This volume explores the part played by different metals in use from the fourth millennium BC to the Early Iron Age, not only in the Aegean but also in the wider Old World. It addresses the divergent uses and roles of different metals, the interrelationships of these roles and the changing values that may have been accorded to them at different times and in different places by producers and consumers. Individually, the papers in the volume contemplate the particular properties of different metals and the various issues concerning their frequent under-representation in the archaeological (but not necessarily textual) record, and also point out comparative and diachronic perspectives that may have the ability to offer insights into their important roles in wider cultural and historical changes over a period of several millennia. After the Introduction and Chapter 1, which reflects on some of the parameters involved in the term ‘precious’ as applied to metals, the remaining six chapters cover the Aegean and the networks that link the Aegean with Italy, Cyprus and the Near East more generally, and south-east Anatolia and the Caucasus. Between them they discuss the beginnings of regular iron metallurgy, the uses of and attitudes to gold, silver and bronze and other copper-based alloys at various times between the fourth millennium BC and the Early Iron Age.

A facsimile volume of a detailed catalogue prepared by Flinders Petrie on artifacts largely collected from his Egyptian explorations of a series of glass stamps of Egyptian manufacture that were used from the Roman to Abbasid period variously as tokens, counters, weights, or attached to glass cups as indications of measure. Various categories are identified and described, makers’ names discussed, and weight standards considered. Over 700 stamps are illustrated both as photographs and transcribed line drawings. This volume is part of a new series comprising facsimile re-issues of typological catalogues produced between 1898 and 1937 by W. M. Flinders Petrie, based on his vast collection of Egyptian artefacts. Mostly excavated by Petrie during many seasons of campaign in the latter years of the 19th and early decades of the 20th century, these artefacts now reside in the Petrie Museum at University College, London. Long out of print, the catalogues were re-issued in facsimile by publishers Aris & Phillips in the 1970s alongside newly-commissioned titles, based on more recent examination of elements of the Petrie Collection by contemporary experts. The Oxbow Classics in Egyptology series makes a selection of these important resources available again in print for a new generation of students and scholars.

A facsimile edition of the 1974 reissue of Flinders Petrie’s fully illustrated 1927 description and catalogue of personal and everyday Egyptian and Roman objects in his collections. Jewellery items include necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings, many made from precious metals and/or incorporating gemstones or beads. Toilet items include mirrors, combs, kohl pots, and sticks. Magic wands, manufactured to provide protection and carved from bone and ivory are described, along with examples carved as hands and found in pairs. Board games are represented by playing pieces and gameboards relating to a number of known games. Toys, writing equipment, fragments of furniture, walking sticks and basketry are all catalogued. This volume is part of a new series comprising facsimile re-issues of typological catalogues produced between 1898 and 1937 by W. M. Flinders Petrie, based on his vast collection of Egyptian artefacts. Mostly excavated by Petrie during many seasons of campaign in the latter years of the 19th and early decades of the 20th century, these artefacts now reside in the Petrie Museum at University College, London. Long out of print, the catalogues were re-issued in facsimile by publishers Aris & Phillips in the 1970s alongside newly-commissioned titles, based on more recent examination of elements of the Petrie Collection by contemporary experts. The Oxbow Classics in Egyptology series makes a selection of these important resources available again in print for a new generation of students and scholars.

Facsimile edition of the 1974 reissue of Flinders Petrie’s 1917 pioneering typological catalogue of Egyptian name-scarabs and cylinders, one of a number of such catalogues to be reissued in this new series. The beetle form of amulets are common finds on Egyptian sites but examples with engraved names represent a small proportion of the total. Over 240 different royal persons are named among the various major museum collections. Petrie here illustrates and discusses over 1,600 examples in his own collection together with a selection of inscribed steatite cylinders. He discusses the religious aspects of scarabs and their magical use, their varieties, materials and manufacture, and presents a chronological discussion with fully illustrated catalog of both line drawings and photographs. This volume is part of a new series comprising facsimile re-issues of typological catalogues produced between 1898 and 1937 by W. M. Flinders Petrie, based on his vast collection of Egyptian artefacts. Mostly excavated by Petrie during many seasons of campaign in the latter years of the 19th and early decades of the 20th century, these artefacts now reside in the Petrie Museum at University College, London. Long out of print, the catalogues were re-issued in facsimile by publishers Aris & Phillips in the 1970s alongside newly-commissioned titles, based on more recent examination of elements of the Petrie Collection by contemporary experts. The Oxbow Classics in Egyptology series makes a selection of these important resources available again in print for a new generation of students and scholars.

