The Political Situation in Egypt during the XIII Dynasty

The Political Situation in Egypt during the XIII Dynasty

Eid, Ali Hassan

The importance of studying the political situation in Egypt during the 13th Dynasty stems from the fact that it remains an obscure period in ancient Egyptian history. The 13th Dynasty still raises debatable issues regarding its nature, including its formation, the location of its power centre, the mechanisms through which its rulers legitimized and maintained power, and its place within the conventional framework of ancient Egyptian history. The only available and indispensable source of information about the rulers of the 13th Dynasty is the Ramesside manuscript known as the Turin King-list. Unfortunately, the King-list suffers from numerous deficiencies and is largely inconsistent with the contemporary archaeological evidence of these rulers. Therefore, the main question of the current study deals with questions regarding the nature of the 13th Dynasty and examines the extent to which it formed a cohesive political regime in the literal sense of the dynastic system of ancient Egyptian history. 

Commentary, Contextualisation and Interpretation of the Bactrian Inscriptions of the Kušān Period

Commentary, Contextualisation and Interpretation of the Bactrian Inscriptions of the Kušān Period

Härtel, Stefan Wolfgang

The present work studies the historical contexts of the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān period and attempts to extract the historical information of this epigraphic corpus by contextualising it with related sources. Following an introduction on the historical backgrounds and the problem of Kušān chronology, four main topics are studied: (1) The linguistic and literary contextualisation of the texts, (2) the titulature of the Kušān emperors in the inscriptions, (3) the religious aspects of the inscriptions and their contexts and (4) the information on the expansion and administration of the Kušān Empire which are described here as the “Imperial Strategy”. (1) shows that Bactrian was reduced to writing in the early Kušān period to facilitate its use as an imperial means of communication. This process involved individuals who spoke Greek and probably identified themselves as such. This becomes apparent from various attempts to solve problems arising from writing Bactrian in Greek script, which is phonetically unsuited for this language. An epigraphical analysis of the corpus of inscriptions further shows that by the time of Huviška, the Kušān attempted to standardise and simplify Bactrian orthography at the cost of grammatical complexity. The inscriptions contain only little material for literary analysis, but a sense of style is apparent from several passages that can be related to the inscriptions of the Achaemenid, Arsakid and Sāsānian periods. This proves that the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān are part of the literary history of Iran. (2) shows that the Kušān had already established a canon of imperial titles under their founder Kujula Kadphises that was only subject to marginal change afterwards. The titles are largely taken from the Bactrian tradition and originate in the Hellenistic period. The Bactrian titles were mostly translated from Greek forms current in Bactria for several centuries. A few Kušān novelties in the repository of titles are probably attributable to Chinese and Roman influence. (3) adds a study of the deities appearing on Kušān coins to explain the religious information from the inscriptions. It becomes clear that the Kušān religion appearing in epigraphic, numismatic and archaeological sources is influenced by various religious ideas in the empire, but contrary to long-standing opinions by researchers, it did not intend to portray the religious diversity of the empire. Rather, the Kušān emperors Kaniška I and Huviška assembled various groups of deities for political ideas. The Rabatak Inscription shows that such groups were also the subject of collective cults. The only known parallel to this practice in the Iranian world is possibly the cult of the Commagenean king Antiochos I. This also includes the deification of the living emperor and his predecessors, for which the epigraphic and iconographic material provides indicators that can no longer be doubted. The present work cannot, however, trace the origins of this practice. (4) first examines the expansion of the Kušān Empire from the literary and archaeological sources. An excursus of sorts then examines the long-standing claim that Kušān expansion was primarily motivated by the interest of gaining control of long-distance trade routes. Further, the related idea of a Roman influence exerted mainly through trade on the foundations of the Kušān Empire is evaluated critically. The result is that these elements have been strongly overrated by researchers and the strategy of the Kušān does not display any sort of predominant commercial interests. Roman influence on the Kušān which is mostly observable in the material culture, also seems to have only been superficial. Following these investigations, the second part of (4) is concerned with the inner structure of the Kušān Empire and its administration. The main group of sources are administrative titles from Kušān inscriptions. Titles in Bactrian inscriptions and Iranian titles in Indian inscriptions show that, apart from the top layer of the imperial court, it is hard to argue for a centralised imperial administration of the empire. It would have been expected in such a case that Bactrian administrative titles would have been spread throughout the empire during its expansion. However, the Iranian titles in Indian inscription rather seem to be part of the Achaemenid legacy there, as they can best be etymologised as Old Persian. In place of a summary, a new narrative of Kušān history has been proposed. The dissertation also includes an appendix with a catalogue of the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān and a glossary of these inscriptions. 

