Already in Greek and Roman antiquity a vibrant series of exchange relationships existed between the Mediterranean regions and China, including the Indian subcontinent, along well-defined routes we call the Silk Roads. Among the many goods that found their way from East to West and vice versa were glass, wine spices, metals and precious stones as well as textile raw materials and fabrics of wool and silk, a precious fibre that was highly appreciated in many of the cultures along the roads that were named after it by modern scholars. These collected papers bring together current historical, philological and archaeological research from different areas and disciplines in order highlight the use, circulation and meaning of silk as a commodity, gift, tribute , booty, and status symbol in varying cultural and chronological contexts between East and West, including technological aspects of silk production. Rome and China in antiquity provide the geographical and chronological frame for this volume (c. from the third century BCE to the fifth century CE), but also earlier and later epochs and cultures in between these empires are considered in order to build and intercultural and diachronic understanding of long-distance relations that involved silk.

The ancient counties surrounding the Weald in the southeastern corner of England have a strongly marked character of their own that has survived remarkably well in the face of ever-increasing population pressure. The area is, however, comparatively neglected in discussion of Roman Britain, where it is often subsumed into a generalised treatment of the ‘civilian’ part of Britannia that is based largely on other parts of the country. This book aims to redress the balance. The focus is particularly on Kent, Surrey and Sussex account is taken of information from neighbouring counties, particularly when the difficult subsoils affect the availability of evidence. An overview of the environment and a consideration of themes relevant to the South-East as a whole accompany 14 papers covering the topics of rural settlement in each county, crops, querns and millstones, animal exploitation, salt production, leatherworking, the working of bone and similar materials, the production of iron and iron objects, non-ferrous metalworking, pottery production and the supply of tile to Roman London. Agriculture and industry provides an up-to-date assessment of our knowledge of the southern hinterland of Roman London and an area that was particularly open to influences from the Continent.

Digital reprint of this important collection of papers which form the companion to ' Early Roman Empire in the East' (Oxbow 1997) . Fourteen contributions examine the interaction of Roman and native peoples in the formative years of the Roman provinces in Italy, Gaul, Spain and Portugal, Germany and Britain. Contents: Introduction ( Thomas Blagg and Martin Millett ); The creation of provincial landscape: the Roman impact on Cisalpine Gaul ( Nicholas Purcell ); Romanization: a point of view ( Richard Reece ); Romanization: historical issues and archaeological interpretation ( Martin Millett ); The romanization of Belgic Gaul ( Colin Haselgrove ); Lower Germany: proto-urban settlement developments and the integration of native society ( J. H. F. Bloemers ); Relations between Roman occupation and the Limesvorland in the province of Germania Inferior ( Jurgen Kunow ); Early Roman military installations and Ubian settlements in the Lower Rhine ( Michael Gechter ); Some observations on acculturation process at the edge of the Roman world ( S. D. Trow ); Processes in the development of the coastal communities of Hispania Citerior in the Republican period ( Simon Keay ); Romanization and urban development in Lusitania ( Jonathan Edmondson ); Urban munificence and the growth of urban consciousness in Roman Spain ( Nicola Mackie ); First-century Roman houses in Gaul and Britain ( T. F. C. Blagg ); Towards an assessment of the economic and social consequences of the Roman conquest of Gaul ( J. F. Drinkwater ); The emergence of Romano-Celtic religion ( Anthony King ).

This is a paperback reprint of the first edition, which appeared in 2004, published by British Museum Press. The ancient city of Dura-Europos, destroyed by a Sasanian Persian siege in the AD 250s, was an important regional centre of commerce, government and military control under the Seleucid, Parthian and Roman empires. During excavations in the 1920s and 1930s it became famous for finds such as a painted synagogue and early Christian chapel. Not the least spectacular of the discoveries in this 'Pompeii of the Syrian Desert' were the remains of the town's garrisons and siegeworks and massive quantities of military artefacts. The latter comprise perhaps the most important single collection of arms, armour and other equipment to survive from the Roman period, a collection which is exceptional in its size, diversity and state of preservation. Its colourful painted shields and horse armour, for example, are unequalled in the vast Roman empire or in neighbouring lands. It also holds vital importance for our knowledge of the material culture of the military in the eastern frontier lands of the Roman world. This book provides a complete catalogue of the military artefacts, most of which are now housed in Yale University Art Gallery, and analyses and assesses their cultural affiliations and uses. The archaeological evidence from the site is combined with the equally rich and rare textual and representational evidence in the form of papyri, graffiti and wall-paintings, not to mention the buildings of the city themselves, to examine the ways in which material culture actively creates and expresses identity, in this case of Roman soldiers of Syrian origin.

