This book explores the apocalyptic influence upon the Two Ways metaphor in antiquity and more particularly the influence of the Two Ways in the Didache as veering from an apocalyptic worldview. The argument includes essential critical evaluation of the apocalyptic genre and assesses the apocalyptic features in ancient Two Ways texts. The predominant focus of the book will document and critically assess how the Didache veers from maintaining an apocalyptic worldview in its expression of the Two Ways (Did. 1–6).

This collection of papers by leading international experts on the subject of ancient Egyptian coffins, builds on a project based at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, to study and record in detail its collection. Papers address a series of topics including: the development of coffins in antiquity, including iconographic and text-based studies, providing new insights into ancient Egyptian belief systems at different periods and regional differences in coffin presentation; the post-antiquity history of coffins, including their acquisition and subsequent treatment in museums around the world; developments in technical examination and methods of studying coffins, especially the use of multispectral imaging to provide non-invasive analysis of materials, and what this tells us about construction and decorative techniques at different periods and in response to the availability of different materials and increasing evidence of the re-use of materials and complete re-working of coffins for new owners, leading us to question fundamental attitudes to the purpose of coffins as a containers of human remains and the practices of craftsmen in the funerary industry. The papers stem from a conference held at the Museum to accompany a major new exhibition.

Religious spaces are often some of the most debated, contested, or otherwise scrutinized in the early medieval world. That space and place were important to people in the past is evident in their architecture, artwork, literature, and in their cemeteries and burial grounds. While these observations are not new, this volume brings together interdisciplinary and multi-national archaeologists, historians, and geographers to discuss and debate ‘space’ and ‘place’ with a focus on new methodologies and current approaches to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The papers in this volume address such themes as phenomenological and experiential issues in the archaeology of space and place; access to and visibility of spaces (locations) in the past; the transformation and appropriation of spaces beyond the ‘Christian/Pagan’ dichotomy; and aspects of community and memory building in the medieval world. The contributors to this volume recognize that terms such as ‘Christianisation’, ‘Islamisation’, and indeed ‘space’ and ‘place’ themselves are loaded words and each paper takes a different route to the discussion of sacred space in the past. Together, they offer a current discussion about the role of ‘space’ and ‘place’ in religious history.

Engaging with the Dead adopts a cross-disciplinary, archaeologically focused, approach to explore a variety of themes linked to the interpretation of mortuary traditions, death and the ways of disposing of the dead. Nineteen papers highlight the current vitality of ‘death studies’ and the potential of future research and discoveries. Contributors explore changing beliefs and practices over time, considering how modern archaeology, ethnography and historical records can aid our interpretations of the past, as well as considering how past practices may have influenced understandings of death and dying within the modern world. It is clear that there are very significant variations in the quantity of dead that appear in the archaeological record over time, and the contributions to this volume attempt to understand why that might be the case. By bringing together papers from a variety of specialists working within Europe and the Near East, we investigate the pivotal role of death studies in the 21st century, providing a case for the retention of human remains in archaeological collections. Engaging with the Dead aims to set period specific contributions within a broader perspective and integrates papers from bioarchaeologists, theologists, textual specialists, as well as archaeologists. It provides an in-depth introduction to the multitude of ways in which the mortuary record can be interrogated and interpreted and explores the role of archaeology and theology within contemporary social studies. This volume challenges our current understanding and conceptualisation of mortuary practices in the ancient and contemporary world.

Major recent excavations have shed much light on the complexity of Iron Age society and religion in southern Palestine, a region where both Judeans and Edomites lived. However, it is not clear whether the religious practices attested at these sites were a reflection of localised customs or were common rituals for peoples of Cisjordan and we do not know their extent. An isolated shrine site at Wadi ath-Thamad Site WT-13 in northern Moab which contained numerous finds of Iron Age figurines and statues has been the subject of detailed excavation. The rich harvest of figurines, ceramic statues, beads, miniature ceramic vessels, architectural models, faunal remains and shells and fossils constitutes the evidence for repeated cultic activities. Although dating to the Iron Age at the time of the consolidation of the kingdom of Moab, there is insufficient evidence at present to determine the full range of cultic practices and deities venerated by the peoples of the lands within ancient Moab and by those visitors to the shrine. The links between WT-13 and the surrounding town sites is only now coming to light with excavation at Atarus and Khirbat al-Mudayna, as well as at the Ammonite site of Tall Damiyah in the Jordan Valley, where a comparable shrine has recently been uncovered. WT-13 clearly serves as a link between the Jordan Valley and the Negev, adding to our knowledge of local and foreign influences in the region during the Iron Age.

