Oxbow Books
Oxbow Books is a leading publisher in the fields of archaeology, ancient history and medieval studies, with an international reputation for quality and affordability. Oxbow's archaeology publishing covers all periods from earliest prehistory through classical archaeology, the ancient Near East, Egyptology, the Middle Ages and post-medieval archaeology. They publish a wide variety of books including scholarly monographs, edited collections of papers, and excavation and research reports in related fields such as archaeological practice and theory, archaeozoology, and environmental, landscape and maritime archaeology.

Founded in Oxford in 1983 by academic and museum archaeologist, David Brown, Oxbow Books has evolved and expanded significantly over the years. Now celebrating their 40th anniversary, Oxbow remains dedicated to the quality of their publishing for readers, and the contribution their books bring to the scholarly and professional communities more broadly.
Animating the Dead Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 480
ISBN: 9798888571439
Pub Date: 10 Dec 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 300 B/W and colour illustrations
Description:
This book provides the exciting results of a long-term project examining Bronze Age round barrow construction and burial practices in Orkney, Scotland. A main focus of this research is on the act of cremation; a technology of bodily metamorphosis as articulated through complex mortuary practices, which produced a distinctive form of funerary architecture. This, and other topical themes, are explored through the results of extensive excavations at several barrow cemeteries including Linga Fiold, Gitterpitten, Varme Dale, Vestrafiold and the Knowes of Trotty, the latter being famous for rich grave goods including gold discs and amber beads.
RRP: £40.00
Exploring Ancient Sounds and Places Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9798888571774
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 86 B/W photos and line drawings
Description:
Archaeoacoustics, the study of sound in the past, is increasingly attracting attention. Although some work, particularly in musical archaeology, had been conducted previously, the field received a significant boost when the term itself was coined by Scarre and Lawson in their 2006 volume of that name, which brought together two major distinct strands: archaeomusicology and the acoustics of archaeological spaces. Since 2006, the number of publications has steadily been growing, yet the field remains in its infancy.
RRP: £38.00
Coins, Riches, and Lands Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781789259902
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 120 B/W illustrations
Description:
Land was the ideal store of wealth in the ancient Mediterranean world. It brought social respectability, and its possession allowed participation in the politics of the cities governed by landowning elites. Crucial defense of the interests of a given polity through armed services often involved the distribution of lands to laborers still not integrated in these societies.
RRP: £50.00
Ancient Effigy Mound Landscapes of Upper Midwestern North America Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9781785700873
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: black/white and colour illustrations
Description:
Between c. AD 700 and 1100, Late Woodland people of the Upper Midwest used the topography and other features of the natural landscape to create vast ceremonial landscapes consisting of thousands of earthen mounds sculpted into animals and animal spirits that mirrored their belief and clan-based social structure and that served an important role in mortuary ritual. In so doing, the Late Woodland people created quite visible three-dimensional maps of ancient cosmology and social structures that are similar to the beliefs and social systems of more recent Indian people.
RRP: £38.00
Damjili Cave Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9798888571804
Pub Date: 18 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 160 B/W and color illustrations
Description:
Modern archaeological research carried out since the late 19th century has sufficiently demonstrated that the beginning of the food production economy and the establishment of a farming society had a significant impact on the shaping of subsequent human history. Accordingly, these processes of Neolithization have attracted a great deal of interest from archaeologists and anthropologists worldwide. The South Caucasus, i.
RRP: £55.00
Egyptian Stelae, Reliefs and Paintings from the Petrie Collection Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 138
ISBN: 9798888571248
Pub Date: 17 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This is a facsimile reissue of part I of H.M. Stewart’s three part complete catalogue of the inscribed stelae, reliefs and paintings acquired by Flinders Petrie from his many Egyptian excavations and intended as a teaching collection.
RRP: £34.99
Egyptian Stelae, Reliefs and Paintings from the Petrie Collection Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 110
ISBN: 9798888571286
Pub Date: 17 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This is a facsimile reissue of part III of H.M Stewart’s three part complete catalogue of the inscribed stelae, reliefs and paintings acquired by Flinders Petrie from his many Egyptian excavations and intended as a teaching collection. Over 140 monuments, primarily of the Late Period are described, translated and illustrated with comments on techniques and materials, and details of provenance, date and bibliographical references.
