In Antiquity the Black Sea region was a meeting point for several different population groups with diverse cultural backgrounds. The present monograph takes its point of departure in burial data from four coastal localities in the northern region of the Black Sea. The mortuary practices are decoded and interpreted within a framework mainly based on concepts of cultural interaction rather than cultural polarisation. Thus, the dogma of 'The Greeks and the Others' is challenged, and alternative perceptions of interactions between the people in the Black Sea region form the basis of the study. The burials are primarily analysed with emphasis on social strategies and cultural diversity. Furthermore, the Black Sea region is set into a comparative perspective through an outlook on burial customs and mortuary practices in the colonial milieus of contemporary Southern Italy.

This book is a publication of an entire city quarter of one of the most important ancient Greek Black Sea cities, Olbia. The publication is a result of collaboration between Danish, Ukrainian, Canadian and Russian scholars. It includes a study of the architecture and finds made during excavations between 1985 and 2002. It is the first publication of a Black Sea city with full documentation. It documents life in the residential quarters of Olbia's lower city from the time of the city's foundation in the middle of the 6th century BC until the Roman period. Contributors to this volume include: P Guldager Bilde, L Bjerg, A Bujskikh, O Buravcuk, P Diatroptov, J Hjarl Petersen, S Handberg, J M Hojte, V V Krapivina, V Krutilov, S D Kryziskij, M Lawall, N Lejpunskaja & A Rusjaeva.

Ancient Warfare Special 2: 'Core of the Legion' examines the history, structure, and tactics of the centuria, a fundmanetal building block of the ancient Roman army. This special contains the following articles: - Paul McDonnell-Staff, 'Core of the legion - Historical introduction' - Jona Lendering, 'Hadrian and his soldiers - The Lambaesis Inscription' - Duncan B. Campbell, 'Backbone of the legions - Some centurions and their careers' - Graham Sumner, 'The centurio from Colchester - Reconstructing Marcus Favonius Facilis' - Philip Matyszak, 'Learning on the job and in camp - Training the centuria' - Ross Cowan, 'The centuria in battle - Tactical organisation and combat' - Michael J. Taylor, 'Records on bark, sherds and papyrus - Small unit administration in the Roman army' - Christian Koepfer, 'Keeping the legionaries clothed and fed - Logistics of the centuria' - Graham Sumner, 'Dressed for the occasion - three legionaries brought to life' - Michael C. Bishop, 'Keeping the weapons - Acquisition, ownership and storage' - Michael Thomas, 'With bodies completely protected - Roman armour of the 1st-2nd centuries AD' - Suggestions for museums

Having become king of England at the battle of Hastings in 1066, William of Normandy would go on to found a genuine empire. His reign lasted 21 years. Amongst his children were two kings, a Duke, an Abbess, and two Countesses. Upon his death, his descendants tore each other apart, and his empire was fragmented until the accession of the Plantagenets, who extended the Anglo-Norman territory as far as the foothills of the Pyrenees. This book recounts the life of his principal descendants from Robert Courteheuse to the Empress Matilda. This is a French Language book.

The name of Richard the Lionheart is familiar to us all. Curiously, this legendary figure is more often associated with Aquitaine and the Holy Land than with Normandy. A worthy descendant of William the Conqueror, Richard I maintained Normandy within the Plantagenet Empire, by countering the ambitious plans of the King of France, Philip Augustus. His violent and untimely death was to lead to Normandy's annexation to France. The Anglo-Normand territory that "straddled the sea", and could well have offered an alternative to the national monarchic construction, was never to recover.

This volume grew out of an interdisciplinary discussion held in the context of the Leverhulme-funded project 'Changing Beliefs in the Human Body', through which the image of the body in pieces soon emerged as a potent site of attitudes about the body and associated practices in many periods. Archaeologists routinely encounter parts of human and animal bodies in their excavations. Such fragmentary evidence has often been created through accidental damage and the passage of time - nevertheless, it can also signify a deliberate and meaningful act of fragmentation. As a fragment, a part may acquire a distinct meaning through its enchained relationship to the whole or alternatively it may be used in a more straightforward manner to represent the whole or even act as stand-in for other variables. This collection of papers puts bodily fragmentation into a long-term historical perspective. The temporal spread of the papers collected here indicates both the consistent importance and the varied perception of body parts in the archaeological record of Europe and the Near East. By bringing case studies together from a range of locations and time periods, each chapter brings a different insight to the role of body parts and body wholes and explores the status of the body in different cultural contexts. Many of the papers deal directly with the physical remains of the dead body, but the range of practices and representations covered in this volume confirm the sheer variability of treatments of the body throughout human history. Every one of the contributions shows how looking at how the human body is divided into pieces or parts can give us deeper insights into the beliefs of the particular society which produced these practices and representations.

