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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.
Death Embodied Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 174
ISBN: 9781782979432
Pub Date: 16 Jun 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Studies in Funerary Archaeology
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
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.
Trends in Biological Anthropology 1 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781782978367
Pub Date: 16 Jun 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w illustrations
Description:
This first volume in the series Trends in Biological Anthropology presents 11 papers. The study of modern baboons as proxies to understand extinct hominin species’ diet and the interpretation of skeletal degenerative joint disease on the skeletal remains of extant primates are presented as case studies using methods and standards usually applied to human remains. The methodological theme continues with an assessment of the implications for interpretation of different methods used to record Linear Enamel Hypoplasia (LEH) and on the use and interpretation of three dimensional modelling to generate pictures of the content of collective graves.
RRP: £49.95
The Archaeology of Cremation Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781782978480
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Studies in Funerary Archaeology
Illustrations: b/w and colour illustrations
Description:
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.
RRP: £38.00
Cypriot Cultural Details Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 234
ISBN: 9781785700668
Pub Date: 31 May 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: black/white illustrations
Description:
There are countless references to Cyprus in Venice: in palaces, primarily that of Queen Caterina Corner, in the church of Saints Giovanni e Paolo, where the skin of Mark Antonius Bragadin (the staunch defender of Famagusta) is guarded, in the spices, and especially in the wine of Cyprus (Commandaria), that is today still recalled in Venetian sayings. The Venetian past, too, has many references in Cyprus where evidence is focused on the fortresses and fortifications of Nicosia, Famagusta and Kerynia and in the lions that adorn them as well as in traditional dishes and language. The papers presented here have been selected from 30 given at the 10th Annual Meeting of young researchers in Cypriot archaeology (POCA 10), held in Venice where it celebrated two important events: the 500th anniversary of the death of Caterina Cornaro (1454–1510) and the twinning of the cities of Venice and Larnaca.
First Light Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 210
ISBN: 9781782979517
Pub Date: 14 May 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Oxbow Insights in Archaeology
Description:
Newgrange in Ireland is a world famous monument not only because of its vast scale and elaborate megalithic art, but also because of its renowned alignment to the sun on the winter solstice. Yet the origins of Newgrange remain somewhat mysterious. Across Ireland over two hundred similar passage tombs are found, some of which are considerably older than Newgrange.
RRP: £15.99
Defining the Sacred Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9781782976790
Pub Date: 08 May 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w illustrations
Description:
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.
RRP: £38.00
What the Victorians Threw Away Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 120
ISBN: 9781782978756
Pub Date: 08 May 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 90 colour illustrations
Description:
The people who lived in England before the First World War now inhabit a realm of yellow photographs. Theirs is a world fast fading from ours, yet they do not appear overly distant. Many of us can remember them as being much like ourselves.
English Inland Trade 1430-1540 Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 184
ISBN: 9781782978244
Pub Date: 01 May 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour illus.
Description:
The Southampton brokage books are the best source for English inland trade before modern times . Internal trade always matched overseas trade. Between 1430 and 1540 the brokage series records all departures through Southampton’s Bargate, the owner, carter, commodity, quantity, destination and date, and many deliveries too.
Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 616
ISBN: 9781782976943
Pub Date: 30 Apr 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: Fully colour illustrated, includes CD
Description:
The exotic and impressive grave goods from burials of the ‘Wessex Culture’ in Early Bronze Age Britain are well known and have inspired influential social and economic hypotheses, invoking the former existence of chiefs, warriors and merchants and high-ranking pastoralists. Alternative theories have sought to explain how display of such objects was related to religious and ritual activity rather than to economic status, and that groups of artefacts found in certain graves may have belonged to religious specialists. This volume is the result of a major research project that aimed to investigate Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age grave goods in relation to their possible use as special dress accessories or as equipment employed within ritual activities and ceremonies.
RRP: £90.00
The Archaeology of Caves in Ireland Cover The Archaeology of Caves in Ireland Cover
Format: 
Hardback Paperback
Pages: 340
ISBN: 9781782978138
Pub Date: 30 Apr 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour illustrations
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781789255706
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2020
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour illustrations
Description:
The Archaeology of Caves in Ireland is a ground-breaking and unique study of the enigmatic, unseen and dark silent world of caves. People have engaged with caves for the duration of human occupation of the island, spanning 10,000 years. In prehistory, subterranean landscapes were associated with the dead and the spirit world, with evidence for burials, funerary rituals and votive deposition.
The Language of Ramesses Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 282
ISBN: 9781782978688
Pub Date: 30 Apr 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
François Neveu enables the reader to explore the Ramesside age through an understanding of Late Egyptian. This phase corresponds to the language spoken from the 17th to the 24th dynasty, which became a written language – used for private letters, administrative, legal and literary texts, as well as some official inscriptions – during the Amarna period (circa 1364 BC). The first part of the book covers the basics of the grammar, the morphology, while the second part is devoted to the syntax, covering first the verbal system and then the nominal forms.
Current Research in Egyptology 15 (2014) Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781785700460
Pub Date: 17 Apr 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Current Research in Egyptology
Illustrations: black/white illustrations
Description:
This selection of 23 papers from the 15th annual Current Research in Egyptology symposium addreses the interregional and interdisciplinary theme of‘Ancient Egypt in a Global World’. This theme works on a number of levels highlighting the current global nature of Egyptological research and it places ancient Egypt in the wider ancient world. The first section presents the results of recent excavations, including in the western Valley of the Kings and analysis of the structures, construction techniques, food production and consumption remains at Tell Timai (Thmuis) in the Delta.
TRAC 2014 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 158
ISBN: 9781785700026
Pub Date: 02 Apr 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: TRAC
Illustrations: black/white illustrations
Description:
This volume contains a selection of papers presented at TRAC 2014, as well as some invited contributions. In keeping with the aims of TRAC, several papers make make innovative use of interdisciplinary theory: in humanistic geography, philosophy and archaeology; social psychology; and the cognitive science of religion in the study of Roman monuments, military social history and religion. Other papers share a common theme: the critical interpretation of archaeological evidence.
Excavations at Tell Nebi Mend, Syria Volume I Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 408
ISBN: 9781782977865
Pub Date: 02 Apr 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Levant Supplementary Series
Description:
The archaeological site of Tell Nebi Mend, a tell on the Homs plain in present-day Syria, is universally recognised as the location, first, of Qadesh (or Kadesh), where, in c. 1286 BC, the armies of Ramesses II of Egypt and Muwatalli II of Great Hatti fought the most famous battle of pre-classical antiquity, and, second, of Laodicea ad Libanum, founded most probably in the 3rd century BC as the capital of a district of the Seleucid empire. Collaborative excavations undertaken over 12 seasons aimed to fill a major gap in archaeological knowledge between the northern and southern Levant and to develop an understanding of the archaeology and early history of the Levantine Corridor independent of, and supplementing, that based on Palestinian and Biblical research.
RRP: £48.00
Burial, Society and Context in the Roman World Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781842170342
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: many b/w illus
Description:
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 Neolithic of the Irish Sea Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 248
ISBN: 9781842171097
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2015
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Cardiff Studies in Archaeology
Illustrations: 135 b/w figs.,
Description:
This collection of 24 papers aims to reconsider the nature and significance of the Irish Sea as an area of cultural interaction during the Neolithic period. The traditional character of work across this region has emphasised the existence of prehistoric contact, with sea routes criss-crossing between Ireland, the Isle of Man, Anglesey and the British mainland. A parallel course of investigation, however, has demonstrated that the British and Irish Neolithics were in many ways different, with distinct indigenous patterns of activity and social practices.
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