This is a facsimile edition of the 1972 reissue of Flinders Petrie’s 1914 pioneering typological catalogue of Egyptian Shabtis, one of a number of such catalogues to be reissued in this new series. Shabtis, funeral statuettes made of stone or timber, were frequently encountered in early tomb and cemetery excavations. Petrie identified and describes a chronological sequence of development from simple statuettes emphasising the head, which appear to be substitutes for real heads that were often removed from the body, through to later detailed forms that he recognised as substitutes for the mummy. He presents a discussion of the formula used in the inscriptions, their royal and sacred affinities, and identifies examples of additional texts. The examination of forms, formulaic inscriptions, materials and dating evidence is accompanied by transliteration of names, illustrated inscriptions, and over 650 photographed statuettes. This volume is part of a new series comprising facsimile re-issues of typological catalogues produced between 1898 and 1937 by W. M. Flinders Petrie, based on his vast collection of Egyptian artefacts. Mostly excavated by Petrie during many seasons of campaign in the latter years of the 19th and early decades of the 20th century, these artefacts now reside in the Petrie Museum at University College, London. Long out of print, the catalogues were re-issued in facsimile by publishers Aris & Phillips in the 1970s alongside newly-commissioned titles, based on more recent examination of elements of the Petrie Collection by contemporary experts. The Oxbow Classics in Egyptology series makes a selection of these important resources available again in print for a new generation of students and scholars.

This volume presents the pottery from a series of deposits excavated by Sir Arthur Evans in the palace at Knossos and assigned by him to the last part of the Middle Bronze Age or Middle Minoan III. The substantial architectural modifications seen in this period are examined along with stratigraphy to give proper context to the pottery deposits. Middle Minoan III was the time when Knossos appeared to expand its reach across Crete: from the First Palace Period, when palaces at Malia and Phaistos rivalled Knossos, to the Second Palace Period, when seemingly they diminished and other smaller palaces were built. These changes unfolded over the course of the Middle Minoan III period, divided by Evans into two sub-phases, MM IIIA and MM IIIB. He used many palatial deposits to define these phases. However, he did not present the pottery, stratigraphy and architecture in full, leading eventually to some ambiguity over the status of the period. This detailed study revisits more than a dozen of these contexts, to provide a more solid footing for the phasing and use of the Middle Minoan III palace. The investigation confirms that it is possible to distinguish not only between MM IIIA and MM IIIB, but also between early and late MM IIIA; this distinction enables a more nuanced understanding of the significant changes in architecture and material culture that were taking place. Furthermore, ceramic analysis highlights some of the functions of the palace at this time, with a plethora of conical cups and very few fine tablewares suggesting particular kinds of feasting; and a large number of imported transport and storage wares from off-island locales in the Aegean, such as the Cyclades, Dodecanese, and coastal Anatolia, pointing to a level of connectivity and exchange not previously recognised. This volume demonstrates that much new information can be extracted from legacy material excavated more than a century ago, through the use of a methodology that integrates ceramic, stratigraphic and architectural evidence.

Textile imagery is pervasive in classical literature. An awareness of the craft and technology of weaving and spinning, of the production and consumption of clothing items, and of the social and religious significance of garments is key to the appreciation of how textile and cloth metaphors work as literary devices, their suitability to conceptualize human activities and represent cosmic realities, and their potential to evoke symbolic associations and generic expectations. Spanning mainly Greek and Latin poetic genres, yet encompassing comparative evidence from other Indo-European languages and literature, these 18 chapters draw a various yet consistent picture of the literary exploitation of the imagery, concepts and symbolism of ancient textiles and clothing. Topics include refreshing readings of tragic instances of deadly peploi and fatal fabrics situate them within a Near Eastern tradition of curse as garment, explore female agency in the narrative of their production, and argue for broader symbolic implications of textile-making within the sphere of natural wealth The concepts and technological principles of ancient weaving emerge as cognitive patterns that, by means of analogy rather than metaphor, are reflected in early Greek mathematic and logical thinking, and in archaic poetics. The significance of weaving technology in early philosophical conceptions of cosmic order is revived by Lucretius’ account of atomic compound structure, where he makes extensive use of textile imagery, whilst clothing imagery is at the center of the sustained intertextual strategy built by Statius in his epic poem, where recurrent cloaks activate a multilayered poetic memory.

