInfrastructural support: the staff of the Roman Department of the Aquincum Museum

In 1997 the author excavated a shipwreck in the north-western reaches of the Java Sea, Indonesia. It became known as the Intan Wreck due to its close proximity to the Intan Oil Field. The wreck has been dated early to mid-10th century through Chinese coin dates, stylistic analysis of ceramics, and radiocarbon dating. While the structure of the shipwreck has all but disappeared, enough fragments remained for timber identification and a glimpse at construction techniques. These clues, together with cargo types and wreck location, strongly indicate an Indonesian ship of lashed-lug construction. From cargo distribution the Intan ship may have been as long as 30 m. The abundance of surviving cargo stands in stark contrast to the fragmentary hull remains. A total of 6,154 non-ceramic artefacts and 7,309 ceramic artefacts were logged over the course of the excavation. Materials are as diverse as bronze, lead, silver, iron, tin, gold, glass, ceramic, stone, and organics. Origins are as far afield as China, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Middle East. Such diversity is a clear indication of entrepot trade, the most likely port of lading being the Srivijayan capital, Palembang. Considering the wreck location and the large base metal component, the Intan ship could only have been bound for metal deficient Java.

Edited by: Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Eileen M. Murphy, Ludmila Koryakova and Leonid T. YablonskyThis richly illustrated volume adds immensely to the small but growing corpus of Eurasian Archaeology published in the English language. Comprised of thirty articles, the authors have focused on the Bronze Age, continuing to include the first millennium BC Early Iron Age, with a terminus of c. 500 AD. The geographic range extends from the far western great Hungarian plains, north to Fennoscandia, south to include northern Afghanistan and the Kalmyk steppes, and east to the Altai Mountains in western Mongolia. The arguments presented (drawn in the main from the 1998-99 European Archaeological Association sessions) embrace a wide range of topics including art, culture, textiles, metallurgy, mortuary customs, etc. The authors are as diverse in their origins as their works are in content, penning their research from England, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. Each article is illustrated with line drawings, plates and photographs.

Kom el-Hisn is located near the western edge of the Nile delta, midway between Cairo and Alexandria, and about 13 km west of the Rosetta branch of the Nile. It is composed of primarily Old Kingdom deposits (Dynasties V and VI, ca. 2500-2290 BC) but the site was also occupied in the Middle and New Kingdom periods. (It has been suggested that some First Intermediate burials are included within the Old Kingdom architecture, and Kom el-Hisn clearly flourished during the height of Old Kingdom power.) After a detailed introduction, the author reviews the development of Egyptian settlement patterns and structures to provide the Old Kingdom context, before continuing to discuss the specific issues relating to the current research and some of the explanations offered by other researchers for the development of Egypt's particular brand of complex society. Chapter four describes the research programme that provided the data on which this study relies, and subsequent headings contain detailed descriptions of the deposits associated with each excavation unit in the analysis. Before the full summary in the ultimate chapter, there are statistical analyses that build the model of functional differentiation found within the excavated areas.

The Montebello Islands are a cluster of small, low relief land masses, comprised of ancient limestone, with skeletal soils, sparse vegetation and shifting sand bodies. They lie some 80 km from the coastline, representing far flung 'high points' on the once extensive arid coastal plains of north-west Australia. Barrow Island lies between the mainland and the islands. More famous as the first nuclear testing site used by the British in the 1950s and the location of the first known shipwreck off the Australian coast, (the Tryal in 1622), the Montebello Islands represent a unique configuration of terrestrial and marine ecosystems. This paper reports on archaeological analysis carried out on assemblages recovered from two stratified cave sites on Campbell Island in the Montebello group in northwest Australia. These sites provide unique insights into human responses to the drowning of the extensive arid plains of north-west Australia following the Last Glacial Maximum. Rich faunal assemblages have been recovered which date to the period 30,000-7000 BP as the local environmental context changed in response to the post-glacial marine transgression. Field surveys and excavations were carried out over two field seasons between 1992-4 and involved a team of archaeologists, field assistants and support crew.Written by Peter Veth, Ken Aplin, Lynley Wallis, Tiina Manne, Tim Pulsford, Elizabeth White and Alan Chappell

This monograph looks at Byzantine art in its widest sense as well as its influence right up to the 20th century. It is well illustrated with a largely descriptive text.