The study of belief, faith and religious practices can provide a deep insight into historical societies, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish or pagan. They form a constant of human behaviour. Through religion, cult and rituals, multi-layered and complex cultural norms are expressed, demonstrating group affiliation. However, popular devotion and belief in a rural environment can include practices that are out with those of the official religion.Some of these practices discussed in this book can be investigated through archaeology. Important religious sites like churches, monasteries, mosques and synagogues as well as caves, holy wells and hermitages are discussed. Furthermore burials of children, revenants and the condemned are analysed, as they often deviate from normal practice and shed light on particular communities and their beliefs. Rituals concerning the protection of buildings and persons which focus on objects attributed with religious qualities are another area explored. Through archaeological research it is possible to gain an understanding of popular religion of medieval and early modern times and also to draw conclusions about religious ideas that are not written in documents. By bringing together these topics this book is of particular interest to scholars working in the field of archaeology, history and cultural anthropology.The addressed subjects were the theme of an international conference of the RURALIA association held in Clervaux, Luxemburg, in September 2015. Ruralia promotes the archaeology of medieval settlement and rural life. Current research questions in rural archaeology are discussed in an European wide context. The aim is to strengthen the exchange of knowledge in, and the development of, archaeologically comparable studies, and to make archaeological results available to other disciplines.

Jerusalem Throne Games explores the political battle for power to succeed David expressed through selected stories from the beginning of the Book of Genesis. In these confrontations, combatants wielded a new weapon of war that was changing the course of human history, the alphabet prose narrative. With this weapon, competing factions battled for throne not with the blog, the op ed, the tweet or the essay, but through storytelling. In this book six of those stories from Gen. 4-11 are analysed through the lens of the succession of Solomon and the collapse of his kingdom. These stories are identified as “son” stories or supplements to the existing alphabet narrative from the time of David. They were written by the various factions or priesthoods vying for power and are political in nature. Each story, the Sons of Cain, the Sons of Seth, the Sons of God, the Sons of Noah, the Son of Cush (Nimrod), and the Sons of men (Tower of Babel), is reviewed through selected commentaries from ancient times to the leading ones of the 20th century. These tensions raised highlight the need to revise the Documentary Hypothesis, the traditional scholarly approach for understanding the writing of these stories. A new Documentary Hypothesis is proposed for the writer known as J, the traditional author of these six stories. It presents the creation of supplemental and interactive writing by the Levites, Zadokites, and Aaronids who battled for power to name, dominate, and influence the person on the throne. The story of Jerusalem throne games began with the death of David and continued for centuries. The goal in this book is to understand the creation and meaning of those stories in their original political context in the time of Solomon.

The study of funerary practice has become one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of Roman archaeology in recent decades. This volume draws on large-scale fieldwork from across Europe, methodological advances and conceptual innovations to explore new insights from analysis of the Roman dead, concerning both the rituals which saw them to their tombs and the communities who buried them. In particular the volume seeks to establish how the ritual sequence, from laying out the dead to the pyre and tomb, and from placing the dead in the earth to the return of the living to commemorate them, may be studied from archaeological evidence. Contributors examine the rites regularly practised by town and country folk from the shores of the Mediterranean to the English Channel, as well as exceptional circumstances, as in the aftermath of the Varian disaster in Augustan Germany. Case studies span a cross-section of Roman society, from the cosmopolitan merchants of Corinth to salt pan workers at Rome and the rural poor of Britannia and Germania. Some papers have a methodological focus, considering how human skeletal, faunal and plant remains illuminate the dead themselves and death rituals, while others examine how to interpret the stratigraphic signatures of the rituals practised before, around and after burial. Adapting anthropological models, other papers develop interpretive perspectives on the funerary sequences which can thus be reconstructed and explore the sensory dimensions of burying and commemorating the dead. Through these varied approaches the volume aims to demonstrate and develop the richness of the insights into Roman society and culture which may be won from study of the dead.