The environmental crisis is one of the most pressing concerns to face the population of the world today. The debate centres on the way in which our current problems are of recent making and how we might fix them. But in reality the issue is far more fundamental and stretches back further in time than many of us might think. This book traces the origins of our present situation to the changes that came about with the introduction of farming to Britain 6000 years ago and the inexorable course of human development since then. This is a course which has set us on the path to catastrophe. However, there is hope. The book also looks at the much older traits from a way of life long gone in Britain, from the hunter-gatherers who lived here over the millennia before the introduction of farming. These traits, almost forgotten, but never quite lost, are now re-surfacing and may hold many of the keys to our continued existence.

onomatologos is a term used in later antiquity to describe eminent lexicographers such as Hesychius and Pollux as 'collectors of words', but here it is used as the title for a major volume of papers prepared in honour of Elaine Matthews, recently retired long-serving editor of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names ( LGPN ): a 'collector of names'. The LGPN , conceived by Peter Fraser, has had as its primary aim the documentation on a geographical basis of the personal names attested between the earliest use of the Greek alphabet (c. 750 BC) and the early seventh century AD throughout the Hellenic and hellenized world, wherever the Greek language and script was used. The 55 contributions to this volume reflect well the breadth of LGPN itself, extending to all points of the compass far beyond the Greek heartlands bordering the Aegean sea, as well as the wide range of disciplines to which the study of personal names can be applied. Besides their honorific purpose, it is intended that the contributions will further advance this field of study, revealing some of the potential that has been unlocked by the systematic documentation of the evidence, mainly from inscriptions and papyri, that has accumulated over the last century. The papers presented here amply demonstrate the value of this raw material for linguists and philologists, students of Greek and Latin literature, epigraphists, papyrologists, numismatists and prosopographers, as well as social historians with broader interests in the geographical and chronological distribution of personal names.

The Upper Pleistocene era encompassed a period of dramatic cultural developments in the south-eastern Mediterranean basin. This book highlights and synthesizes the latest research and current scientific debate on the archaeology of this time period in North Africa and the Near East. Recent archaeological research in North Africa has meant this region now plays a decisive role in scientific debate. After decades of neglect, the archaeological record from North Africa has now been seen to parallel in significance that of the Near East. This book offers an opportunity to observe the Afro-Asian side of the Mediterranean basin as an uninterrupted land, as it was for its Upper Pleistocene inhabitants. Areas of focus include the Out-of-Africa movement of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) into the Levant and the transition from the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age to the Upper Palaeolithic/Later Stone Age, during which a change of lifestyle took place, based on plant cultivation and animal husbandry. These topics are of crucial interest to anyone studying human evolution, prehistoric archaeology, anthropology, and palaeo-environmental studies. This volume brings together data as well as perspectives from various scholars, often separated by their areas of interest and location. This volume is complementary to The Mediterranean from 50,000 to 25,000 BP: Turning Points and New Directions edited by M. Camps and C. Szmidt (Oxbow Books, 2009).

This volume is intended as a tribute to the memory of the Sumerologist Jeremy Black, who died in 2004. The Sumerian phrase zà-mí-zu dug-ga-àm 'Your praise is sweet' is commonly addressed to a deity at the close of a work of Sumerian literature. The scope of the thirty contributions, from Sumerology to the nineteenth-century rediscovery of Mesopotamia, is testament to Jeremy's own wide-ranging interests and to his ability to forge scholarly connections and friendships among all who shared his interest in ancient Iraq.

Cameo glass represents the ultimate achievement in Roman luxury glass, and the British Museum has the world's largest and finest collection. This comprises over seventy pieces, including two of only a dozen surviving complete cameo glass vessels: the celebrated Portland Vase, the greatest surviving example of Roman cameo glass, and the Auldjo Jug, each with its complex and intriguing history. The catalogue, begun by Veronica Tatton-Brown and William Gudenrath of the Corning Museum of Glass, has been revisited and enhanced by Paul Roberts of the British Museum and David Whitehouse and William Gudenrath of the Corning Museum of Glass. This publication presents the collection in its entirety for the first time. Each piece is illustrated in colour and line drawing, with full description and discussion. The book also presents the results of ground-breaking new research. The authors construct a comprehensive context, using archaeological, technological, iconographic and typological evidence to look at the origins of cameo glass and its place in contemporary Roman art and craftsmanship. They also propose a relative and absolute chronology for cameo glass, and suggest possible models for the organisation of the workshop(s) that produced it.

