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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.
Exploring Writing Systems and Practices in the Bronze Age Aegean Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781789259018
Pub Date: 10 Oct 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Contexts of and Relations Between Early Writing Systems
Illustrations: B/W
Description:
Writing does not begin and end with the encoding of an idea into a group of symbols. It is practised by people who have learnt its principles and acquired the tools and skills for doing it, in a particular context that affects what they do and how they do it. Nor are these practices static, as those involved exploit opportunities to adapt old features and develop new ones.
Eilean Donan Castle Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 128
ISBN: 9798888570548
Pub Date: 15 Sep 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 70 illustrations predominantly in color
Description:
Now hard to believe, Eilean Donan Castle was once one of the largest castles in the west Highlands, known to have featured seven towers, the remains of which lie buried on the island. This book provides a refreshed view of the lost medieval guise of the castle, of its 13th-century origins and form, and of who was responsible for building it, allowing the castle to be positioned accurately in the complex dynamics of powerholding and display of the earls of Ross and associated militarised kindreds of the west Highlands during six centuries of change up to the castle’s destruction in 1719. A new history and the details of the below-ground archaeology allow us to see the lost medieval castle in our mind’s eye 500 years after it vanished.
Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 296
ISBN: 9798888570593
Pub Date: 15 Sep 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Ancient Textiles
Illustrations: 120 b/w figs, tbs, maps
Description:
Older than both ceramics and metallurgy, textile production is a technology which reveals much about prehistoric social and economic development. This book examines the archaeological evidence for textile production in Italy from the transition between the Bronze Age and Early Iron Ages until the Roman expansion (1000-400 BCE), and sheds light on both the process of technological development and the emergence of large urban centres with specialised crafts. Margarita Gleba begins with an overview of the prehistoric Appennine peninsula, which featured cultures such as the Villanovans and the Etruscans, and was connected through colonisation and trade with the other parts of the Mediterranean.
Sasanian and Islamic Settlement and Ceramics in Southern Iran (4th to 17th Century AD) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 512
ISBN: 9798888570524
Pub Date: 15 Aug 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: British Institute of Persian Studies Archaeological Monograph Series
Illustrations: 250 b/w illustrations and 32 colour images
Description:
This monograph comprises the final publication of a study supported by the British Institute of Persian Studies and undertaken by Seth Priestman and Derek Kennet at the University of Durham. The work presents and analyses an assemblage of just under 17,000 sherds of pottery and associated paper archives resulting from one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys ever undertaken on the historic archaeology of southern Iran. The survey was undertaken by Andrew George Williamson (1945–1975), a doctoral student at Oxford University between 1968 and 1971, at a time of great progress and rapid advance in the archaeological exploration of Iran.
Explanations in Iconography Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9798888570425
Pub Date: 05 Aug 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: American Landscapes
Illustrations: 90 illustrations in B/W
Description:
Explanations in Iconography: Ancient American Indian Art, Symbol, and Meaning is a significant contribution to archaeology and to- iconography studies – a discipline that has gradually been coming into its own. Iconography is a rich and fascinating field when applied to the complex and enigmatic imagery on many ancient Pre-Columbian artifacts. When viewed through the lens of early ethnographic records and American Indian oral traditions – as well as information from knowledgeable American Indian elders – it opens a world of understanding and clarity until recently unknown in the field of anthropological archaeology.
Pottery and Social Life in Medieval England Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 184
ISBN: 9798888570586
Pub Date: 05 Aug 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: Color and B/W illustrations
Description:
How can pottery studies contribute to the study of medieval archaeology? How do pots relate to documents, landscapes and identities? These are the questions addressed in this book which develops a new approach to the study of pottery in medieval archaeology.
The Cities of the Plain Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781789259926
Pub Date: 31 Jul 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This book explores urbanism in Antiquity from an archaeological perspective, focusing on the area of western Thessaly in central Greece. Presenting all the available evidence for ancient urban sites in the region, the study outlines and discusses the origins, development, and decline of urbanism in the area. The archaeological evidence shows that urban sites in western Thessaly developed from the mid-4th century BCE, with at least 25 identified contemporaneous cities spread over the area.