The present collection refers not only to the remains of the pagan religion of Greeks and Romans, but also to those of Edomites, Nabataeans and Itureans in the Hellenistic and Roman period. Furthermore, it also includes motifs which are found in Jewish archaeological contexts with a pagan content or a mythological origin (such as the Beth She'arim sarcophagi and the synagogue lintels and mosaics), as well as motifs of an obviously mythological origin (such as the widespread use of the vine and the wine motifs) which appear in the mosaic floors of Jewish synagogues and Christian churches. Each subject is dealt with on the basis of archaeological evidence provided by scientific and reliable publications and photographs. This work, therefore, documents the archaeological evidence of the pagan legacy in the Land of Israel and surrounding countries (parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Golan Heights, North Sinai). The first part follows a geographical sequence in alphabetical order. Explanations of motifs and mythological subjects are systematically offered in the second in the form of an index. This index includes not only the names of gods and goddesses, beliefs and superstitions, but also such non-archaeological subjects as conversion and syncretism, as well as a record of cultic objects and structures, with appropriate references to the places and the illustrations recorded in the first part.

This book includes papers presented at the conference on the age of the eastern Roman emperor Theodosius (Segovia 2009).

This monograph examines the religious and mythological concepts of Zeus from prehistoric times until the Early Archaic period. The research was performed as an interdisciplinary study involving the evidence of the Homeric poems, archaeology, linguistics,as well as comparative Indo-European material. It is argued that Greek Zeus, as a god with certainly established Indo-European origins, was essentially a god of the open sky and the supposed progenitor of everything, a supreme, but not ruling deity; initially, he must have been distinct from the god of storms, who, for unknown reasons, completely disappeared from Greek religion and mythology by as early as the Late Bronze Age. From the time of Homer, Zeus-Father appeared as a storm-god, the autocratic ruler of the universe, and an offspring of elder deities, on the level of mythology. Such a concept does not correspond to the traditional Indo-European patterns and seems to have been formed under the influence of Near-Eastern concepts of the supreme almighty god, on the one hand, and the Cretan-Minoan concept of a young god/divine child, on the other. However, the Homeric concept of Zeus was adopted by his practising cults much later, only from the Late Archaic period.

The extensive archaeological excavations of multicultural sites in western Slovakia offer a remarkable amount of material that mostly consists of entirely new and unpublished finds. This monograph presents a multilateral synthesis of the information obtained and processed over the last two decades, presenting a fascinating picture of evolution of the western inner Carpathian world and its neighbourhood in prehistoric times and beyond.

An extensive archaeological study based on analyses of over 20,000 marine shells from Roman Gaul (2nd century BC - 6th century AD).

Proceedings of the Graduate Archaeology at Oxford conferences in 2010 and 2011This volume contains the combined proceedings of two consecutive conferences (2010 and 2011) organised by Graduate Archaeology at Oxford (GAO) to promote communication between graduate students in all disciplines related to archaeology. Reflecting the current difficult economic climate and austerity measures, both conferences explored challenging times and adaptive strategies in the past.

Young Lukanian Archaeologists: YLA 1The first volume of Young Lukanian Archaeologists (YLA) sub-series examines monumental votive offerings (tripods or pedestals which supported statues, or fragments of statuary groups more complex) by Western Greeks of Magna Graecia and Sicily (also Massaliotes and Etruscans) in the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi between 6th and 4th centuries BC. The presence of Italian and Sicilian cities, from the lists of teorodochi and prosseni in the sanctuary, coincides with the most prosperous period of their history. Some of these dedications are known only through literary sources, while others are still detectable in the themenos. These are fragments with inscriptions that refer to imposing and prestigious offerings. The data collected show that the most important dedications are related to the 6th-4th centuries BC.

At present scantily populated, Suakin was the most prominent port on the Red Sea coast from the fifteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. It was an archetype of an Islamic urban built town which remained continuously occupied by the same multi-generational families. During the period of British rule in Sudan they replaced the ancient port by the establishment of Port Sudan. Using this ancient site as an illustration, the main goal of the research is to gain an insight into the relationships between people and heritage sites: how and why people feel attachments to them and what affects people's sense of attachment to heritage.