This book charts the rise of and interplay between the first Mediterranean civilisations – with particular reference to the Minoan, Cycladic, Mycenaean and Trojan – and on the causes of their decline, which are identified in a jumble of natural and human causes, and in a slow, but irreversible crisis. It takes into account that the Mediterranean Dimension of the Bronze Age is a garden in which many legends flourished, clearly distinguishing between myth and history. Using written sources and archaeological evidence, it charts these civilisations' fortunes and crises, and the wars and natural disasters that led to their decline. Chapters explore political geography, military and economic development, religion, monumental architecture and the rise and fall of the palatial dynasties and successive centralised governments, social life and material culture, with emphasis on the importance of commerce. A characterising element of Knossos, Mycenae, Troy is the wide use of the ‘historical present’ to represent events and construct the text. In doing so, it immerses the reader in the narrated events, facilitating our understanding. The result is a fascinating picture of the cultures that laid the foundations of Western civilisation.

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, published by the McDonald Institute in 2009. It seeks to answer many questions posed, but left unanswered, of the more than 200,000 fragments of mainly commingled human remains from the Xagħra Brochtorff Circle on Gozo. The focus is on the interpretation of a substantial, representative subsample of the assemblage, exploring dentition, disease, diet and lifestyle, together with detailed understanding of chronology and the affinity of the ancient population associated with the ‘Temple Culture’ of prehistoric Malta. The first studies of genetic profiling of this population, as well as the results of intra-site GIS and visualization, taphonomy, health and mobility, offer important insights into this complex mortuary site and its ritual. These data and the original assemblage are conserved in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta as a resource for future study.

Hugo de Reede (1929-2019), artist and archaeological illustrator has worked in Syria for many years. Gripped by the Gilgamesh Epos and the philosophy narrated in the epic, he created a pictorial book, re-telling the account of Gilgamesh and the eternal mystery of death. The style of drawing in the book suits the regional art in a remarkable manner and with a humorous touch that is fitting for the region’s storytelling tradition.

The current paradigm-changing ancient DNA revolution is offering unparalleled insights into central problems within archaeology relating to the movement of populations and individuals, patterns of descent, relationships and aspects of identity – at many scales and of many different kinds. The impact of recent ancient DNA results can be seen particularly clearly in studies of the European Neolithic, the subject of contributions presented in this volume. We now have new evidence for the movement and mixture of people at the start of the Neolithic, as farming spread from the east, and at its end, when the first metals as well as novel styles of pottery and burial practices arrived in the Chalcolithic. In addition, there has been a wealth of new data to inform complex questions of identities and relationships. The terms of archaeological debate for this period have been permanently altered, leaving us with many issues.This volume stems from the online day conference of the Neolithic Studies Group held in November 2021, which aimed to bring geneticists and archaeologists together in the same forum, and to enable critical but constructive inter-disciplinary debate about key themes arising from the application of advanced ancient DNA analysis to the study of the European Neolithic. The resulting papers gathered here are by both geneticists and archaeologists. Individually, they form a series of significant, up-to-date, period and regional syntheses of various manifestations of the Neolithic across the Near East and Europe, including particularly Britain and Ireland. Together, they offer wide-ranging reflections on the progress of ancient DNA studies, and on their future reach and character.