Excavations on Wether Hill, Ingram, Northumberland, 1994–2015 Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 152
ISBN: 9781789259698
Pub Date: 15 Jul 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Northern Archaeology
Illustrations: Color images
Description:
The Northumberland Archaeological Group’s (NAG) Wether Hill project spanned the years 1994–2015 and was located on the eponymous hilltop overlooking the mouth of the Breamish Valley in the Northumberland Cheviots. The project had been inspired by the RCHME’s ‘Southeast Cheviots Project’ that had discovered and recorded extensive prehistoric and later landscapes. The NAG project investigated several sites.
The Norse Sorceress Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 528
ISBN: 9781789259537
Pub Date: 15 Jul 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Old Norse literature abounds with descriptions of magic acts that allow ritual specialists of various kinds to manipulate the world around them, see into the future or the distant past, change weather conditions, influence the outcomes of battles, and more. While magic practitioners are known under myriad terms, the most iconic of them is the völva. As the central figure of the famous mythological poem Völuspá (The Prophecy of the Völva), the völva commands both respect and fear.
The Birds of Ancient Egypt Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 222
ISBN: 9798888570289
Pub Date: 15 Jul 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Oxbow Classics in Egyptology
Description:
Hailed as a sumptuously produced and finely illustrated outstanding contribution to ancient Egyptian studies, this facsimile reprint of Patrick Houlihan’s 1986 comprehensive study makes a welcome return in the Oxbow Classics in Egyptology series. Animals of all kinds are amply illustrated in Egyptian art, none more so than birds, in both secular and religious contexts and in hieroglyphic scripts. A great variety of bird species has for millennia made twice yearly migrations passing over Egypt, which is also an important overwintering area for many.
Brick Architecture in Ancient Egypt Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9798888570302
Pub Date: 15 Jul 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Oxbow Classics in Egyptology
Description:
First published in 1979, this facsimile edition of Jeffrey Spencer’s comprehensive study provides a detailed account of the brick architecture of ancient Egypt. Part I provides introductory information on brick manufacture, early use of brick in Egypt and explains the corpus of brick bonding systems. Part II provides an account of the surviving brick buildings, discussed by type, with special reference to technical and structural matter.
Amarna City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 154
ISBN: 9798888570265
Pub Date: 15 Jul 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Oxbow Classics in Egyptology
Description:
Tell el-Amarna is the modern name for the ancient Egyptian city of Akhenaten, situated in a bay of hills formed by the cliffs of the eastern desert about halfway between Cairo and Luxor. The city was founded in the 14th century BC by the Pharaoh Akhenaten to be a royal palace for himself and his wife Nefertiti, the capital of all Egypt, and the center of the state cult of the Sun God in the form of Aten (sun disc), which became an obsession of the Pharaoh. The city contained temples, palaces, state buildings and great private mansions, but was abandoned by Akhenaten’s successor, his son Tutenkhamen.
Broken Pots, Mending Lives Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9781789259384
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: Colour and B/W
Description:
For those that survive, the traumas of military conflict can be long lasting. It might seem astonishing that archaeology, with its uncovering of the traces of the long-dead, of battlefields, of skeletal remains, could provide solace, and yet there is something magical about the subject. In archaeology there is a job for everyone; from surveying and drawing, to examining the finds, to digging itself.
The Coronation Chair and Stone of Scone Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9798888570562
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 328 Colour and B/W images
Description:
Constructed in 1297−1300 for King Edward I, the Coronation Chair ranks amongst the most remarkable and precious treasures to have survived from the Middle Ages. It incorporated in its seat a block of sandstone, which the king seized at Scone, following his victory over the Scots in 1296. For centuries, Scottish kings had been inaugurated on this symbolic ‘Stone of Scone’, to which a copious mythology had also become attached.
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.
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.
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