RRP: £24.95
Apedemak: Lion God of Meroe Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9798888571262
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
The rescue excavation of Egyptian sites in advance of construction of the Assuan Dam contributed greatly to the understanding of the ancient Egyptian and Sudanese civilisations in the Nile valley. This book examines cultural relationships in the last centuries BC and first centuries AD centred on the ancient city of Meroe, which lies on the east bank of the Nile between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts. It was one of two principal cities, and the centre of political and religious power, of a civilisation that flourished between the 8th century BC and 4th century AD, extending over the area of northern Sudan.
RRP: £39.95
British Pottery: The First 3000 Years Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9798888570715
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 70 B/W illustrations
Description:
Pottery was at the heart of the ‘Neolithic package’ appearing in Britain with the first farmers around 4000 BC. It arrived as a mature technology and was essential to the new, largely sedentary, lifestyle and economy. It transformed storage and cooking practices, and the earliest ceramics seem to have been essential equipment in the new practice of dairying.
RRP: £39.95
Canon and Proportion in Egyptian Art Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 134
ISBN: 9798888571224
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This facsimile reissue of the 1975 second edition of Iversen’s Canon and Proportion brings back into print a seminal work originally published in 1955. Iversen describes a canon – that is, a set of rules of proportions – advanced and used by the artists of Egypt. In order to interpret the stylistic message of the Egyptian system of proportion he undertakes a study of the principles of its construction, an analysis of its modules and presents an unambiguous numerical definition of the ratios governing its units and parts, demonstrating its use with illustrated examples.
RRP: £34.99
Forsaken Relics Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9798888571149
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Societies (MAtAS)
Illustrations: 100 B/W illustrations
Description:
Forsaken Relics examines the intricate mechanisms of ritualistic appropriation of ruined and/or abandoned assets and artifacts. It explores how this process occurs in situations where there is legislation to regulate the appropriation of ownerless property, as well as in cases where such rules are either absent or contested, leading to disputes and conflicts.Every society has developed its unique ways of managing the re-appropriation of ‘ownerless things’, such as places and houses abandoned after conflicts, crises, or natural disasters, forsaken cemeteries, tombs, and forgotten goods.
RRP: £50.00
Islands and Communities Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9798888571514
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 15 B/W illustrations and 20 colour illustrations
Description:
Water may separate islands and the mainland, but the sea also offers a vital link. This volume is one of three major outputs of the research and public engagement project ‘Being an Islander’: Art and Identity of the Large Mediterranean Islands, implemented between 2019 and 2024 at the University of Cambridge. This project aimed to elucidate what defines island identity in the Mediterranean.
RRP: £38.00
The Egyptian Administration in the Old Kingdom Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 172
ISBN: 9798888571668
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
A generally held belief is that there was a downward trend in the authority and power of the king and a corresponding increase in the influence of officials over the course of the Old Kingdom in Egypt. This could be seen reflected in the increasing size, complexity and lavishness of their tombs, the cost of which was generally met by the official himself. If the tomb owner died before completing his tomb, it was either finished by his son, or a close relative, or left in an unfinished state.
RRP: £39.95
Egyptian Sculpture Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 134
ISBN: 9798888571200
Pub Date: 10 Oct 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This facsimile reissue of Anthea Page’s catalog of the stone and wooden statuary in the Petrie Museum makes available again a major corpus of material. The bulk of statuary in the museum was purchased since the finest sculpture from Petrie’s own excavations rightly went to Cairo and other museums. While the sculpture in his own collection covers the whole length of Egyptian dynastic history illustrating many different schools and qualities of workmanship, it does not provide a comprehensive view of the art of the Egyptian sculptor.
RRP: £34.99
Tutankhamun and Carter Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9798888570678
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 200 b/w and color images
Description:
The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 stands out as one of the most important finds of modern archaeology, revealing an enormous wealth of objects encapsulating techniques, vestiges of uses and re-uses of materials, as well as unrivalled clues regarding the complex set of beliefs associated with the pharaonic funerary material culture. Once cleared from the tomb, these objects have captivated the world with their irresistible charm and beauty ending up playing a role in contemporary popular culture. However, it seems that such magnetism rather hindered than facilitated the scholarly study of the find.
Rocks in Motion Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781789259759
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Explorations in Western Desert Rock
Description:
Rock art in Dakhleh was produced for perhaps as long as 10 millennia, resulting in the formation of hundreds of sites displaying thousands of images. In some places, petroglyphs form a true melting pot of iconographic creations, elsewhere only isolated depictions appear on rock surfaces. Various rock art traditions, from prehistoric, through pharaonic, Graeco-Roman, and mediaeval, have all added to a tremendous variety of petroglyphs, their formal traits and subject matter.