Cyprus was a thriving and densely populated late antique province. Contrary to what used to be thought, the Arab raids of the mid-seventh century did not abruptly bring the island’s prosperity to an end. Recent research instead highlights long-lasting continuity in both urban and rural contexts. This volume brings together historians and archaeologists working on diverse aspects of Cyprus between the sixth and eighth centuries. They discuss topics as varied as rural prosperity, urban endurance, artisanal production, civic and private religion and maritime connectivity. The role of the imperial administration and of the Church is touched upon in several contributions. Other articles place Cyprus back into its wider Mediterranean context. Together, they produce a comprehensive impression of the quality of life on the island in the long late antiquity.

The Irish Neolithic has been dominated by the study of megalithic tombs, but the defining element of Irish settlement evidence is the rectangular timber Early Neolithic house, the numbers of which have more than quadrupled in the last ten years. The substantial Early Neolithic timber house was a short-lived architectural phenomenon of as little as 90 years, perhaps like short-lived Early Neolithic long barrows and causewayed enclosures. This book explores the wealth of evidence for settlement and houses throughout the Irish Neolithic, in relation to Britain and continental Europe. More importantly it incorporates the wealth of new, and often unpublished, evidence from developer-led archaeological excavations and large grey-literature resources. The settlement evidence scattered across the landscape, and found as a result of developer-funded work, provides the social context for the more famous stone monuments that have traditionally shaped our views of the Neolithic in Ireland. It provides the first comprehensive review of the Neolithic settlement of Ireland, which enables a more holistic and meaningful understanding of the Irish Neolithic.

Mobilität ist für Formen des sozialen Zusammenlebens grundlegend. Doch welche Rolle spielte räumliche Mobilität in der Vergangenheit? Aus prähistorischen Zeitabschnitten wie etwa dem Neolithikum ist dazu noch immer wenig bekannt. Das gilt auch für die Siedlungsräume des nördlichen Alpenvorlandes. Deren Feuchtbodensiedlungen mit den hervorragend erhaltenen Resten in Seen und Mooren gehören seit 2011 zum UNESCO Welterbe und bieten eine einzigartige Forschungsgrundlage. Die dendrochronologisch datierten Siedlungen eröffnen die seltene Möglichkeit, kulturelle, soziale und ökonomische Transformationen zeitlich und räumlich hochauflösend zu untersuchen. Das gelingt im vorliegenden Band anhand der Keramik aus zeitgleich datierten Siedlungen am Zürichsee und Bodensee aus der Zeit zwischen 3950 und 3800 v.Chr.Prozessphilosophische Überlegungen zum Entstehen und dem Wandel von ‘Dingen’ werden mit relationalen sozialtheoretischen Konzepten wie etwa dem Habitus-Theorem zu einem praxeologischen Ansatz verbunden. Dieser dient als epistemologische Grundlage einer neu ausgearbeiteten ‘Mixed Methods Research’-Methodologie, die ein tieferes Verständnis von Mobilität, Beziehungsgeflechten, sozialen Konfigurationen und Transformationen ermöglicht: Mit qualitativen Klassifikationsmethoden können soziale Praktiken der Keramikherstellung aus der Handlungsperspektive nachvollzogen werden und mit quantitativen Klassifikationsmethoden überregionale Muster der Keramikkonsumption. Anhand solcher materieller Verflechtungen werden Muster räumlicher Mobilität sowie die weitreichenden Beziehungen der jeweiligen Siedlungsgemeinschaften erkennbar. Im Rhythmus einzelner Dekaden lassen sich mobilitätsbezogene Aneignungsphänomene und Transformationen in den Keramikpraktiken nachvollziehen. Darüber hinaus führt die Kombination einer subjektivistischen mit einer ‘objektivierten’ Haltung im Forschungsprozess auf Basis von Pierre Bourdieus Epistemologie, der Praxeologie, zu einem erkenntnistheoretischen, metamodernen ‘dritten Weg’, der zwischen dem Realismus der Moderne (Prozessuale Archäologie) und dem Konstruktivismus der Postmoderne (Postprozessuale Archäologie) vermittelt. Dadurch werden kulturhistorische Gesellschaftsmodelle dekonstruiert, welche ‘Kulturen’ als vermeintlich statische, homogene, räumlich klar abgrenzbare Entitäten konzeptualisierten. Stattdessen verweist die Keramik auf translokale soziale Konfigurationen, durch welche die Siedlungen während des 4. Jahrtausends v.Chr. im nördlichen Alpenvorland miteinander verbunden waren.English abstractMobility is fundamental to forms of social configurations. But what role did spatial mobility play in the past? Regarding prehistoric periods, such as the Neolithic, we still do know little about this. That also applies to the settlement areas of the northern Alpine Foreland. The wetland settlements there were labelled UNESCO World Heritage in 2011. With their excellently preserved remains in lakes and bogs they provide a unique research basis. The dendrochronologically dated settlements open a rare possibility to approach cultural, social, and economic processes based on a high temporal and spatial resolution. In the present volume, this is achieved based on pottery from contemporaneously dated settlements on Lake Zurich and Lake Constance from the period between 3950 and 3800 BC.Process philosophical considerations on the (trans)formation of ‘things’ are combined with relational social theoretical concepts such as the habitus theorem to form a praxeological approach. The latter serves as the epistemological basis of the newly elaborated mixed method research methodology, which allows for a deeper understanding of mobility, social relations and configurations as well as transformations. Qualitative methods (classification of vessel designs) is utilised to understand pottery production practices from the perspective of the makers and quantitative methods (cluster analysis of vessel features) can be used to analyse transregional structures of ceramic consumption. Accordingly, patterns of spatial mobility and far-reaching relationships of settlement communities become apparent based on such material entanglements. Mobility-related appropriation phenomena and change in pottery practices can be approached in the rhythm of individual decades. Furthermore, the combination of a subjectivist with an ‘objectified’ stance during the research process based on Pierre Bourdieu’s epistemology, the praxeology, leads to an epistemological, metamodern ‘third way’ that mediates between the realism of modernity (processual archaeology) and the constructivism of postmodernity (post-processual archaeology). Finally, the research results deconstruct the common social models following the cultural-historical paradigm, which conceptualized ‘cultures’ as supposedly static, homogeneous, spatially distinct entities. Instead, the pottery points to translocal social configurations that related settlements in the northern Alpine Foreland with each other in the 4th millennium BC.