Life and Death in Asia Minor combines contributions in both archaeology and bioarchaeology in Asia Minor in the period ca. 200 BC – AD 1300 for the first time. The archaeology topics are wide-ranging including death and territory, death and landscape perception, death and urban transformations from pagan to Christian topography, changing tomb typologies, funerary costs, family organization, funerary rights, rituals and practices among pagans, Jews, and Christians, inhumation and Early Byzantine cremations and use and reuse of tombs. The bioarchaeology chapters use DNA, isotope and osteological analyses to discuss, both among children and adults, questions such as demography and death rates, pathology and nutrition, body actions, genetics, osteobiography, and mobility patterns and diet. The areas covered in Asia Minor include the sites of Hierapolis, Laodikeia, Aphrodisias, Tlos, Ephesos, Priene, Kyme, Pergamon, Amorion, Gordion, Boğazkale, and Arslantepe. The theoretical and methodological approaches used make it highly relevant for people working in other geographical areas and time periods. Many of the articles could be used as case studies in teaching at schools and universities. An important objective of the publication has been to see how the different types of results emerging from archaeological and natural science studies respectively could be integrated with each other and pose new questions on ancient societies, which were far more complex than historical and social studies of the past often manage to transmit.

Traditionally the study of early medieval burial practices in England has focused on the furnished burials of the early Anglo-Saxon period with those of the later centuries perceived as uniform and therefore uninteresting. The last decade has seen the publication of many important cemeteries and synthetic works demonstrating that such a simplistic view of later Anglo-Saxon burial is no longer tenable. The reality is rather more complex, with social and political perspectives influencing both the location and mode of burial in this period. This edited volume is the first that brings together papers by leading researchers in the field and illustrates the diversity of approaches being used to study the burials of this period. The overarching theme of the book is differential treatment in death, which is examined at the site-specific, settlement, regional and national level. More specifically, the symbolism of conversion-period grave good deposition, the impact of the church, and aspects of identity, burial diversity and biocultural approaches to cemetery analysis are discussed.

This collection of papers brings together a broad range of new research and new material on Antioch in the late Roman period (the 2nd to the 7th centuries AD), from the writings of the orator Libanius and the preacher John Chrysostom to the extensive mosaics found in the city and its suburbs. The authors consider the lively issues of identity and ethnicity in this truly multi-cultural and multi-religious city, the effects of Romanization and Christianization on the city and surrounding region, and the central place of the city in the Roman world. These papers were presented at a colloquium in London, in December 2001.

In the first millennium BC, communities in Italy underwent crucial transformations which scholars have often subsumed under the heading of ‘state formation’, namely increased social stratification, the centralisation of political power and, in some cases, urbanisation. Most research has tended to approach the phenomenon of state formation and social change in relation to specific territorial dynamics of growth and expansion, changing modes of exploitation of food and other resources over time, and the adoption of selected socio-ritual practices by the ruling élites in order to construct and negotiate authority. In contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to the question of how these key developments resonated across the broader social transect, and how social groups other than ruling élites both promoted these changes and experienced their effects. The chief aim of this collection of 14 papers is to harness innovative approaches to the exceptionally rich mortuary evidence of first millennium BC Italy, in order to investigate the roles and identities of social actors who either struggled for power and social recognition, or were manipulated and exploited by superior authorities in a phase of tumultuous socio-political change throughout the entire Mediterranean basin. Contributors provide a diverse range of approaches in order to examijne how power operated in society, how it was exercised and resisted, and how this can be studied through mortuary evidence. Section 1 addresses the construction of identity by focusing mainly on the manipulation of age, ethnic and gender categories in society in regions and sites that reached notable power and splendour in first millennium BC Italy. These include Etruria, Latium, Campania and the rich settlement of Verucchio, in Emilia Romagna. Section 2 offers a counterpoint to Section 1 by focusing on the concepts of ‘periphery’, marginality and the frailty of élite (or sub-élite) power in phases of dramatic socio-political change. Moreover, this Section approaches the idea of identity construction in ‘fringe’ geographical areas that are sometimes overlooked in Anglophone scholarship, such as the Veneto, Samnium, western Emilia and Trentino–South Tyrol. With its overall emphasis on scholarly multivocality, this volume is one of the first ever to strongly advocate for a study of social exclusion and extreme social marginality in late prehistoric and proto-historic Italy.

