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.

Stone and Metal Vases Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 86
ISBN: 9798888570739
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This facsimile edition of Flinders Petrie’s 1937 typo-chronological catalogue of Egyptian stone vessels and Egyptian and Greaco-Roman metal vessels has been long out of print. It was a first attempt by Petrie to take an overview of the vessels recovered from numerous locations housed in major collections of the time, principally his own in University College London and over 700 items in Cairo Museum. Dating was derived from a variety of sources, the most important being that of royal names either on the vessels themselves or on associated materials in tombs.
The Gateway of Ramesses IX in the Temple of Amun at Karnak Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 74
ISBN: 9798888570753
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
Amin Amer’s 1999 study of the Gateway of Ramesses IX at Karnak, Egypt, is presented here in a facsimile reissue. The Gateway is a little-known major work, part of the great temple at Karnak, built by one of the last kings of the Egyptian empire after a long period that saw little building work in the temple complex. The rather modest, by Karnak’s standards, construct lies at the northern end of the court ‘of the Cachette’, north of Pylon VII, and leads into the southern end of the narrow court of Pylons III and IV, presenting an impressive entrance to the main temple of Amun.
The Mammals of Ancient Egypt Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 228
ISBN: 9798888570777
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
Various attempts have been made to systematize the mammals depicted in Egyptian tomb paintings, inscriptions, carvings, figurines and other objects, and as mummies, but there are many discrepancies, variable spellings and names, including now obsolete Latin names, and mis-identifications. The Egyptian artists themselves sometimes used the wrong hieroglyph or drew some parts of animals incorrectly. Dale Osborn’s comprehensive reassessment, presented here in a facsimile reissue, catalogues around 100 separate species, ranging from hedgehogs to hippopotami, Anubis Baboons to Zebu cattle, that can be identified in Egyptian art from prehistoric, through Pre-Dynastic to Late Kingdom times.
Celtic from the West 3 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 552
ISBN: 9798888571538
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Celtic Studies Publications
Description:
The Celtic languages and groups called Keltoi (i.e. ‘Celts’) emerge into our written records at the pre-Roman Iron Ag
The Beaker People Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 616
ISBN: 9798888571545
Pub Date: 10 Mar 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and color
Description:
The Beaker People: isotopes, mobility and diet in prehistoric Britain presents the results of a major project that sought to address a century-old question about the people who were buried with Beakers a – the distinctive pottery of Continental origin that was current, predominantly in equally distinctive burials, in Britain from around 2450 BC. Who were these people? Were they immigrants and how far did they move around?
Excavations Along Hadrian’s Wall 2019–2021 Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781789259445
Pub Date: 06 Mar 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
The Hadrian’s Wall Community Archaeology Project (WallCAP) conducted a series of fieldwork projects along the Hadrian’s Wall corridor between 2019 and 2021. The work focused on sites that were poorly understood or under particular threat and aimed to improve understanding of them so they could be better managed in future. At several sites excavation was followed by conservation and consolidation work.
Extracting Stone Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 168
ISBN: 9781785706240
Pub Date: 05 Mar 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Extracting Stone considers where chert or obsidian were mined and how North American stone quarry landscapes have been identified and studied from the time of pioneer William Henry Holmes (1846–1933) onward. Three especially significant extraction areas are examined in detail: Flint Mine Hill, New York, along the Hudson River; “Spanish Diggings”, Arkansas, in the Ouachita Mountains; and Obsidian Cliff, Wyoming, in the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. The authors compare and contrast extraction scales with artifact distribution or use areas established through precise material characterization techniques to discuss trade and exchange, the emergence of inequalities, resource restriction orcontrol, and the technological systems of which these land- or quarry-scapes formed a part.
Archaeology of Symbols Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9798888570982
Pub Date: 28 Feb 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Material Religion in Antiquity
Illustrations: 130 B/W illustrations
Description:
This third volume in the Material Religion in Antiquity series stems from the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (ICAS I) that took place in Florence in May 2022. The archaeological process of reconstructing and understanding our past has undergone several reassessments in the last century, producing an equal number of new perspectives and approaches. The recent materiality turn emphasizes the necessity to ground those achievements in order to build fresh avenues of interpretation and reach new boundaries in the study of the human kind and its ecology.
