Archaeology

Our current knowledge of Roman aqueducts across the Empire is patchy and uneven. Even if the development of “aqueduct studies” (where engineering, archaeology, architecture, hydraulics, and other disciplines converge) in recent years has improved this situation, one of the aspects which has been generally left aside is the chronology of their late antique phases and of their abandonment. In the Iberian peninsula, there is to date, no general overview of the Roman aqueducts, and all the available information is distributed across various publications, which as expected, hardly mention the late phases. This publication tackles this issue by analysing and reassessing the available evidence for the late phases of the Hispanic aqueducts by looking at a wide range of sources of information, many times derived from the recent interest shown by archaeologists and researchers on late antique urbanism.

A compilation of the latest scientific and archaeological research carried out by scholars working in Sudan, providing an insight into the daily life and health of ancient Nubians.

Drawn from Akkadian and Sumerian tablets in the Yale Babylonian Collection, many of them previously unpublished, this collection of readings brings to life the vibrancy of ancient Mesopotamian literature, beyond its better-known myths and epics.

The present volume describes the rich and complex world in which Ausonius (c. 310–395) lived and worked, from his humble beginnings as a schoolteacher in Bordeaux, to the heights of his influence as quaestor to the Emperor Gratian, at a time of unsettling social and religious change. As a teacher and poet Ausonius adhered to the traditions of classical paideia, standing in contrast to the Fathers of the Church, e.g., Jerome, Augustine, and Paulinus of Nola, who were emboldened by the legalization, then the imposition, of Christianity in the course of the fourth century. For this position he was labeled by the 20th-century scholar Henri-Irénée Marrou a symbol of decadence. Guided by Marrou’s critical insights to both his own time and place and that of Ausonius, this book proposes a hermeneutic for reading Ausonius as both a fourth-century poet and a fascinating mirror for his 20th-century counterparts.

Sudan, now split into the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan, boasts a rich cultural heritage that has in recent years become the increasing focus of an international community of archaeologists, anthropologists and historians. This volume brings together papers presented at the Third Sudan Studies Annual Conference, a unique forum for interdisciplinary work.

The colophon, the ultimate or “crowing touch” paragraphs of a manuscript or a book, provides readers with a the historical context in which the scribe produced the manuscript (or the publisher, a book). At its most fundamental level, the colophon gives us the “metadata” of the manuscript: who was the scribe? When and where was the manuscript produced? For whom was it produced and who paid for it? But colophons are far more rich. They are literary works in their own right, having a style and rhetoric independent of the main literary text of the manuscript. Some are assertive, providing contextual data about the scribe/publisher and manuscript/book; others are expressive, demonstrating the scribe’s feelings and wishes. Some are directive, asking the reader for an action; others declarative, providing all sorts of statements about the scribe/publisher or even the reader. The latter sometimes provide historical facts otherwise lost to histories: wars, earthquakes, religious events, legal agreements, etc. This edited volume brings together scholars from various disciplines to study colophons in various languages and traditions across space and time.

This companion volume to Literary Snippets: Colophons Across Space and Time (Gorgias Press, 2023) gives examples of colophons (and their translations) from the Ancient Near East up to the pre-modern world, in Akkadian, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Persian.

An inter-disciplinary study of the story and history of Israel's transition from tribal federation to monarchy, covering the events described in 1 Samuel 1-16; 2 Samuel 21-24; and 1 Kings 1-4. It follows the 2018 publication of The Book of Samuel: Part One, Studies in History, Hisoriography, Theology, and Poetics Combined (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass).

A study of the archaeology, history, architecture, sculpture and divinities of the ancient city of Hatra.

The first historical biography of Priscillian, a controversial figure of great importance for the history of the West, who until now has been considered by the different authors who have approached his figure as a heretic, reformer, apocryphal martyr or non-conformist Christian.

The book offers a comprehensive anthropological study of lived Christianity in Jerusalem’s Old City, with a special focus on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Church of the Anastasis. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork, the study explores the experiences of the Rum Orthodox community, examining their internal dynamics and relationships with other Christian groups. Within the Church of the Anastasis, complex interplays emerge, as fragile legal agreements intermingle with ethnic and theological considerations, resulting in a complex reality of shared spaces and coexistence. A materialist lens is employed to study these dynamics, suggesting that the material aspects of religious practices play a crucial role in shaping borders and influencing perceptions of similarities and differences across them. Outside the Church's confines, in the Old City of Jerusalem, lay Christians, especially the local Palestinian Orthodox, engage in 'border-crossing practices', which often deviate from the Orthodox Church's approved practice. These practices reflect the flexible strategies local Christians adopt in their everyday lives in Israel, challenging established norms and boundaries. By capturing these dynamics, the book provides valuable insights into shared sacred spaces and offers a significant contribution to debates in the anthropology of Christianity and its material culture.