The study of monasteries has come a long way since late the late 19th century. The emphasis has shifted away from reconstructing the layouts of monastic buildings to a better understanding of the wider monastic environment. The papers in this volume, partly based on a conference held in Oxford in 1994, are written by some of today's foremost scholars and reflect the diversity of research now being carried out.

In April 1485, a marble sarcophagus was found on the outskirts of Rome. It contained the remains of a young Roman woman so well-preserved that she appeared to have only just died and the sarcophagus was placed on public view, attracting great crowds. Such a find reminds us of the power of the dead body to evoke in the minds of living people, be they contemporary (survivors or mourners) or distanced from the remains by time, a range of emotions and physical responses, ranging from fascination to fear, and from curiosity to disgust. Archaeological interpretations of burial remains can often suggest that the skeletons which we uncover, and therefore usually associate with past funerary practices, were what was actually deposited in graves, rather than articulated corpses. The choices made by past communities or individuals about how to cope with a dead body in all of its dynamic and constituent forms, and whether there was reason to treat it in a manner that singled it out (positively or negatively) as different from other human corpses, provide the stimulus for this volume. The nine papers provide a series of theoretically informed, but not constrained, case studies which focus predominantly on the corporeal body in death. The aims are to take account of the active presence of dynamic material bodies at the heart of funerary events and to explore the questions that might be asked about their treatment; to explore ways of putting fleshed bodies back into our discussions of burials and mortuary treatment, as well as interpreting the meaning of these activities in relation to the bodies of both deceased and survivors; and to combine the insights that body-centred analysis can produce to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the role of the body, living and dead, in past cultures.

Human societies have disposed of their dead in a variety of ways. However, while considerable attention has been paid to bodies that were buried, comparatively little work has been devoted to understanding the nature of cremated remains, despite their visibility through time. It has been argued that this is the result of decades of misunderstanding regarding the potential information that this material holds, combined with properties that make burned bone inherently difficult to analyse. As such, there is a considerable body of knowledge on the concepts and practices of inhumation yet our understanding of cremation ritual and practice is by comparison, woefully inadequate.This timely volume therefore draws together the inventive methodology that has been developed for this material and combines it with a fuller interpretation of the archaeological funerary context. It demonstrates how an innovative methodology, when applied to a challenging material, can produce new and exciting interpretations of archaeological sites and funerary contexts.The reader is introduced to the nature of burned human remains and the destructive effect that fire can have on the body. Subsequent chapters describe important cremation practices and sites from around the world and from the Neolithic period to the modern day. By emphasising the need for a robust methodology combined with a nuanced interpretation, it is possible to begin to appreciate the significance and wide-spread adoption of this practice of dealing with the dead.

Religion is a phenomenon that is inseparable from human society. It brings about a set of emotional, ideological and practical elements that are pervasive in the social fabric of any society and characterizable by a number of features. these include the establishment of intermediaries in the relationship between humans and the divine; the construction of ceremonial places for worshipping the gods and practicing ritual performances; and the creation ritual paraphernalia. Investigating the religious dimensions of ancient societies encounters problems in defining such elements, especially with regard to societies that lack textual evidences and has tended to lead towards the identification of differentiation between the mental dimension, related to religious beliefs, and the material one associated with religious practices, resulting in a separation between scholars able to investigate, and possibly reconstruct, ritual practices (i.e., archaeologists), and those interested in defining the realm of ancient beliefs (i.e., philologists and religious historians).The aim of this collection of papers is to attempt to bridge these two dimensions by breaking down existing boundaries in order to form a more comprehensive vision of religion among ancient Near Eastern societies. This approach requires that a higher consideration be given to those elements (either artificial -- buildings, objects, texts, etc. -- or natural -- landscapes, animals, trees, etc.) that are created through a materialization of religious beliefs and practices enacted by members of communities. These issues are addressed in a series of specific case-studies covering a broad chronological framework that from the Pre-pottery Neolithic to the Iron Age.