Archaeology

While the role of the city in Late Antiquity has often been discussed by archaeologists and historians alike it is only in recent years that scholarship has begun to offer a more nuanced approach in our understanding to how such cities functioned stepping away from the traditional paradigm of their decline and fall with the collapse of the Roman Empire. In line with this approach this deliberately interdisciplinary volume seeks to provide a more multifaceted understanding of urban history by drawing together scholars of literary and material culture to discuss the concepts of imagery and aesthetics of late antique cities.

Gathering together contributions by historians philologists archaeologists literature specialists and art historians the volume aims to explore the imagery and aesthetics of cities in Late Antiquity within a strong theoretical framework. The different chapters explore the aesthetics of cityscape representations in literature and art asking in particular whether literary representations of late antique urban landscapes mirror the urban reality of eclectic ensembles of pre-existing architecture and new buildings as well as questioning both how the ideal of the city evolved in the imagination of the period and if imperial ideology was reflected in literary depictions of cities.

L’île Saint-Honorat de Lérins accueille des religieux depuis le début du Ve siècle. Il s’agit d’un haut lieu du monachisme témoin des expériences ascétiques insulaires qui se développent en Occident durant l’Antiquité tardive. Le caractère exceptionnel de Lérins tient aussi à la longue durée d’occupation du site par des religieux. Ce n’est qu’à partir de 2005 qu’ont été entreprises des recherches archéologiques d’envergure sur l’île : fouilles et archéologie du bâti qui font de Lérins la seule île monastique pour laquelle il existe des vestiges archéologiques remontant de façon assurée aux premières expériences ascétiques occidentales. En présentant ce dossier l’ouvrage de Yann Codou apporte un éclairage inédit sur la genèse du monachisme en Occident où des expériences érémitiques cohabitent au sein de l’espace insulaire avec des formes de vie plus collectives. Les données restituent également les dynamiques du monachisme au cours du haut Moyen Âge et dans les siècles suivants en particulier le processus de communautarisation du monachisme. L’architecture est ici un document historique à part entière qui dialogue avec les sources écrites. Les multiples monuments qui composent le paysage insulaire offrent un terrain de choix pour comprendre des mécanismes de construction identitaire fondés sur la création et la réinterprétation des espaces sacrés. Les enjeux de la recherche dépassent largement l’histoire de la seule communauté lérinienne pour s’inscrire dans une réflexion sur l’organisation des espaces monastiques et leurs mutations tout au long du Moyen Âge.

This volume presents contributions by leading scholars on various topics and aspects of Islamic Archaeology a discipline which has recently seen the development of exciting new approaches to the study of the material culture of the Muslim world. This material culture was produced by and/or for Muslims as well as by and/or for non-Muslims living under Islamic rule from the 7th century onward in an expanding and ultimately vast area reaching from southern Europe to West Asia.

The contributions in this book focus on Jordan Oman Spain Turkey Lebanon as well as Israel and cover a timespan from the 7th century through the Mamluk period to the early 20th century. They highlight the archaeology of large Islamic centers in the past but also of the material culture in smaller sites and peripheral regions. Special emphasis is paid to pottery as one of the main artifacts that carry information on past societies but other finds and materials are discussed as well. The aspect of Islamic material culture which receives particular attention is ‘production’ specifically the production of clay vessels glaze mercury and crops.

What unites the new approaches presented here is that Islam is understood as both a ‘religion’ and a framework for economic cultural and social networks and influence. In this perspective the volume aims to offer students of Islamic archaeology historians of Islam and archaeologists of different disciplines a glimpse of the state-of-the-art in current Islamic Archaeology

Cette recherche se positionne dans la continuité d’une première étude portant sur le collier-menit dans les temples ptolémaïques et publiée dans la collection Monographies Reine Élisabeth. Ce collier qui est un des objets sacrés d’Hathor porte également le nom de l’entité divine du même nom forme d’Hathor de Dendara et d’Edfou dont cette étude fait l’objet. En tant que forme d’Hathor quels sont les termes les parures les actions la gestuelle qui pouvaient la différencier de la grande Hathor si toutefois cela est envisageable ces deux divinités étant intimement associées ?

Une partie de cette recherche porte sur l’étude de la chapelle du collier-menit. Les textes et les épithètes de la déesse ont été ici analysés d’un point de vue stylistique afin d’essayer de comprendre la démarche des hiérogrammates et la raison d’être d’une telle chapelle dédiée à Hathor la Menit sachant que pour les deux autres formes secondaires d’Hathor : « Hathor-chef-du-grand-siège » et « Hathor-uraeus » il n’en existe point.

Hathor la Menit est la récipiendaire de nombreuses offrandes qui ont été étudiées et contextualisées afin de comprendre son implication dans chacune de ces scènes et de cerner au mieux la personnalité de cette déesse. Son étude dans le temple d’Edfou s’imposait afin de comprendre comment elle était perçue dans ce temple apollonopolitain.

Landscape archaeology has in recent years expanded as a discipline to include various aspects of human-environment interactions in the past. In line with this trend this volume offers a comprehensive perspective on three topics: theoretical and textual approaches to landscape which provides an important framework for interdisciplinary research; the use of land and resources which while a popular topic in Southwest Asian archaeology remains relatively understudied in connection to ancient technologies; and human impact on the highlands. The contributions gathered in this volume cover topics as diverse as agricultural practices metallurgy trade and environmental research and draw together evidence from both textual and material evidence to shed light on different places and periods from the Bronze Age through to the Roman era. Together these varied case studies offer new insights into how different methods can be utilized to assess unique patterns in human-environment interactions in Southwest Asia.