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 collaboration with Emad Khalil (CMAUCH), it was decided that funding to support a project should be sought. During a pilot season in 2004 over 60 sites were identified along the shores of the western arm of the lake, the majority of which were new discoveries. This volume is divided into seven chapters. The first three chapters outline the context of the research and the methodology adopted by the LMRP. Chapter 4 comments on the results of the ceramic survey and presents an appendix to this chapter. The ceramic assemblage is critical for understanding both the chronological scope of the material recovered that broadly equates to the mid 4th century BC to the 7th century AD, and the nature of activities at the sites. Chapter 5 sets the physical context and is the partial product of doctoral research undertaken. The geomorphological survey has provided invaluable new insight into the environmental context in which the archaeological sites should be viewed. Chapter 6 is essentially the 'meat' of the volume. Extending to 177 pages in length, it outlines a catalogue of all the 73 sites recorded as part of the LMRP. Chapter 7 presents some concluding remarks and an attempt is made to reflect on and make sense of the mass of information collated.

The hunting of horses by Magdalenians and Early Aziliens in the Paris Basin has never before been the object of a detailed study. This work thus brings to light the interactions between these human societies and the populations of horses within the palaeo-environmental framework of the Late Glacial. The original approach developed here is based on the elaboration of palaeo-ecological models concerning hunting practices in terms of tactics and strategies of hunting. Analysis of the exploitation of horses allows the author to highlight socio-economic patterns of Magdalenian and Early Azilian groups, and their integration within the Late Glacial regional landscape of the Paris Basin.

Mosaic surfaces (floor and/or wall) comprise one of the most accomplished art forms to develop in the Mediterranean region in antiquity. Each country surrounding the Mediterranean Basin added to the development of the techniques and repertoire, reflecting cultural development and diffusion. This work focuses on all aspects of ship iconography as represented on known mosaics from major and minor sites. Contents: Introduction; Mosaic Production and its Application to Ship Depictions; 'Catalogue of Ships' (including mosaics from Berenike (Egypt), Lod (Israel), Antioch (Turkey), Kelenderis/Aydincik (Turkey), Kenchreai (Greece), The Palestrina Nile Mosaic (Italy), Ostia/Piazzale Delle Corporazioni (Italy), Piazza Armerina (Sicily); Ship Archaeology; Ship Interpretation in Mosaics; Conclusions; Glossary.

The articles in this volume cover aspects relating to archaeometallurgy, functional analyses, experimental work and archaeology and focus on multidisciplinary approaches for studying archaeological artefacts.

Sometime in the late 16th to early 17th century an armed merchantman foundered in the Thames Estuary. Forgotten for over four centuries, it was rediscovered in 2003 as the Port of London Authority began clearing navigational hazards from the Princes Channel. Wessex Archaeology were alerted and recovered five sections of the ship's hull and four guns, as well as numerous artefacts.The first report in this two-volume set presented studies of the hull compiled by the University of Southern Denmark. The second volume describes the research undertaken at University College London on the wider maritime context, the conservation process and the analysis of the contents recovered from the wreck site. Prominent in the cargo were 42 iron bars thought to be of a type - so-called 'voyage iron' - sometimes traded to West Africa as the first stage of the transatlantic slave trade. With a tonnage of some 150 tons, the Gresham Ship emerges from this research as an all too rare example of typical armed merchantman of theage, capable of ocean passages, operating as a privateer or even serving with the Queen's Navy against the Armada.With contributions by Mark Beattie-Edwards, Lynn Biggs, Thomas Birch, Michael F. Charlton, Kelly Domoney, Clare Hunt, Phil Magrath, Marcos Martinón-Torres and Zofia Stos-Gale

Report from a Marie Curie Project 2009-2012 with Concluding Conference at Aarhus University, Moesgaard 2012: Volume 2.With 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 3 (Modes and Channels of Movement and Transmission) and 4 (Geo-political Configurations, Boundaries and Transformations).