This monograph contains the joint proceedings of the first two conferences organised by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology. It contains 23 papers that cover land-based and underwater excavation and survey in the area of the North-Western Nile Delta, principally concerning the cities of Alexandria and Heracleion-Thonis, as well as studies of aspects of the material culture from these sites.

Eight thousand years ago, when the sea cut Britain off from the rest of the Continent, the island's fauna was very different: most of the animals familiar to us today were not present, whilst others, now extinct, were abundant. Over the course of millennia humans have manipulated Britain's fauna. For reasons of fear, suspicion, desire, or simply inadvertently, certain species were brought to extinction. In their place new animals were introduced: some transported purposefully by invading populations, others sent as royal gifts from far off lands, whilst several species arrived as stowaways. The story of each is fascinating, telling of the changing and multi-layered relationship between humans and animals. Drawing on new research in the fields of archaeology, ecology and history, this book examines how human society, culture, diet, lifestyles and even whole landscapes were fundamentally shaped by the animal extinctions and introductions that occurred in Britain since the last Ice Age. In its 22 chapters a wide range of mammal, bird, fish, snail and insect species are considered. All of the chapters include new and original research presented by authors who are acknowledged experts on their specific topic. Extinctions and Invasions advances our understanding of Britain's natural history whilst dispelling the myths that have become established in both popular and academic literature. It is written in a style accessible to the general reader, whilst providing the depth of research needed by academic researchers. Extinctions and Invasions provides a valuable single source of information for archaeologists, natural historians and conservation biologists, as well as interested laypeople.

Over the last few years, the ways in which we perceive and document rock art have shifted irreversibly. Prehistoric rock art played little part in the development of British and Irish archaeology and was not recognised until the 19th century, when its equivalents in Scandinavia and the Iberian Peninsula were already well known. Previously considered a fringe activity and the work of amateur archaeologists, over the last 30 years the situation has improved considerably, and the appearance of books such as this signify the change. This volume makes a powerful case for an archaeology that integrates rock art into a wider vision of the past. It brings together the experiences and informed opinions of the key organisations and stakeholders responsible for the conservation, management and accessibility of British rock art. An on-going and exciting period of change is documented here and the main issues that underpin the survival of our prehistoric carved heritage are addressed. Grouped into three sections, the chapters cover the recording, management and presentation of British rock art. The contributions illustrate the wide range of perceptions and approaches to the study, and the diversity of individuals and institutions who have become drawn into this fascinating subject, with independent researchers, heritage managers, artists and academics each bringing a unique perspective. This book aims to both inform new directions in rock art management strategies and provoke further initiatives through which these strategies can be implemented.

Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 14 contains (in revised, usually enlarged, and annotated form) papers presented at Langford Seminars of the Department of Classics of The Florida State University over the years 2004 to 2008, together with supplementary articles contributed at the request of the editors. The papers in the section Health and Sickness in Ancient Rome mostly derive from the Spring 2008 Conference organised by Miriam Griffin as Visiting Professor and holder of the George R. Langford Family Eminent Scholar Chair at The Florida State University.

This book explores the dynamics of small-scale societies in the ancient Near East by examining the ways in which particular communities functioned and interacted and by moving beyond the broad neo-evolutionary models of social change which have characterised many earlier approaches. By focusing on issues of diversity, scale, and context, it considers the ways in which economy, crafts, technology, and ritual were organised; the roles played by mortuary practices and households in the structure and development of ancient societies; and the importance of agency, identity, ethnicity, gender, community and cultural interaction for the rise of socio-economic complexity. The contributors to this volume are well-known archaeologists in the field of Near Eastern studies; all are currently engaged in fieldwork or research in Cyprus, the Levant, or Turkey. The variety and depth of the research they present here reflect the richness of the archaeological record in the 'cradle of civilisation' and convey the vibrancy of current interpretive approaches within the field of Near Eastern prehistory today.