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Empires of Antiquities is a history of the rediscovery of the imperial civilizations of the ancient Near East in a modern imperial order that evolved between the outbreak of the First World War and the decolonization of the British Empire in the 1950s. It explores the ways in which near eastern antiquity was redefined and experienced, becoming the subject of imperial regulation, modes of enquiry, and international and national politics. Billie Melman follows a series of globally publicized spectacular archaeological discoveries in Iraq, Egypt, and Palestine, which made antiquity material visible and accessible as never before. She demonstrates that the new definition and uses of antiquity an...
Expanding the study of Etruscan habitation sites to include not only traditional cities but also smaller Etruscan communities, Cetamura del Chianti examines a settlement that flourished during an exceptional time period, amid wars with the Romans in the fourth to first centuries BCE. Situated in an ideal hilltop location that was easy to defend and had access to fresh water, clay, and timber, the community never grew to the size of a city, and no known references to it survive in ancient writings; its ancient name isn’t even known. Because no cities were ever built on top of the site, excavation is unusually unimpeded. Intriguing features described in Cetamura del Chianti include an artisans’ zone with an adjoining sanctuary, which fostered the cult worship of Lur and Leinth, two relatively little known Etruscan deities, and undisturbed wells that reveal the cultural development and natural environment, including the vineyards and oak forests of Chianti, over a period of some six hundred years. Deeply enhancing our understanding of an intriguing economic, political, and cultural environment, this is a compelling portrait of a singular society.
The theorem of Pythagoras, Euclid's "Elements", Archimedes' method to find the volume of a sphere: all parts of the invaluable legacy of ancient mathematics. But ancient mathematics was also about counting and measuring, surveying land and attributing mystical significance to the number six. This volume offers the first accessible survey of the discipline in all its variety and diversity of practices. The period covered ranges from the fifth century BC to the sixth century AD, with the focus on the Mediterranean region. Topics include: * mathematics and politics in classical Greece * the formation of mathematical traditions * the self-image of mathematicians in the Graeco-Roman period * mathematics and Christianity * and the use of the mathematical past in late antiquity.
How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity is a brilliant exploration of how the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, Simon Goldhill examines how sexuality and desire, the politics of culture, and the role of religion in society were considered and debated through the Victorian obsession with antiquity. Looking at Victorian art, Goldhill demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, Goldhill addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cul...
The Archaeology of Movement discusses movement in the past, including the relationships between mobility and place, moving bodies and material culture, and the challenges of studying past movement. Drawing on a wide range of examples and different archaeological practices, The Archaeology of Movement provides an introduction for those interested in thinking about past movement beyond the ‘fact of mobility’. Almost since the beginning of the modern discipline of archaeology, movement has played a role in helping to shape our understanding of the past. However, the issue of movement is complicated, and where it sits in relation to other indicators of the past is problematic. Until now it has received less serious scrutiny than it merits. This book seeks to address this lacuna by placing movement at the centre of our investigations into the archaeological record. The Archaeology of Movement is an excellent introduction for archaeologists, anthropologists, cultural geographers, and students interested in the ways movement has shaped our understanding of history and the archaeological record.
Explains how recent scientific advances have revolutionised our understanding of prehistoric diet, economy and society.
Late Antiquity witnessed a dramatic recalibration in the economy of power, and nowhere was this more pronounced than in the realm of religion. The transformations that occurred in this pivotal era moved the ancient world into the Middle Ages and forever changed the way that religion was practiced. The twenty eight studies in this volume explore this shift using evidence ranging from Latin poetic texts, to Syriac letter collections, to the iconography of Roman churches and Merowingian mortuary goods. They range in chronology from the late third through the early seventh centuries AD and apply varied theories and approaches. All converge around the notion that religion is fundamentally a disco...
The past two decades have witnessed a proliferation of scholarship on dress in the ancient world. These recent studies have established the extent to which Greece and Rome were vestimentary cultures, and they have demonstrated the critical role dress played in communicating individuals’ identities, status, and authority. Despite this emerging interest in ancient dress, little work has been done to understand religious aspects and uses of dress. This volume aims to fill this gap by examining a diverse range of religious sources, including literature, art, performance, coinage, economic markets, and memories. Employing theoretical frames from a range of disciplines, contributors to the volume demonstrate how dress developed as a topos within Judean and Christian rhetoric, symbolism, and performance from the first century BCE to the fifth century CE. Specifically, they demonstrate how religious meanings were entangled with other social logics, revealing the many layers of meaning attached to ancient dress, as well as the extent to which dress was implicated in numerous domains of ancient religious life.
This volume casts a fresh look at the multifaceted expressions of diachronic Hellenisms. A distinguished group of historians, classicists, anthropologists, ethnographers, cultural studies, and comparative literature scholars contribute essays exploring the variegated mantles of Greek ethnicity, and the legacy of Greek culture for the ancient and modern Greeks in the homeland and the diaspora, as well as for the ancient Romans and the modern Europeans. Given the scarcity of books on diachronic Hellenism in the English-speaking world, the publication of this volume represents nothing less than a breakthrough. The book provides a valuable forum to reflect on Hellenism, and is certain to generat...
An accessible and authoritative overview capturing the vitality and diversity of scholarship that exists on the transformative time period known as late antiquity. Provides an essential overview of current scholarship on late antiquity – from between the accession of Diocletian in AD 284 and the end of Roman rule in the Mediterranean Comprises 39 essays from some of the world's foremost scholars of the era Presents this once-neglected period as an age of powerful transformation that shaped the modern world Emphasizes the central importance of religion and its connection with economic, social, and political life Winner of the 2009 Single Volume Reference/Humanities & Social Sciences PROSE award granted by the Association of American Publishers