Thanks largely to the introduction of new methods of recovery and analysis archaeology is increasingly treated as a science. Yet it should continue to ask questions that are founded in the humanities. This is especially true of social archaeology which forms the core of this volume. Being based on the notion that ‘the social’ permeates all areas of life the chapters gathered here give priority to archaeological data and contexts which in turn form the prerequisite for analyzing how at particular times and places people negotiated or reaffirmed the society around them. Case studies from the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean sit alongside selected comparative cases from other parts of the world and assess issues such as the development of cultural characteristics of societies societal continuity and collapse religious beliefs and rituals and the role of social memory as well as interactions within and between societies. The volume is dedicated to the memory of our colleague and friend Dr. Sharon Zuckerman who embraced the quest for ‘the social’ throughout her career.

The ancient city of Neapolis (modern Kavala Greece) was founded by Thasos in the seventh century bce at a strategic location where the Thracian hinterlands meet the Aegean Sea. The patron deity of this North Aegean polis was Parthenos (the Maiden) known to us through epigraphic and archaeological evidence. Her sanctuary came to light in the twentieth century during rescue excavations and yielded numerous finds most of which date from the Archaic period.

This monograph provides a discussion of the history of excavations at this sanctuary as well as a contextual examination of the material leading to a new interpretation of Parthenos’ identity. Among the wealth of finds from the site the corpus of incised and painted ceramic inscriptions stands out as it offers a unique glimpse into the history of the cosmopolitan temenos and the dedicatory practices and rituals that took place there. The inscribed vessels carry dedications numerical and other graffiti and dipinti as well as the initials of the goddess which designate them as sacred equipment. When considered in the context of the ceramic inscriptions from sanctuaries across Aegean Thrace they further underscore the important role of Neapolis and the Sanctuary of Parthenos in the commercial networks and cultural dynamics of the Aegean both in the early stages of Greek colonization and in the centuries that followed.

The spurs of horse riders have long been acknowledged as an important item of grave furniture in the Late Roman and Migration period burials of Poland a reflection of the high social position held by the deceased. Yet while spurs have been studied at a general level and typo-chronological studies have been conducted on spurs found in southern and central Poland no such research has so far been conducted on finds from the West Balt Circle in north-eastern Poland. This volume is an attempt to rectify the situation by offering a thorough examination of finds attributed to the Bogaczewo and Sudovian Cultures. The author here offers a comprehensive assessment of surviving materials from the period many of which are scattered through museums across Europe together with an in-depth analysis of archival sources (included among them the private inventories of archaeologists working in the pre-war period) in order to reconstruct our understanding of the furnishings and data relating to spurs. This detailed research carefully contextualized against our wider understanding of Barbarian Europe offers an important new reference for our understanding both of the West Balt Circle and its inter-cultural relations with surrounding regions as well as of the symbolic meaning of spurs and their significance in burial rites.

Roman wooden writing tablets known in Latin as tabulae ceratae have been found by archaeologists in various locations around the former capital of the civitas/municipium Tungrorum or Roman Tongeren (now the Belgian city of Tongeren-Borgloon). These rare and delicate finds are remarkable not only due to the excellent state of their preservation but also because they are inscribed with the remnants of texts once etched into an overlying wax layer that can to the discerning eye still be deciphered. The tablets not only provide concrete information about religious judicial and administrative practices but they also enhance our understanding of the complex processes of Romanisation and Latinisation in the northwestern civitates and municipia of the Roman Empire.

Unearthed in the first half of the twentieth century with a second group discovered in 2013 the Roman tablets housed in the Gallo-Roman Museum of Tongeren-Borgloon and in the city’s municipal heritage depository became the object of an in-depth study by an international team of specialists piloted by the Gallo-Roman Museum. It is the results of this project that are presented here in this volume for the first time. The painstaking process of deciphering and interpreting the script marks and text fragments is explored via analysis of palaeography philology and onomastics along with key scientific techniques such as wax analysis wood species identification and script visualisation by Multi-Light Reflectance Imaging. Rich detail is also provided about other associated wooden finds that shed light on how and where the tablets were produced.

The result is a beautifully illustrated and insightful volume that introduces the lost world of Roman Tongeren and its writing tablets to professionals and the general public alike.

The idea of the Nordic nations as champions of gender equality is firmly rooted in today’s perceptions of society. But how does such a modern comprehension influence our views of history? Does our understanding of gender impact on how we see the past? And do the ways in which we gender the past have an effect on our present identities?

From the Stone Age to the Early Modern period and from warriors and queens to households and burials this groundbreaking volume draws together research conducted as part of the project Gendering the Nordic Past an inter-Nordic collaboration aimed at (re)evaluating and revitalizing the field of gender studies in the region. The chapters gathered in this volume contributed by archaeologists and historians theologians art historians and specialists in gender studies aim to offer novel perspectives on the ways in which we gender the past. While many of the chapters focus explicitly on the Nordic countries comparisons are also drawn with other regions in order to provide both internal and external views on the role of the collective past in present Nordic identities. The result presented here is an essential dialogue into the importance of gender in creating and maintaining past identities as well as a new understanding of how the identities that we construct for the past can relate to heritage narratives.