Tall Dāmiya I, II, III: Archaeological research in the Central Jordan Valley between 2004 and 2019

Tall Dāmiya I, II, III: Archaeological research in the Central Jordan Valley between 2004 and 2019

Edited by Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan A. Kafafi

This monograph presents the results of nine seasons of archaeological excavations (2004–2019) at Tall Dāmiya, a key site in the Central Jordan Valley. Situated just south of the confluence of the Az-Zarqa and Jordan rivers, near one of the region’s few natural river fords, the settlement mound has long served a vital crossroads of cultures.

Founded in the Late Bronze Age, Tall Dāmiya developed into a prominent cultic centre in the Iron Age. In the second half of the first millennium BCE, it was repurposed as a storage site for mobile pastoralists, later serving as a graveyard in the Byzantine and Ottoman periods – before becoming a battleground in the twentieth century.

Presented in three volumes, this joint Jordanian–Dutch project explores how people lived in and moved through the arid Jordan Valley over time, offering a comprehensive reconstruction of Tall Dāmiya’s settlement history and shedding new light on its long and varied afterlives.

Paperback ISBN: 9789464264661 | Hardback ISBN: 9789464264678 | Imprint: Sidestone Press | Format: 210x280mm | 252 pp. | Papers on Archaeology of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities 36 | Series: PALMA | Language: English | 350 illus. (bw) | 263 illus. (fc) | Keywords: settlement archaeology; Jordan; Iron Age; cult; Jordan Valley; ancient West Asia; ancient Near East | download cover | DOI: 10.59641/o7r3l4m5n6 | CC-license: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Contents Volume I:

Preface

PART I – INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

2. Jordanian-Dutch cooperation in the Central Jordan Valley
Zeidan Kafafi

3. Early records and history of study
Zeidan Kafafi and Lucas P. Petit

4. Modern habitation history of Tall Dāmiya
Zeidan Kafafi

PART II – REGIONAL STUDIES

5. Archaeological surface survey around Tall Dāmiya
Eva Kaptijn

6. The historiography of the Dāmiya bridges
Lucas P. Petit

PART III – THE UPPER MOUND: STRATIGRAPHY AND ARCHITECTURE

7. Iron Age occupation – Strata XVIII-IV
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

8. Persian and Hellenistic remains – Stratum III
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

9. The burials – Strata II-I
Jeroen Rensen

10. Contemporary occupation remains – Stratum 0
Lucas P. Petit

PART IV – THE LOWER MOUND: STRATIGRAPHY AND ARCHITECTURE

11. Area B
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi, with contribution by Jeroen Rensen

Contents Volume II:

PART V – FINDS AND SPECIALISED STUDIES

12. Pottery
12a. Pottery repertoire and statistics
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi
12b. Pottery catalogue
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

13. Finds catalogue
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

14. Seals, scarabs, and scaraboids
Alexander Ahrens

15. Figurines and anthropomorphic statues
Zeidan Kafafi and Lucas P. Petit

16. The inscriptions
Omar al-Ghul

17. Textile production
Jeanette Boertien

18. Archaeobotanical remains
18a. Archaeobotanical remains from the excavation seasons 2012, 2013, and 2014
Yotti Van Deun
18b. Archaeobotanical investigation of two storage rooms in Stratum VII
Bert Verleijsdonk, with a contribution by Corrie Bakels
18c. The botanical content of three Persian-Hellenistic pits
Corrie Bakels

19. Archaeozoological remains
19a. Faunal remains
Maaike Groot, Anna Hofmann, and Jana Eger
19b. Analyses and identification of serpent bones
Lucas P. Petit

20. Compositional analysis of soil, ceramics, and small finds at Tall Dāmiya using non-destructive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy
Dennis Braekmans

Contents Volume III:

PART VI – THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS, DISCUSSIONS, AND CONCLUSIONS

21. Worshippers, travellers, and trade: the Tall Dāmiya ‘sanctuary’ in its context
Diederik J.H. Halbertsma

22. A holistic view of cultic practices at Tall Dāmiya and a potential dual sanctuary
Michel de Vreeze

23. Conclusions
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

References

Appendix A – Index of field loci
Appendix B – Index of bucket numbers
Appendix C – Profile drawings

