Revolutionizing a World
Revolutionizing a World

Author: Mark Altaweel

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2018-02-26

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1911576631

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This book investigates the long-term continuity of large-scale states and empires, and its effect on the Near East’s social fabric, including the fundamental changes that occurred to major social institutions. Its geographical coverage spans, from east to west, modern-day Libya and Egypt to Central Asia, and from north to south, Anatolia to southern Arabia, incorporating modern-day Oman and Yemen. Its temporal coverage spans from the late eighth century BCE to the seventh century CE during the rise of Islam and collapse of the Sasanian Empire. The authors argue that the persistence of large states and empires starting in the eighth/seventh centuries BCE, which continued for many centuries, led to new socio-political structures and institutions emerging in the Near East. The primary processes that enabled this emergence were large-scale and long-distance movements, or population migrations. These patterns of social developments are analysed under different aspects: settlement patterns, urban structure, material culture, trade, governance, language spread and religion, all pointing at movement as the main catalyst for social change. This book’s argument is framed within a larger theoretical framework termed as ‘universalism’, a theory that explains many of the social transformations that happened to societies in the Near East, starting from the Neo-Assyrian period and continuing for centuries. Among other influences, the effects of these transformations are today manifested in modern languages, concepts of government, universal religions and monetized and globalized economies.

Hittite Landscape and Geography
Hittite Landscape and Geography

Author: Mark Weeden

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-05-20

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 9004349391

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Hittite Landscape and Geography provides a holistic geographical perspective on the study of the Late Bronze Age Hittite Civilization from Anatolia (Turkey) both as it is represented in Hittite texts and modern archaeology.

Sagalassos I
Sagalassos I

Author: Marc Waelkens

Publisher: Leuven University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9789061865292

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Sagalassos, once the metropolis of the Western Taurus range (Pisidia, Turkey), was only thoroughly surveyed in 1884 and 1885 by an Austrian team directed by K. Lanckoronski. In 1986-1989 this work was resumed by a British-Belgian team co-directed by Dr. Stephen Mitchell (University College of Swansea) and by Prof. Dr. Marc Waelkens (Catholic University of Leuven). In 1990 Sagalassos became a full scale Belgian project and a leading center for interdisciplinary archaeological and archaeometrical research. Due to its altitude, the site is one of the best preserved towns from classical antiquity, with a rich architectural and sculptural tradition dating from the second century BC to the sixth century AD. From early Imperial times until the early Byzantine period a complete range of coarse and red slip wares was produced locally. Excavations are concentrated on the upper and lower agoras to document the political and commercial life in the town and also in the area where a late Hellenistic fountain house, which still functions to date, and a Roman library were discovered. Major efforts are undertaken to restore the excavated monuments in their old glory. Several disciplines integrate the town again within its ancient environment and document the central role which Sagalassos played in the area.

Roman Seas
Roman Seas

Author: Justin Leidwanger

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-03-11

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0190083670

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That seafaring was fundamental to Roman prosperity in the eastern Mediterranean is beyond doubt, but a tendency by scholars to focus on the grandest long-distance movements between major cities has obscured the finer and varied contours of maritime interaction. This book offers a nuanced archaeological analysis of maritime economy and connectivity in the Roman east. Drawing together maritime landscape studies and network analysis, Roman Seas takes a bottom-up view of the diverse socioeconomic conditions and seafaring logistics that generated multiple structures and scales of interaction. The material record of shipwrecks and ports along a vital corridor from the southeast Aegean across the northeast Mediterranean provides a case study of regional exchange and communication based on routine sails between simple coastal harbors. Rather than a single well-integrated and persistent Mediterranean network, multiple discrete and evolving regional and interregional systems emerge. This analysis sheds light on the cadence of economic life along the coast, the development of market institutions, and the regional continuities that underpinned integration-despite imperial fragmentation-between the second century BCE and the seventh century CE. Roman Seas advances a new approach to the synthesis of shipwreck and other maritime archaeological and historical economic data, as well as a path through the stark dichotomies-either big commercial voyages or small-scale cabotage-that inform most paradigms of Roman connectivity and trade. The result is a unique perspective on ancient Mediterranean trade, seafaring, cultural interaction, and coastal life.

Spear-Won Land
Spear-Won Land

Author: Andrea M. Berlin

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0299321304

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Sardis, in western Turkey, was one of the great cities of the Aegean and Near Eastern worlds for almost a millennium—a political keystone with a legendary past. Recent archeological work has revealed how the city was transformed in the century following Alexander’s conquests from a traditional capital to a Greek polis, setting the stage for its blossoming as a Roman urban center. This integrated collection of essays by more than a dozen prominent scholars illuminates a crucial stage, from the early fourth century to 189 BCE, when it became one of the most important political centers of Asia Minor. The contributors to this volume are members of the Hellenistic Sardis Project, a research collaboration between long-standing expedition members and scholars keenly interested in the site. These new discussions on the pre-Roman history of Sardis restore the city in the scholarship of the Hellenistic East and will be enlightening to scholars of classical archaeology.

The Architecture of the Ancient Greek Theatre
The Architecture of the Ancient Greek Theatre

Author: Rune Frederiksen

Publisher: Aarhus Universitetsforlag

Published: 2015-12-01

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 8771249966

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This book is a collection of papers following the conference The Architecture of the Ancient Greek Theatre, held in Athens in January 2012. Fundamental publications on the topic have not been issued for many years. Bringing together the leading experts on theatre architecture, this conference aimed at introducing new facts and important comprehensive studies on Greek theatres to the public. The published volume is, first of all, a presentation of new excavation results and new analyses of individual monuments. Many well-known theatres such as the one of Dionysos in Athens, and others at Dodone, Corinth, and Sikyon have been re-examined since their original publication, with stunning results. New research, presented in this volume, includes moreover less well known, or even newly found, ancient Greek theatres in Albania, Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Sicily. Further studies on the history of research, on regional theatrical developments, terminology, and function, as well as a perspective on Roman theatres built in Greek traditions make this volume a comprehensive volume of new research for expert scholars as well as for students and the interested public.