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.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781842171592
Pub Date: 22 Apr 2006
Illustrations: colour illus
Description:
Rome's rise to empire is often said to have owed much to the efficiency and military skill of her armies and their technological superiority over barbarian enemies. But just how 'advanced' was Roman military equipment? What were its origins and how did it evolve?
The authors of this book have gathered a wealth of evidence from all over the Roman Empire - excavated examples as well as pictorial and documentary sources - to present a picture of what range of equipment would be available at any given time, what it would look like and how it would function. They examine how certain pieces were adopted from Rome's enemies and adapted to particular conditions of warfare prevailing in different parts of the Empire. They also investigate in detail the technology of military equipment and the means by which it was produced, and discuss wider questions such as the status of the soldier in Roman society. Both the specially prepared illustrations and the text have been completely revised for the second edition of this detailed and authoritative handbook, bringing it up to date with the very latest research. It illustrates each element in the equipment of the Roman soldier, from his helmet to his boots, his insignia, his tools and his weapons. This book will appeal to archaeologists, ancient and military historians as well as the generally informed and inquisitive reader.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 168
ISBN: 9781842172209
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2006
Series: Current Research in Egyptology
Description:
The fifth annual Current Research in Egyptology Symposium was held in January 2004, at the University of Durham. The conference offers the majority of postgraduates researching Egyptology their first opportunity to present academic work to their peers, and to receive critical feedback. An interesting development in the direction of research in this volume is the emphasis on aspects of identity and individuality.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
ISBN: 9781842172193
Pub Date: 12 Mar 2006
Series: TRAC
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
TRAC 2005 was held at the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham, under the auspices of The Roman Society. Of the twenty-three papers delivered here, this volume presents eight, plus three special contributions. These three papers were commissioned to mark the fifteenth year of TRAC with the intention that they should take stock of TRAC to date and look to where it may go in the future.
A very clear message is conveyed: that TRAC must continue to evolve and that a continued existence in its current form, though possible, will ultimately fail to realise further success. In seeking to engage with new ideas and theories, the endeavour symbolised by the first conference, to bring theory from the margins of Roman archaeology, continues today.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781842171851
Pub Date: 21 Feb 2006
Series: Journal of Roman Pottery Studies
Description:
This volume of the JRPS celebrates the career of Kay Hartley, described by Sheppard Frere as "the oracle on Romano-British mortaria". She has been associated with a number of important excavations, such as Heronbridge and Much Hadham, and it has been said of her that "no serious excavation report of the Roman period can be completed without either a contribution from her, or a reference to her work."
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781842172049
Pub Date: 28 Jan 2006
Illustrations: b/w figs and pls
Description:
The importance of context has been extensively discussed in recent years. This volume attempts to address the fragmentation and misconceptions that have developed around context in archaeology, highlighting the common threads that link together varying contextual perspectives. The first part of the book examines the concept of archaeological context by offering a critical assessment of its 'historical' development.
The second section presents a number of case studies, and the third section discusses the management of archaeological material. Finally, part four takes the discussion on context further, setting the content of the book in a wider perspective.
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781842171615
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2005
Series: ASTENE Publications
Description:
Contents: Introduction ( Sarah Searight ); Travelling to post: Lady Liston, an ambassadress in Constantinople ( Deborah Manley ); Two feisty ladies in the Levant: Princess Caroline and Lady Craven ( Charles Plouviez ); Travels in the Slavonic provinces of Turkey-in-Europe: Miss Muir Mackenzie and Miss Irby ( Dorothy Anderson ); Three travellers in nineteenth-century Egypt: Sarah Belzoni, Amelia Edwards and Margaret Benson ( Megan Price ); Lucie Duff Gordon: a woman's perception of Egypt ( Sarah Searight ); Governess to the Grand Pasha of Egypt: Emmeline Lott ( Alix Wilkinson ); The unknown pilgrimage to Sinai ( Deborah Manley ); Archaeologists' wives as travel writers ( Elizabeth French ); Women's perceptions of, and perceptions of women in, Egypt's Eastern desert ( Janet Starkey ).
Format: Hardback
Pages: 218
ISBN: 9781842171684
Pub Date: 05 Oct 2005
Series: Levant Supplementary Series
Description:
The eastern Mediterranean was the centre of trade for many centuries, sitting at the junction of what are now Europe, Asia and Africa. It was the place where exotic produce and products could be traded or exchanged for things that had their origins perhaps thousands of miles away. But wherever trade takes place, a similar exchange of ideas, technology and culture also occurs.
This book presents thirty papers on this very subject, looking at the ways in which we can measure the transmission of culture, and how this transmission varied across time and space.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 166
ISBN: 9781842171448
Pub Date: 06 Sep 2005
Series: Symposia of the Association for Environmental Archaeology
Description:
The fourteen papers in this volume focus on the environmental archaeology of Britain, uncovering a rich seam of evidence from what might, to the uninitiated, seem like the most unlikely places. They are centred on issues looked at by Susan Limbrey during her career, and presented in her honour on the occasion of her retirement.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781842171868
Pub Date: 18 Aug 2005
Illustrations: b/w illus, 2 maps
Description:
The ordinary people who made up the largest section of the population in the cities and towns in the Roman world were largely ignored by contemporary writers and have often been marginalised in traditional studies of Roman urbanism, but research into their patterns of work and social interaction have increased markedly in recent years. This book has come out of a conference on 'Roman Working Lives and Urban Living' held at the University of Durham in 2001. The conference was planned as a forum for people researching urban space and architecture, commercial and retail structures, organisation of craft activity and social theory.
