Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Money, Trade and Trade Routes in Pre-Islamic North Africa

Dowler, Amelia and  Galvin Elizabeth R.
 
A conference at the British Museum in 2008, of which this book represents an expanded publication, brought together scholars from differing fields specialising in ancient North Africa. This multidisciplinary approach allowed a number of subjects to be enriched through comparative evidence. The conference concentrated on the area the Romans knew as ‘Africa’ (the area of the modern Maghreb) to draw out evidence for trade and interaction amongst groups in central and western North Africa; allowing themes of trade and cultural influence to emerge from the interactions of the various ethnic groups in the pre-Islamic period. This book follows two main strands: firstly, the cultural identity of the people of this region and their interaction with neighbouring peoples; secondly, the development and extent of trans-Saharan trade-routes in the pre-Islamic period. The Ancient North Africa conference was part of the Money in Africa project and this volume follows the publication in the Research Publication series of Money in Africa conference proceedings, which covered more modern material.

 

‘Gems of Heaven’: Recent Research on Engraved Gemstones in Late Antiquity, c. AD 200–600

Entwhistle, Chris and Adams Noël

The conference where these papers were presented brought together leading scholars from Europe, USA and the Middle East to discuss the most recent research in the field of Late Antique gems and cameos. This will be the first time that so many diverse papers, inter-disciplinary in nature, have been assembled in a single volume. The scientific papers address issues such as the typology and sourcing of gemstones which go beyond a narrow focus on the ancient world. Many new cameos and gems from important private collections are published here for the first time.

 

 

 

Hadrian: Art, Politics and Economy

Opper, Thorsten

This publication is based on papers presented at an academic conference that followed the British Museum’s exhibition Hadrian: Empire and Conflict. It offers new research by sixteen international experts on one of the most important Roman emperors. Their essays cover a wide range of aspects of Hadrian’s reign, which continues to attract considerable academic interest and vivid debate. Drawing from the fields of architecture, ancient history, art history, archaeology and science, the authors present critical new insights, both on familiar monuments and new discoveries, spanning the breadth of the Roman Empire and regions far beyond, from the Caucasus to the Indian Ocean.
 

Les inscriptions de Scythie mineure : Tomis et son territoire

Stoian, I. (1987) : Inscripțiile din Scythia Minor: Tomis și teritoriul său, Bucarest [Les inscriptions de Scythie mineure : Tomis et son territoire]

Ce volume publie une partie des inscriptions de Tomis avec un apparat critique en roumain. Il manque certaines inscriptions, d’autres sont mal lues, d’autres encore commentées avec les idées de l’époque en Roumanie, mais il constituait une avancée certaine en mettant à disposition des savants 468 inscriptions. Le tout a été corrigé une génération plus tard dans un nouveau volume.

Le volume en ligne : https://biblioteca-digitala.ro/?volum=27286-inscriptiile-din-scythia-minor-ism-academia-de-stiinte-sociale-si-politice-a-republicii-socialiste-romania–ii-1987

 

Monday, July 29, 2024

Etruscan by Definition: Papers in Honour of Sybille Haynes, MBE

Haynes, Sybille; Swaddling, Judith;  Perkins, Philip
 
These papers were originally presented at a conference in 2006, celebrating the work of the renowned Etruscologist, Sybille Haynes, in the year of her 80th birthday. Dr Haynes’ work has done much to elucidate and de-mystify the Etruscans, and this volume seeks to further define the Etruscan character manifest in its richly varied and original workshop production. It examines the light that some unusual Etruscan objects and buildings throw on their lives, beliefs, and influences. Importantly, it considers how the Etruscans themselves wished to be personally identified and remembered. From opposite ends of the spectrum, two papers contrast early concepts of the Etruscans in the 18th century and the latest evidence for their origins using DNA studies.