Small finds – the stuff of everyday life – offer archaeologists a fascinating glimpse into the material lives of the ancient Romans. These objects hold great promise for unravelling the ins and outs of daily life, especially for the social groups, activities, and regions for which few written sources exist. Focusing on amulets, brooches, socks, hobnails, figurines, needles, and other “mundane” artefacts, these 12 papers use small finds to reconstruct social lives and practices in the Roman Northwest provinces. Taking social life broadly, the various contributions offer insights into the everyday use of objects to express social identities, Roman religious practices in the provinces, and life in military communities. By integrating small finds from the Northwest provinces with material, iconographic, and textual evidence from the whole Roman empire, contributors seek to demystify Roman magic and Mithraic religion, discover the latest trends in ancient fashion (socks with sandals!), explore Roman interactions with Neolithic monuments, and explain unusual finds in unexpected places. Throughout, the authors strive to maintain a critical awareness of archaeological contexts and site formation processes to offer interpretations of past peoples and behaviours that most likely reflect the lived reality of the Romans. While the range of topics in this volume gives it wide appeal, scholars working with small finds, religion, dress, and life in the Northwest provinces will find it especially of interest. Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices grew out of a session at the 2014 Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference.

The main source of archaeological evidence for Late Roman Republican camps is a complex of installations around the Iberian city of Numantia in Spain, excavated by Adolf Schulten in the early 1900s. This book reassesses Schulten and concludes that much of his interpretation is questionable. Radically different alternative reconstructions making use of recent fieldwork are presented for several of the sites. A discussion of dating evidence leads to alternative dates being offered for some of the camps. To aid interpreting the sites, army organisation and art of encampment for the period of the Numantine Wars is discussed. This study gives added importance to the sites at Numantia, for they not only form the main source of archaeological evidence for Late Republican camps, but provide evidence for the form of camp for both the late manipular army and the early cohort one.

Proceedings of the 27th International Congress of Papyrology, Warsaw 29.07—3.08 2013: 3 Volumes:Vol. I: Literary Papyri: Texts and studiesVol. II: Subliterary papyri. Documentary papyri. Scribal practices, linguistic mattersVol. III: Studying papyri

The last several decades have seen a dramatic increase in interest in the Roman period on the island of Crete. Ongoing and some long-standing excavations and investigations of Roman sites and buildings, intensive archaeological survey of Roman areas, and intensive research on artefacts, history, and inscriptions of the island now provide abundant data for assessing Crete alongside other Roman provinces. New research has also meant a re-evaluation of old data in light of new discoveries, and the history and archaeology of Crete is now being rewritten. The breadth of topics addressed by the papers in this volume is an indication of Crete’s vast archaeological potential for contributing to current academic issues such as Romanisation/acculturation, climate and landscape studies, regional production and distribution, iconographic trends, domestic housing, economy and trade, and the transition to the late-Antique era. These papers confirm Crete’s place as a fully realised participant in the Roman world over the course of many centuries but also position it as a newly discovered source of academic inquiry.

The past is inextricably embeded in the present – whether we are aware of it or not. The present was shaped by the thoughts and deeds of those who went before, and our daily life largely plays out on a stage set by our ancestors. The seven contributors to this volume have taken their cue from ancient artefacts of the cultures of the Mediterranean and Near East that are kept in the National Museum of Denmark. The authors explain how these items were gathered in the first place at their remote places of origin, and why the collectors deemed the objects so important that they were willing to go through considerable trouble and expense to bring them to Denmark. Also, the demonstrate how the interpretation and perceived significance, thereby sketching important stages in the formative history of the National Museum.

The latest volume of this highly regarded series presents for the first time an authoritative and systematic account of the coins minted in the Roman provinces during the period from the accession of Nerva in AD 96 to the death of Hadrian in AD 138 and includes the three reigns of Nerva (AD 96–98), Trajan (AD 98–117) and Hadrian (AD 117–38). The book gives a complete picture of the material, thereby not only meeting the needs of numismatists but also providing an essential reference for historians, archaeologists and other students of the Roman Empire. The introductory essays and extensive catalogue section are followed by indexes and an illustration of every major issue listed. The book catalogues over 50,000 coins classified into 7,000 main varieties from the world’s principal collections, including the British Museum and Bibliothèque nationale de France. These were minted at 300 cities located throughout the eastern part of the Roman Empire, from Apollonia in Albania to Trapezus in Turkey and from Tomi in Romania to Alexandria in Egypt. The catalogue includes the extensive coinages made by the cities of the Roman province of Asia and the complex coinage from Alexandria in Egypt. Consequently, it will be an essential reference for numismatists, historians and archaeologists as well as all students of the Roman Empire.