Tall Dāmiya volume I  

Tall Dāmiya volume II 

Tall Dāmiya volume III

Beyond Attribution. Style and Communication in the Visual Culture of the Late Bronze and Iron Age Near East

Beyond Attribution. Style and Communication in the Visual Culture of the Late Bronze and Iron Age Near East

Herrmann, Virginia; Wagner-Durand, Elisabeth

The concept of style has been central to art history and archaeology for most of their disciplinary history but has faced serious critique, especially since the 1960s. While some scholars argue for moving beyond style, others maintain its heuristic value. In the context of ancient Near Eastern archaeology and related disciplines, stylistic analysis has always played a vital role, while still oscillating between promise and challenge. Stylistic analysis has been crucial for questions of attribution, i. e. of origins, workshops, craftspeople, dates, contacts, and more. Recent scholarly perspectives have proposed alternative frameworks, such as understanding stylistic similarities as products of historically contingent communities of shared practices. The intertwined relationship between medium, style and meaning has also become an increasingly vital topic. This volume and the 2021 virtual conference on which it is based aimed to explore these developments and encourage discussion of style beyond (mere) attribution. The assembled papers concentrate on the highly interconnected visual cultures of the Late Bronze and Iron Age Near East, but also include a perspective from prehistoric European archaeology. Common themes of power dynamics in the production and consumption of style, rhetorical uses of style for ideological, aesthetic, or programmatic ends, and the embodiment of stylistic production emerge from these contributions. The final chapters take a historiographic view, assessing how far the connoisseurial approaches of the past have taken us and where the future of visual inquiry will lead.  

Beyond the City of Pergamon: A Landscape Archaeological Study of the Pergamon Micro-Region from the Hellenistic to the Roman Imperial Period

Beyond the City of Pergamon: A Landscape Archaeological Study of the Pergamon Micro-Region from the Hellenistic to the Roman Imperial Period

Ludwig, Bernhard

This cumulative thesis is a landscape archaeological study with the aim of identifying and interpreting the interdependencies between the ancient city of Pergamon on the western coast of Asia Minor (present-day Türkiye), urban and rural settlements, and the landscape within its micro-region from the Hellenistic to the Roman Imperial period (3rd century BCE – 3rd century CE). To this end, a research approach based on the category of the micro-region as a spatial and conceptual framework, digital landscape-based analyses, and archaeological surveys was adopted. By means of three case studies on specific aspects of the micro-region and their synthesis, it is thus possible to significantly modify the previous understanding of rural space and its significance for the history of the city of Pergamon. This thesis is able to demonstrate that the settlement structure of the Pergamon Micro-Region underwent a transformation during the period under study, while the city of Pergamon experienced a fundamental urban transformation and changes in its political and social framework. It shows that this transformation was an expression of the dynamically changing needs that emanated from the rulers, the city, and its inhabitants, and that it was promoted by the heterogeneous landscape and Pergamon’s location within it. Thus, previous assumptions about a potential transformation of the rural settlement structure can be put on a much more solid data basis and completely re-evaluated, and the close interdependencies between Pergamon and its micro-region can be revealed. This thesis provides an essential contribution to the ongoing project of the study of Pergamon and the micro-region in which it is embedded. Moreover, it vividly demonstrates how a strongly landscape-based and interdisciplinary approach can be used to arrive at meaningful interpretations that go beyond an individual city and the boundaries artificially drawn by purely geographical or historical-archaeological considerations. With the consistent use of open-source software and the transparent presentation of all analyses, this thesis also guarantees connectivity for further discussions and research on Pergamon and should at the same time offer motivation to apply the approach presented here to the micro-regions of other ancient cities in Asia Minor and beyond in order to arrive at comparative studies and common answers and insights in the future.