 

The Sphinx Revealed: A Forgotten Record of Pioneering Excavations

Usick, Patricia and  Manley, Deborah

In 2002 a two-volume manuscript memoir on the Pyramids and Sphinx, by Henry Salt, was rediscovered in the archives of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, at the British Museum. It was then studied in depth for the first time. The Text volume, written by Salt, the British Consul General in Egypt from 1816 until his death there in 1827, relates the results of work carried out by Captain Caviglia in 1816-18 in the Giza necropolis area on Salt's behalf. The Atlas volume contains 66 original drawings by Salt, showing the first modern excavation of the Sphinx and illustrates their discoveries beneath the Sphinx, in the Great Pyramid and among the surrounding tombs. These drawings include an annotated ground plan of the Giza necropolis which, for the first time, elucidates their discoveries. Salt also made accurate and important early copies of hieroglyphic and Greek inscriptions found during the Sphinx excavations and recorded the massive Roman stairway that was later cleared away. The work also enables us to illustrate and provenance certain pieces which came to the Museum through Salt and Caviglia.

 

Open Access Journal: Politica Antica

 [First posted in AWOL 22 July 2022, updated 29 July 2024]
 
ISSN: 2281-1400

Rivista di prassi e cultura politica nel mondo greco e romano fondata da Mario PaniI numeri 1. 2011 – 4. 2014 sono stati pubblicati da Carocci Editore. A partire dal n. 5. 2015 la rivista è pubblicata da Edipuglia.

Direttori: Cinzia Bearzot, Luisa Prandi, Sergio Roda, Marina Silvestrini, Giuseppe Zecchini
Direttore responsabile: Giacomo Annibaldis

 Dopo un embargo di due anni, tutte le annate della rivista sono rese disponibili in Open Access Green e sono gratuitamente consultabili a questo link

 La centralità della politica nel mondo antico greco e romano è indubbia, ma predomina una visione parziale circoscritta nella vicenda dei rapporti personali e della lotta per il potere o una visione locale e amministrativa. Viceversa, questa rivista si propone di creare uno strumento che contribuisca a recuperare la totalità della politica in antico. Si guarda da una parte alle dimensioni reali della prassi politica, dall’altra alle concettualizzazioni che la qualificano; quindi al pensiero politico, alla mentalità, ai rapporti col diritto e col pensiero giuridico.

 
Politica Antica XI.2021
Politica Antica X.2020
Politica Antica IX.2019
Politica Antica VIII.2018
Politica Antica VII.2017
Politica Antica VI.2016
Politica Antica V.2015

See AWOL's full List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies

 

Le cimetière scythe tardif de Krasny Majak (fouilles de 1986-1988)

Gej O.A. (2023) : Позднескифский могильник Красный Маяк (раскопки 1986-88 гг.) / Pozdneskifskij mogil’nik Krasnyj Majak (raskopki 1986-88 gg.), Moscou [Le cimetière scythe tardif de Krasny Majak (fouilles de  1986-1988)].

Ce petit ouvrage en russe est la publication d’une soixantaine de tombes scythes tardives de Krasny Majak, dans le district de Kherson, près du Dniepr, fouillées en 1986-1988. Elles sont datées des Ier-IIIe s. On retrouve quelques importations, notamment céramique, en provenance du monde romain.

103 planches en noir et blanc.

Le livre en ligne : https://archaeolog.ru/ru/el-bib/el-cat/el-books/el-books-2023/krasnyj-majak-2023

 

Sunday, July 28, 2024

A Naos of Nekhthorheb from Bubastis: Religious Iconography and Temple Building in the 30th Dynasty

Spencer, Neal and Rosenow, Daniela

The first full publication of a monumental red granite naos of king Nekhthorheb from the temple at Bubastis in the Nile Delta (360–343 BC). Originally 3.5m tall, fragments were excavated by Edouard Naville in the 1880s, many of which are now in the British Museum, the naos is an important source for late religious iconography and relief sculpture as it bears extensive depictions of divine figures, arranged in registers and carved in exquisite detail at a small scale. A comprehensive photographic coverage of the architecture and decoration is presented, alongside facsimilies, plans and reconstructions. The purpose and meaning of the decoration is discussed, and the naos placed in the context of the extensive temple building programme of the 30th dynasty, which sought to complement military defence with sacred protection in the face of Persian invasion attempts.