Although a large number of cemeteries have been explored in Roman Britain they have never been seen as central to the study of the province. This collection of twenty-eight papers, from a symposium held at the University of Durham in 1997, explores different approaches to examine the contribution that cemeteries can make to our wider understanding of Roman society. The papers are grouped under five headings: The reconstruction of mortuary rituals; Burial and social status; The dead in the landscape; Burial and ethnicity and society; Religion and Burial in late Roman Britain and Italy.

The papers in this volume were presented at an international conference organised in Athens (May 11-14, 2004) and focus on the study of the Panathenaic Games, a Panhellenic athletic event that lasted for nearly a millennium. An international assembly of archaeologists, art historians, ancient historians, epigraphists and classical scholars contributed to the discussion of the origins and the historical development of the Panathenaic Games in general and of individual contests in particular. The role of royal and other patrons in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, as well as the form and meaning of victory dedications and other monuments generated by the games were also examined, making this a truly interdisciplinary study into this fascinating event. Two papers are in Greek.

This report publishes the 1937–8 excavations in Colliton Park, Dorchester, Dorset, which revealed one of the best preserved late Roman town houses so far discovered in Roman Britain. Extensively decorated with mosaics, the building has recently been re-displayed in a new cover building by Dorset County Council. In addition to the town house and its mosaics, the report publishes the surrounding buildings in the north-west quarter of the town, also mostly of late Roman date, and associated occupation along with an extensive collection of artefacts, including outstanding finds of coins, glass, iron and Kimmeridge shale.

This work presents the newest trends appearing in the field of Roman Law particularly devoted to the fault-based liability – culpa – that were addressed at the International Conference organised by the Faculty of Law and Administration of Warsaw University in February 2010. Articles written by Merola, Rampazzo and Tucillo touch the problem of culpa in the public law. The authors concentrated on the question of liability of public officers and their culpa or negligence during the performance of their duties. The social scope of culpa as the prerequisite for a censorial note has been presented by Tarwacka. Adamo addressed some important aspect of fault-related liability in criminal law dealing with the regulations of Theodosian Code. Private law side fault based-liability in contracts was presented by Benincasa and Kordasiewicz. They both analysed contracts used in maritime trade, the former regarding armature’s partnership, the latter in the aspect of the transition from objective liability to the liability based on fault in the case of guarantee for the goods admitted by the sailor. Manni and Święcicka devoted their studies to the delictual liability based on culpa. Finally, Alonso and Urbanik attempted to present culpa-liability in the light of papyrological sources, confronting Roman Law sources and documents of legal practice. These studies provide a wealth of information on the law of antiquity in the subject of liability based on fault, both in the aspect of private and public law.

Lindsay Allason-Jones has been at the forefront of small finds and Roman frontier research for 40 years in a career focussed on, but not exclusive to, the north of Britain, encompassing an enormous range of object types and subject areas. Divided into thematic sections the contributions presented here to celebrate her many achievements all represent at least one aspect of Lindsay’s research interests. These encompass social and industrial aspects of northern frontier forts; new insights into inscribed and sculptural stones specific to military communities; religious, cultural and economic connotations of Roman armour finds; the economic and ideological penetration of romanitas in the frontiers as reflected by individual objects and classes of finds; evidence of trans-frontier interactions and invisible people; the role of John Clayton in the exploration and preservation of Hadrian’s Wall and its material culture; the detailed consideration of individual objects of significant interest; and a discussion of the widespread occurrence of mice in Roman art.

The twenty-third Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC) was held at King’s College, London in spring 2013. During the three-day conference nearly papers were delivered, discussing issues from a wide range of geographical regions of the Roman Empire, and applying various theoretical and methodological approaches. Sessions included those looking at Roman–Barbarian interactions; identity and funerary monuments in ancient Italy; migration and social identity in the Roman Near East; theoretical approaches to Roman small finds; formation processes of in-fills in urban sites; and new reflections on Roman glass. This volume contains a selection of papers from the conference sessions.