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Bei der vorliegenden kumulativen Dissertation handelt es sich um eine landschaftsarchäologische Studie mit dem Ziel die Interdependenzen zwischen der antiken Stadt Pergamon an der kleinasiatischen Westküste (heutige Türkei), städtischen und ländlichen Siedlungen und der Landschaft innerhalb ihrer Mikroregion vom Hellenismus bis zur römischen Kaiserzeit (3. Jh. v. Chr. – 3. Jh. n. Chr.) zu identifizieren und zu interpretieren. Zu diesem Zweck wurde ein Forschungsansatz gewählt, der auf der Kategorie der Mikroregion als räumlichem und konzeptionellem Rahmen, digitalen landschaftsbasierten Analysen und archäologischen Surveys basiert. Anhand von drei Fallstudien zu spezifischen Aspekten der Mikroregion und deren Synthese kann somit das bisherige Verständnis des ländlichen Raumes und seiner Bedeutung für die Geschichte der Stadt Pergamon deutlich modifiziert werden. Diese Dissertation kann nachweisen, dass die Siedlungsstruktur der Mikroregion Pergamon im Untersuchungszeitraum einer Transformation unterlag, während die Stadt Pergamon einen grundlegenden urbanen Wandel und Veränderungen der politischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen erlebte. Sie zeigt, dass diese Transformation ein Ausdruck der sich dynamisch verändernden Bedürfnisse war, die von den Herrschern und der Stadt und ihren Bewohnern ausging, und dass sie durch die heterogene Landschaft und die Lage Pergamons darin befördert wurde. Somit können nicht nur bisherige Annahmen zu einer potentiellen Transformation der ländlichen Siedlungsstruktur auf eine deutlich solidere Datengrundlage gestellt und völlig neu bewertet werden, sondern auch die engen Interdependenzen zwischen Pergamon und seiner Mikroregion aufgedeckt werden. Diese Dissertation liefert damit einen wesentlichen Beitrag für das derzeit laufende Projekt zur Erforschung Pergamons und seiner Mikroregion, in das sie eingebettet ist. Darüber hinaus demonstriert sie anschaulich, wie man mit einem stark auf die Landschaft ausgerichteten und interdisziplinären Ansatz zu aussagekräftigen Interpretationen gelangen kann, die über eine individuelle Stadt und die durch rein geografische oder historisch-archäologische Überlegungen künstlich gezogen Grenzen hinaus gehen. Mit der konsequenten Anwendung von open-source Software und der transparenten Darstellung aller Analysen garantiert die vorliegende Dissertation außerdem die Anschlussfähigkeit für weiterführende Diskussionen und Forschungen in Pergamon und soll gleichzeitig motivieren, den hier präsentierten Ansatz auf die Mikroregionen anderer antiker Städte in Kleinasien und darüber hinaus anzuwenden um so zukünftig zu vergleichenden Studien und übergreifenden Antworten und Erkenntnissen zu gelangen.

The dissertation was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, grant number 419349690) and supported by the Pergamon Excavation Project of the Istanbul Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).

 

Writing Greek Law

Writing Greek Law

Michael Gagarin

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

Publication date:

22 September 2009

ISBN:

9780511482779

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511482779

The use of writing in the development of Greek law was unique. In this comparative study Professor Gagarin shows the reader how Greek law developed and explains why it became so different from the legal systems with which most legal historians are familiar. While other early communities wrote codes of law for academic or propaganda purposes, the Greeks used writing extensively to make their laws available to a relatively large segment of the community. On the other hand, the Greeks made little use of writing in litigation whereas other cultures used it extensively in this area, often putting written documents at the heart of the judicial process. Greek law thereby avoided becoming excessively technical and never saw the development of a specialised legal profession. This book will be of interest to those with an interest in the history of law, as well as ancient historians. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core. 

 

 

Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance

Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance

Tim Whitmarsh

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• Publisher:

  Cambridge University Press

  Publication date:

  03 May 2011

  ISBN:

  9780511975332

  DOI:

  https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511975332

  Creative Commons:

  

  This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0.
  https://creativecommons.org/creativelicenses

The Greek romance was for the Roman period what epic was for the Archaic period or drama for the Classical: the central literary vehicle for articulating ideas about the relationship between self and community. This book offers a reading of the romance both as a distinctive narrative form (using a range of narrative theories) and as a paradigmatic expression of identity (social, sexual and cultural). At the same time it emphasises the elasticity of romance narrative and its ability to accommodate both conservative and transformative models of identity. This elasticity manifests itself partly in the variation in practice between different romancers, some of whom are traditionally Hellenocentric while others are more challenging. Ultimately, however, it is argued that it reflects a tension in all romance narrative, which characteristically balances centrifugal against centripetal dynamics. This book will interest classicists, historians of the novel and students of narrative theory. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.