A Researcher’s Guide to the Lachish Collection in the British Museum

Magrill, Pamela

This publication is the culmination of a ten-year project carried out by the author to organise, research and catalogue a collection of over 17,000 objects from the 1930s British excavations at Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir), which was acquired in 1980 by the Department of the Ancient Near East, British Museum. Lachish is a large multi-period tell site in Israel, situated some 40 kilometres south-west of Jerusalem, with remains dating from the Neolithic period onwards. Its major periods of occupation cover the Bronze and Iron Ages (4th to mid-1st millennium BC). In the Late Bronze Age, Lachish was a large and important Canaanite city, known from the Amarna Letters, while in the Iron Age it was the second city of the Kingdom of Judah, the site of the Assyrian siege in 701 BC, which is depicted on the famous reliefs from Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh. This book is intended to make this important collection more readily accessible to researchers, and takes the form of a detailed, annotated handlist.

 

 

Cleaning and Controversy: The Parthenon Sculptures 1811–1939

Jenkins, Ian

In 1937-8, in preparation for a new gallery given by Lord Duveen, an unauthorised cleaning of the Parthenon Sculptures in The British Museum was carried out. Initially the incident was hidden from the public, but it soon got into the press and a scandal ensued. Sixty years later, in response to a revival of public interest in this episode, an international conference was organised by the Greek and Roman Department of The British Museum to re-examine the controversial cleaning and its aftermath. The aim of the conference was to examine documentary and visual evidence for the cleaning, to assess how and to what extent it had altered the surface of the affected sculptures, and to look at wider issues relating to the history and ideas of conservation. In this volume Ian Jenkins has gathered together all the relevant documents, including reports, eye-witness accounts, correspondence and newspaper cuttings. He has evaluated these documents against the history of the cleaning of the Parthenon Sculptures since they first came to London and the evidence of the sculptures themselves as they now appear.

 

 

W. Benson Harer Auction Catalog collection

Collection Scope and Content Summary

This collection contains auction catalogs, collected by W. Benson Harer, that primarily feature Egyptian and Middle Eastern antiquities and works of art.

Dates

  • Creation: 1905-2019, undated

Access

This collection is open for research.

Publication Rights

Copyright Unknown: Some materials in this collection may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction, and/or commercial use, of some materials may be restricted by gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing agreement(s), and/or trademark rights. Distribution or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written...

See more

Extent

39.0 Linear Feet (98 princeton files)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

  • License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Abstract

This collection contains auction catalogs, collected by W. Benson Harer, that primarily feature Egyptian and Middle Eastern antiquities and works of art.

Collection Arrangement

This collection is arranged alphabetically by auction house name.

Acquisition Information

This collection was donated by C. Kenworthey Harer and Cynthia Harer-Gibbs in 2019.

Note

This collection contains four boxes of archival materials that were part of the donation. Inserted materials found in the auction catalogs were removed and placed into Box 1 (descriptions of these materials are noted at the item-level). Boxes 2-4 contain additional archival materials that were donated along with the auction catalogs.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by M. Camacho Nuno, 2024.

Title
W. Benson Harer Auction Catalog collection
Author
Finding aid created by Eric Milenkiewicz
Date
2024
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
.
 

 

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Fabric of the Frontier: Prospection, Use, and Re-Use of Stone from Hadrian’s Wall

Thumbnail for Fabric of the Frontier
What is Hadrian’s Wall made of, where did this material come from and how has it been reused in other buildings in the communities that emerged in the centuries after the Roman Empire? By studying the fabric of Hadrian’s Wall using a geological approach combined with archaeological methods, is it possible to refine our answers to these questions? This study describes how the relationship between the geology of the Wall’s landscape and its fabric may be used to further understand the Wall and presents a significant set of new geological and archaeological data on the Wall’s stones from across the length of the Wall. This data set has been collected in two complementary ways. First as a citizen-science project, where volunteers from local communities were trained to visually characterize sandstones and resulting in data collecting on large numbers of the Wall’s stones along the length of the Wall. Secondly, analytical research was used to gather in scientific data for a selected sets of rocks and stones. Geochemical data was captured using an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, and petrographic observations made using a petrographic microscope and thin sections. The combined methods provide a framework for geological analysis of the Wall supported by robust data. It builds on earlier work on Roman quarrying and stone preparation highlighting not only stone sources, but the criteria for choosing stone, stone preparation methods, and the implied routes to the Wall. At the heart of this study lies the ability to uniquely identify different sandstone types. Geological methods used to achieve this are explored, as are the ways in which the sandstones form. This highlights both the possibilities and limits of this approach.