The Late Minoan III Necropolis of Armenoi Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9798888570463
Pub Date: 07 Feb 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 120 b/w illustrations
Description:
The Late Minoan III Necropolis of Armenoi, Crete (ca. 1390–1190 BC) is the only intact, complete Late Minoan necropolis presently known, of which 232 tombs have been excavated. The research project was the first large-scale genomic sampling of skeletal material from a single site in Bronze Age Greece, as well as being the first time a multi-disciplinary approach with ancient DNA as its focus has been conducted on a large, well-curated necropolis assemblage.
Artifacts of Mourning Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 152
ISBN: 9798888571101
Pub Date: 15 Jan 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 112 color and B/W illustrations
Description:
In 2016, construction workers in Philadelphia unexpectedly uncovered a long forgotten burial ground. Archaeologists quickly discovered this was the location of the burial ground of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, used as early as 1722. It was thought to have been exhumed and moved in 1859.
Journal of Roman Pottery Studies Volume 20 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9798888570340
Pub Date: 28 Dec 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Journal of Roman Pottery Studies
Description:
The new volume of the long-running Journal of Roman Pottery Studies will include conference proceedings of the 2019 conference held at Atherstone, Warwickshire, and the 50th anniversary conference of the Study Group for Roman Pottery held online with Newcastle University. Papers reflect on recent advances in methodological approaches and their applications, the past and future role of the society and new initiatives in archiving policies and their implications. It will also contain a number of papers outside these conferences that focus on pottery production, notably of colour-coated wares in Lincoln and in the province of Noricum, as well as a report on the glass working furnace discovered alongside the pottery production kilns at Mancetter-Hartshill.
In the Darkest of Days Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781789258592
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
This book collects recent works on the subjects of sacrificial offerings, ritualised violence and the relative values thereof in the contexts of Scandinavian prehistory from the Neolithic to the Viking era. It provides a detailed re-appraisal of key aspects of prehistoric bog bodies using the latest forensic and material culture analytical techniques to examine questions of sacrifice, execution and ritual behaviour.The volume re-opens investigations into notions of value relating to diverse evidence and suggested evidence for human sacrifice and related ritualised violence.
Roman Urbanism in Italy Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9798888570364
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: University of Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology Monograph
Description:
The study of Roman urbanism – especially its early (Republican) phases – is extensively rooted in the evidence provided by a series of key sites, several of them located in Italy. Some of these Italian towns (e.g.
The Excavations at Ismant al-Kharab Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 488
ISBN: 9781789259636
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B&W and Color images
Description:
The adoption of Christianity by the Egyptian populace was well underway by the late third century, but evidence for its presence in the archaeological record from the Nile valley is sparse. This is due, in part, to the loss of ancient settlement sites beneath modern cultivation. By comparison, Ismant al-Kharab, ancient Kellis, in Dakhleh Oasis, was abandoned at the end of the fourth century and many of its structures survive intact.
Monumental Times Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9798888570388
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This book is concerned with the origins, uses and subsequent histories of monuments. It emphasises the time scales illustrated by these structures, and their implications for archaeological research. It is concerned with the archaeology of Western and Northern Europe, with an emphasis on structures in Britain and Ireland, and the period between the Mesolithic and the Viking Age.
Revisiting Grooved Ware Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9798888570326
Pub Date: 31 Oct 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers
Description:
Following its appearance, arguably in Orkney in the 32nd century cal BC, Grooved Ware soon became widespread across Britain and Ireland, seemingly replacing earlier pottery styles and being deposited in contexts as varied as simple pits, passage tombs, ceremonial timber circles and henge monuments. As a result, Grooved Ware lies at the heart of many ongoing debates concerning social and economic developments at the end of the 4th and during the first half of the 3rd millennia cal BC.Stemming from the 2022 Neolithic Studies Group autumn conference, and following on from Cleal and MacSween’s 1999 NSG volume on Grooved Ware, this book presents a series of papers from researchers specializing in Grooved Ware pottery and the British and Irish Neolithic, offering both regional and thematic perspectives on this important ceramic tradition.