The twelve papers presented here have been organised into two categories: Urban living and the settings for working lives and People at work: Owners, and artisans, crafts and professions . The range of topics and variety of approaches in the papers emphasise the wealth of the material available, and it is hoped that this will stimulate further research into the lives of the 'silent voices' of Roman urban society.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781842172001
Pub Date: 05 Aug 2005
Illustrations: 86 b/w illus and pls
Description:
The term 'Mesolithic' was born in the nineteenth century from the need to label a 'hiatus' period and was not generally accepted as a useful term by many scholars until around fifty years later. It has been championed by some, but still concerns others because of the difficulty of defining what it represents. This volume highlights the enthusiasm for Mesolithic studies in the 21st century and the feeling that there is a need to explore the many facets of Mesolithic lifeways.
Approaches are now moving away from the traditional Mesolithic canon that seems to have been based on a particular set of biological and/or ecological perspectives and are now looking for new directions and new theoretical arenas which can only help stimulate Mesolithic debate. The papers in this volume take a range of approaches to a period that has largely been devoid of explicit theoretical discussion. They deconstruct and explore a broad variety of subjects, including mobility, complexity, seasonality, death & burial, gender & sexuality, social relations, music, human agency, ethnoarchaeology and emotion.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781842171486
Pub Date: 10 May 2005
Description:
In 1998 Anna Marguerite McCann received the Gold Medal of the Archaeological Institute of America for her distinguished archaeological achievements. This volume includes the papers presented at a special colloquium held in her honour, along with essays by other colleagues and friends. The volume is divided into two thematic parts: the first reflects Anna McCann's general interests in ancient art and archaeology, especially Greek and Roman sculpture; the other, her specific expertise in underwater and port archaeology and technology.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781842171691
Pub Date: 30 Apr 2005
Description:
This volume examines South Uist, a small island in the soutern half of the Outer Hebrides. In the middle of the island lies the township of Bornais. This covers a particularly flat area of land which means that the three mounds can be seen all the more clearly.
These mounds have been identified as being from the Viking period, with evidence of pre-Viking habitation at the site coming from Iron Age sherds. The excavation of the Bornais settlement is a long-term project, which has been going since 1994. This first volume of results of the excavation focuses on Mound 3, but includes a discussion of the topographic and geophysical survey of all the mounds. There is also considerable analysis of the environmental remains and radiocarbon dating.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 414
ISBN: 9781842171493
Pub Date: 19 Apr 2005
Series: Urban Archaeological Assessment
Illustrations: 6 plans, 12 tables, 156 figs
Description:
St Albans has a long tradition of archaeological investigation dating back to the 18th century. What has been lacking however, is a detailed synthesis and interpretation of the accumulated information. This book is intended to meet that need, and comes out of a project set up by English Heritage in 1992 designed to promote 'intensive' urban archaeological strategy.
This volume is a critical assessment of the current archaeological information from an area of 12 square kilometers centred on medieval and modern St Albans and its Roman predecessor, Verulamium. There is evidence of scattered occupation in the area from the Mesolithic period onwards, but it was only towards the end of the 1st century BC that a settlement was established to the south of the modern town. This was superseded by the development of the Roman town of Verulamium on the south side of the River Ver, but by the 8th century settlement had become focused on the shrine of the late Roman martyr, Alban, on the hill to the north of the river. In the late Saxon period an Abbey was established close to this shrine, and after the Norman conquest, settlement concentrated in the area north of the Abbey. Most of the monastic buildings were demolished shortly after the dissolution of the monastery in 1539, but on the whole St Albans retained its medieval form until the 19th century. The papers in this volume look at the development of this important city throughout its long history, bringing its Roman and Medieval past to life.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781842171653
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2005
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
The recent renaissance of interest in the history of dress and its cultural importance is celebrated in this collection of interdisciplinary essays. The sixteen contributors present on-going research into the study of the clothed body in ancient Egypt and the Aegean, Classical Greece, Rome and Late Antiquity. Through literary and artistic evidence and film, they discuss how dress articulates and defines an individual within his or her given society, at the same time highlighting common themes in scholarship, methodological differences between disciplines and periods, as well as contrasting definitions of what constitutes the clothed body.
Essays discussing Aegean Bronze Age fashions, costume design in filmed biblical epics, clothing in Aristophanic comedy, Greek and Roman female undergarments, the symbolism of the Roman toga, and the spectacle of images of Byzantine dress, are just some of the diverse subjects covered in this study.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 128
ISBN: 9781842171431
Pub Date: 11 Mar 2005
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
As its title might suggest, this volume sets out to present a new view of Scotland's Neolithic as seen via its monumental structures. The papers brought together here came out of a research day at Cardiff University's School of History and Archaeology in January 2002 and cover a diverse number of topics. They raise questions of ancestry and worldview, and highlight the amount that can be done in examining the settings of monuments.
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781842171189
Pub Date: 25 Feb 2005
Series: Proceedings of the 9th ICAZ Conference
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781785704604
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2016
Series: Proceedings of the 9th ICAZ Conference
Description:
Taphonomic studies are a major methodological advance, the effects of which have been felt throughout archaeology. Zooarchaeologists and archaeobotanists were the first to realise how vital it was to study the entire process of how food enters the archaeological record, and taphonomy brought to a close the era when the study of animal bones and plant remains from archaeological sites were regarded mainly as environmental indicators.This volume is indicative of recent developments in taphonomic studies: hugely diverse research areas are being explored, many of which would have been totally unforeseeable only a quarter of a century ago.