English

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

9798888570951

Archaeological Method

Oxbow Books

Der Kult von Arsinoe II. als Teil der ptolemäischen Religionspolitik. Formierung, Adressaten und seine Anwesenheit in der Ägäis, sowie Betrachtung dessen als Vorstufe des hellenistischen Isis-Kultes

Ayash, Nasser Bovoleti
For citations of this document, please do not use the address displayed in the URL prompt of the browser. Instead, please cite with one of the following:

Abstract

Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit dem Kult von Arsinoe II., betrachtet im Rahmen der Religionspolitik von Ptolemaios II. als Mittel zur Propagierung seiner Macht. Insbesondere zeigt die Einführung des eigenen Kultes von Arsinoe II. innerhalb und außerhalb Ägyptens raffinierte Bemühungen auf, verschiedene Kulturen, aber auch verschiedene gesellschaftliche Schichten anzusprechen. Die Popularisierung dieses Kultes in der Ägäis, auch nach dem Ende der ptolemäischen Kontrolle über die Region, wird besprochen. Schließlich wird die These , dass dieser Kult als ein erster Schritt oder Vorläufer für den sich zeitgleich entwickelnden hellenistischen Isis-Kult diente, geprüft und geschildert.

Document type: Master's thesis
Publisher: Propylaeum
Place of Publication: Heidelberg
Date: 2024
Supervisor: Dr. Alexander Meeus
Version: Primary publication
Date Deposited: 22 Jul 2024 12:40
Faculties / Institutes: Research Project, Working Group > Individuals
DDC-classification: Ägypten (Altertum)
Griechenland (Altertum)
Subject (Propylaeum): Ancient History
Controlled Keywords: Arsinoë II. <Ägypten, Königin>, Kult
Subject (classification): History of the ancient world to ca. 499
Countries/Regions: Egypt (Antiquity)
Greece (Antiquity)
[thumbnail of Ayash_Der_Kult_von_Arsino_2024.pdf] PDF, German
Download (4MB) | Lizenz: Creative Commons Lizenzvertrag Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 4.0
 

 

Friday, July 26, 2024

Ancient Caucasian and Related Material in The British Museum

w Curtis, John and
Kruszynski, Mirosla

 


The Caucasus region, sandwiched between the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east, traditionally marks the boundary between Europe to the north and Asia to the south. This catalogue gathers together ancient Caucasian and related material in the British Museum, most of which is now in the Department of the Ancient Near East. The objects include items of jewellery, weapons, pottery, figurines and other miscellaneous artefacts, but it does not include Greek and Roman objects, coins, or material of early Christian date. The catalogue has been divided into four parts, covering the Central Caucasus (and The Koban Culture), Transcaucasia, objects of general Caucasian type, and objects that may be loosely associated with the Scythians. An introduction offers a short overview of the geography and history of the region, from prehistory to the advent of the Christianity.

 

 

Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Glyphs and Stamp Seals in the British Museum

Denham, Simon

Stamp seals were used in a similar way to modern signet rings: a negative object used to impress a design into another material, often clay. They appeared around 7000 BC and have remained in use in parts of the world continuously until the present day. This volume focuses on the British Museum’s collection of Middle Eastern Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (~7000–5000 BC) seals used in modern-day Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. In addition to a catalogue that includes all provenanced examples of stamp seals from this period in the British Museum’s collection, the volume presents a new interpretation of these intriguing objects by discussing the role of seals in prehistoric society. It looks at how the seals were used and why they were made, emphasising that whereas previous studies have assessed stamp seals as largely administrative objects, they should be interpreted in their own, Neolithic, context.