Modern receptions of Graeco-Roman Antiquity are important ideological markers of the ways we envisage our own twenty-first-century societies. An urgent topic of study is: what kinds of narratives – sometimes controversial – about Antiquity do people create for themselves at this moment in time, and for what reasons? This volume aims to showcase a number of illustrative examples, and thus to provide a deeper understanding of twenty-first-century reception of Antiquity. After a general introduction in Part I, the volume focuses on two main fields: controversies referencing ancient and modern literary works; and controversies surrounding heritage ethics. Part II takes literary evidence from the USA to Italy as its starting point: it shows how metaphors about early Christianity find their way into American conservative discourse; how Sparta is evoked in right-wing thinking in the USA, Germany, France and Scandinavia; and how Aeneas plays a role in recent Italian debates on migrations. The last paper discusses the depiction of classicists in modern novels. Part III focuses on heritage ethics and material culture, in first instance taking practices at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) – on the display of death, queering and orientalism - as case studies. The last paper delves into the history of the Via Belgica to show how antiquity has been weaponised for political aims for many centuries. Together, these papers show that academics should engage with the receptions of antiquity in the recent past and present. If they want their research and museum displays to be part of current reception, they should make their voice heard.

Peatlands are regarded as having exceptional archaeological value, due to the fact the waterlogged conditions of these wetlands can preserve organic remains that are almost entirely lost from the majority of dryland contexts. This is certainly true, although the remarkable preservation of sites and artefacts is just one aspect of their archaeological importance. This book provides an accessible introduction to the ecology and formation processes of peatlands, and to the different archaeological and palaeoenvironmental techniques that have been developed and adapted for the study of these environments. It provides an outline of the major themes and methods and as a guide to other more detailed and technical literature concerning peatland archaeology. The book is aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students in archaeology, earth sciences and cognate disciplines, but will be useful to professional archaeologists who are looking to develop their expertise in this field. Whilst the assumption is that the reader has little knowledge of peatlands, a general archaeological background is necessary, including some knowledge of techniques and approaches.