Jerusalem has always been a unique city. Hundreds of millions of people, believers of the three main monotheistic religions Christianity, Islam and Judaism, have always looked forward to visiting, living, dying or even being buried in the Holy City. Throughout its long history, this city was subject to different kings, sultans and leaders that ruled the city and its inhabitants. Simultaneously, the population of the city changed in origin, habitat, language, culture, and in other aspects of life such as quality of the medical system, physicians and remedies that were used. This book is a reflection of the growing academic interest in the history of this fascinating city in general and of medicine in Jerusalem in particular. The interest that the academic community has had in the subject of medicine in the holy city can be measured by the number of articles and books that have been published, academic courses and seminars that have been taught and conventions that have been held in various academic institutes in Israel. The book deals with natural curative substances and healing materials used by the residents of Jerusalem throughout the ages, but its scope takes in the use of materia medica in the Land of Israel and throughout the Levant in this timespan. The study represents an intensive and systematic historical study of the medicinal substances that were used by the inhabitants and the visitors of the City of Jerusalem. It deals with the description of the various substances and their uses. It also deals with comparisons of such uses in traditional and folk medicine of several ethnic groups of present day in the region and in other parts of the world. Part A covers the information gathered from different historical sources of the medieval and early Ottoman periods (10th-18th centuries. Part B refers to specific subject matters including institutes and historical periods that deserve special attention concerning the uses of medicinal substances in the city of Jerusalem (including chapters on traditional and folk medicine substances still used in Jerusalem as well a modern overview. Three appendices provide information concerning the historical periods dealt with in the book, the sources, which are mentioned and quoted in Part A, and a list of medicinal substances used in Jerusalem from the 10th to the 18th century. A bibliography, list of abbreviations, and indices conclude the study.Translated by Rebecca Toueg

Death and the life-giving waters of the Nile were intimately interwoven in ancient Egyptian religion. The principal objective of this study is to develop a synthetic perspective for enhancing the understanding of the religious roles water had in the rise and constitution of the Egyptian civilisation during the Early Dynastic Period and the Old Kingdom. The author employs an archaeological, inter-disciplinary and comparative 'water perspective' in which water not only forms the analytical framework, but also provides empirical data that allow for new questions to be addressed. Thus, the Nile itself is used as the primary point of departure to analyse how, why and when religious changes took place, with a particular emphasis on the development of the Osiris cult. Use is made of contemporary written sources, in particular the Pyramid Texts, but also other mortuary texts as well as flood records. The evolution of the Osiris cult is then analysed in relation to the development of the mortuary monuments; the mastabas in the First and the Second Dynasties and the emergence of the pyramids from the Third Dynasty. Hence, by comparing the different funerary monuments and practices with the emergence of the Osiris cult in relation to climatic changes and fluctuations in the Nile's yearly inundation, Ancient Egyptian religion and the rise of the civilisation is analyzed according to a water perspective. It is noted that the Blue Nile was not blue, but red-brownish during the flood. When the flood started, the White Nile was not white, but green. The author argues that these fundamental characteristics of the Nile water formed the basis for the Osiris mythology. The red floodwaters in particular represented the blood of the slain Osiris.

Sri Lanka is a tropical island that lies approximately halfway between Africa and Australia along the northern rim of the Indian Ocean, and has one of the best recorded prehistoric sequences in South Asia. A review of its prehistory is a vast subject. The present study investigates the island's hunter-gatherer archaeology between the Late Pleistocene and the middle Holocene, with lowland Wet Zone rockshelters as the principle topic of study. This work synthesises past and current archaeological research in the island as well as presenting new findings from excavations in the Batadomba-lena rockshelter and the open-air site of Bellan-bandi Palassa. The excavation of Batadomba-lena has provided fresh data for understanding human adaptations to the changing environment between approximately 36,000 and 12,000 years ago. A rainforest environment evidently persisted throughout this period in the environs of the site, but the climate was cooler at around the Last Glacial Maximum. Intensive occupation, succeeded by increased attention to the management of plant resources, followed the Last Glacial Maximum. Microliths, small tools defined by the presence of blunting retouch, as well as the bifacially trimmed Balangoda Point and polished bone points, were evident from the earliest occupation. The symbolic capacities of the inhabitants were also revealed through the recovery of ornaments and ochre fragments throughout the sequence. The Batadomba-lena sequence has important implications for the Out-of-Africa theory on modern human origins, as well as Sri Lanka's recognition of its cultural heritage.