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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.

Illahun, Kahun and Gurob Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 98
ISBN: 9798888570227
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Oxbow Classics in Egyptology
Description:
Flinders Petrie undertook excavation and survey of ancient Egyptian towns in the Faiyum oasis, south-west of Cairo, in 1888–90. The work included opening of a pyramid at Illahun and excavation of a nearby cemetery, excavation and planning of over 2000 chambers of the city of Kahun, excavation of a Ptolemaic cemetery at Gurob, and work at the temple site at Medinet Gurob. This facsimile volume presents brief descriptions of the work with a focus on the artifacts and inscriptions recovered and recorded with an attempt to establish a chronology of occupation in the oasis.
Ballynahatty Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9781789259711
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B&W and Color images
Description:
Just six miles from the center of Belfast, County Down, on the plateau of Ballynahatty above the River Lagan, is one of Ireland’s great Neolithic henge monuments: the 200 m wide Giant’s Ring. For over a thousand years, this area was the focus of intense funerary ritual seemingly designed to send the dead to their ancestors and secure the land for the living. Scattered through the fields to the north and west of the Ring are flat cemeteries, standing stones, tombs, cists, and ring barrows – ancient monuments that were leveled by the plough when the land was enclosed in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Ancient Egyptian Figured Ostraca Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 128
ISBN: 9798888570241
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Oxbow Classics in Egyptology
Description:
This facsimile reissue of Anthea Page’s 1983 catalogue makes this important source material available again in print for a new generation of students and scholars. The catalogue documents 82 ostraca held in The Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology collection in London.Ostraca are flakes of limestone or broken sherds of pottery used essentially as 'notepads' for private letters; laundry lists; records of purchases; roughly inscribed images of people, birds, and animals; and copies of literary works.
Commemorating Classical Battles Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9781789259353
Pub Date: 15 May 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
This is a study of the commemoration of Classical Greek battles, approaching monuments and other mnemonic practices as vital elements in the creation and curation of memories. It analyses the diachronic development of battlefield, sanctuary, and city spaces, as evidenced by archaeological remains and ancient literary sources. In addition, it explores the experience of the commemorative spaces through the application of theories of space, phenomenology, and social memory.
Fabric of the Frontier Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 184
ISBN: 9781789259506
Pub Date: 15 May 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
What is Hadrian’s Wall made of, where did this material come from and how has it been reused in other buildings in the communities that emerged in the centuries after the Roman Empire? By studying the fabric of Hadrian’s Wall using a geological approach combined with archaeological methods, is it possible to refine our answers to these questions? This study describes how the relationship between the geology of the Wall’s landscape and its fabric may be used to further understand the Wall and presents a significant set of new geological and archaeological data on the Wall’s stones from across the length of the Wall.
Repeopling La Manche Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9781789251524
Pub Date: 15 May 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Prehistoric Society Research Papers
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
The current geography of north-west Europe, from the perspective of long-term Pleistocene climate change, is temporary. The seaways that separate southern Britain from northern France comprise a flooded landscape open to occupation by hunter-gatherers for large parts of the 0.5 million years since the English Channel’s formation.
Sentient Archaeologies Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9781789259322
Pub Date: 15 May 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Archaeology in the past century has seen a major shift from theoretical frameworks that treat the remains of past societies as static snapshots of particular moments in time to interpretations that prioritise change and variability. Though established analytical concepts, such as typology, remain key parts of the archaeologist’s investigative toolkit, data-gathering strategies and interpretative frameworks have become infused progressively with the concept that archaeology is living, in the sense of both the objects of study and the discipline as a whole. The significance for the field is that researchers across the world are integrating ideas informed by relational epistemologies and mutually constructive ontologies into their work from the initial stage of project design all the way down to post-excavation interpretation.
The Archaeology of Wild Birds in Britain and Ireland Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781789259568
Pub Date: 15 May 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w
Description:
Renowned archaeologist, Dale Serjeantson, tells the story of human engagement with birds from the end of the last Ice Age to around AD 1650. In this book, she integrates the study of archaeological bird remains with ethnography and the history of birds and avian biology. It identifies changing patterns of wetland, water bird and game species through time, and in addition to their food value, examines our changing interactions with them.
Picturing the Bronze Age Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 184
ISBN: 9781789259858
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Swedish Rock Art Research
Illustrations: fully color illustrated
Description:
Pictures from the Bronze Age are numerous, vivid and complex. There is no other prehistoric period that has produced such a wide range of images spanning from rock art to figurines to decoration on bronzes and gold. Fourteen papers, with a geographical coverage from Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula, examine a wide range of topics reflecting the many forms and expressions of Bronze Age imagery encompassing important themes including religion, materiality, mobility, interaction, power and gender.
Textiles in Motion Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781789257984
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Ancient Textiles
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Dress is at the core of dance. It adorns dancers, defines various roles and forms symbolic expressions that, for example, either bind people together or opposes them. It is a communicative tool that gives crucial information for understanding the dance as well as the culture and the sociological effects of a group of people.
The Drowning of a Cornish Prehistoric Landscape Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781789259230
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Prehistoric Society Research Papers
Illustrations: B/W and colour
Description:
Between 2018 and 2019, Cornwall Archaeological Unit undertook two projects at Mount’s Bay, Penwith. The first involved the excavation of a Bronze Age barrow and the second, environmental augur core sampling in Marazion Marsh. Both sites lie within an area of coastal hinterland, which has been subject to incursions by rising sea levels.
The Submerged Site of La Marmotta (Rome, Italy) Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 168
ISBN: 9781789258714
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: Colour
Description:
The shift from a hunting and gathering economy to a productive economy, based on the domestication of plants and animals, is one of the most important changes in human history. This change, which manifested itself in different forms and at different times in different areas of the Old and New Worlds, is still a subject of debate and discussion today. How and why does such a profound change occur in the relationship with the environment and the land?
Tools and Weapons Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 158
ISBN: 9798888570142
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Oxbow Classics in Egyptology
Description:
Facsimile edition of the 1974 reissue of Flinders Petrie’s 1917 pioneering typological catalogue of Egyptian metal, wooden and composite tools and weapons, one of a number of such catalogues to be reissued in this new series. The volume is arranged by category, first of general tools, including axes, chisels and knives, and then weapons, such as daggers and spears. This is followed by sections on woodworking (artisans') and builders’ tools, personal items, agricultural equipment and a range of domestic items.
The Marriage Bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 168
ISBN: 9781789257922
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
The Henry VII and Elizabeth of York marriage bed, rediscovered in 2010, is an exceptional piece of late medieval English royal furniture: no other equivalent example of secular domestic furniture is known to have survived, and, indeed, precious little woodwork from this period remains outside of ecclesiastical settings. As a tour-de-force of medieval royal woodwork, the bed offers an unprecedented insight into elite domestic furniture from this period.Since its rediscovery, the bed has been subjected to a wide array of investigation by furniture specialists, medieval historians, design historians and scientists.
Hagia Sophia in Context Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781789259872
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
The Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia has been a source of wonder and fascination since its sixth-century construction. It was the premier monument of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and remains one of the most recognisable symbols of modern Istanbul. Often seen as encapsulating Byzantine history and culture, the building has been the subject of much scholarly interest since the Renaissance.
Prehistoric Egypt Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 114
ISBN: 9798888570166
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Oxbow Classics in Egyptology
Description:
This is the facsimile edition of the 1974 reissue of Flinders Petrie’s 1921 description and catalogue of pre-dynastic, prehistoric artifacts from Egypt. Draws together evidence from various excavations and surveys undertaken by himself and others to present a fully illustrated, detailed catalogue of recovered artifacts of flint, other stone, clay, pottery, ivory/tusk and bone, metalwork, wood, shell and glass. He attempts to establish relative dating sequence based on a combination of object typologies and grave associations, combined with the then-latest geological and sedimentological information, concluding that the material covered a period from around 10,000–5000 BC.
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