Amphorae From The Eastern Mediterranean And Beyond

Transport amphorae were chosen as the theme of this colloquium because of their great potential for elucidating ancient economic history. As Peacock and Williams have noted, amphorae provide us not with anindex of the transportation of goods, but with direct witness of the movement of certain foodstuffs which were of considerable economic importance.... It is hard to conceive of any archaeological material better suited to further our understanding of Roman trade. The same could be said with equal conviction about Hellenistic trade. However, while the study of transport amphorae was already an established discipline in the 19th century, it has traditionally focused on amphora stamps. Even in the 1970s, excavators in the eastern Mediterranean were still disregarding-and even discarding-unstamped fragments. Yet if amphora studies remain somewhat in the realm of epigraphy, they have also seen a great deal of activity in the last decade and drawn increasing attention from archaeologists, historians and other researchers. Jonas Eiring and John Lund are both classical archaeologists. Lund is a curator at the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.

Amphorae in the Eastern Mediterranean is designed to share the subject of amphorae which were found on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey with the wider scholarly community.

This volume presents almost 100 papers deriving from the 6th International Conference on Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean. Themes comprise sea and land routes, workshops and production centres, and regional contexts (western Mediterranean, eastern Mediterranean, Sicily and the Mediterranean islands).

The results of recent archaeological excavation, systematic rural survey and detailed studies of pottery distributions have revealed the extent and complexities of the economy in the eastern empire. The eight papers in this volume demonstrate this complexity and prosperity, examining several types of product and how the economy evolved over time. Contents: New Rome, new theories on Inter-regional exchange: East Mediterranean economy in Late Antiquity ( Sean Kingsley and Michael Decker ); Urban Economies of Late Antique Cyrenaica ( Andrew Wilson ); The economic impact of the Palestinian wine trade in Late Antiquity ( Sean Kingsley ); Food for an empire: wine and oil production in North Syria ( Michael Decker ); Beyond the amphora: non-ceramic evidence for Late Antique industry and trade ( Marlia Mundell Mango ); The economy of Late Antique Cyprus ( Tassos Papacostas ); LR2: a container for the military annona on the Danubian border? ( Olga Karagiorgou ); Specialization, trade and prosperity: an overview of the economy of the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean ( Bryan Ward-Perkins ).

The Northern Black Sea in Antiquity brings together the latest research on an important region of the ancient Mediterranean world.

This two-volume book presents cutting-edge archaeological research, primarily as practiced in the Eastern Mediterranean region. These volumes’ key foci are inspired by the work of Thomas E. Levy. Volume 1 provides an in-depth look at new archaeological research in the southern Levant (primarily in modern Israel and Jordan) inspired by Levy’s commitment to understanding social, political, and economic processes in a long-term or “deep time” perspective. Volume 2 focuses on new research in several key areas of 21st century anthropological archaeology and archaeological science. Volume 1 is organized around two major themes: 1) the later prehistory of the southern Levant, or the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age, and 2) new research in biblical archaeology, or the historical archaeology of the Iron Age. Each section contains a combination of new perspectives on key debates and studies introducing new research questions and directions. Volume 2 is organized around five major themes: 1) the archaeology of the Faynan copper ore district of southern Jordan, a key region for archaeometallurgical research in West Asia where Levy conducted field research for over a decade, 2) new research in archaeometallurgy beyond the Faynan region, 3) marine and maritime archaeology, focusing on issues of trade and environmental change, 4) cyber-archaeology, an important 21st century field Levy conceived as “the marriage of archaeology, engineering, computer science, and the natural sciences,” and 5) key issues in anthropological archaeological theory. In addition to presenting the reader with an up-to-date view of research in each of these areas, the volume also has chapters exploring the connections between these themes, e.g. the maritime trade of metals and cyber-/digital archaeological approaches to metallurgy. The work contains contributions from both up-and-coming early career researchers and key established figures in their fields. This book is an essential reference for archaeologists and scholars in related disciplines working in the southern Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean.

More than a century of archaeological investigation in Portugal has helped to discover, excavate and study many Lusitanian amphorae kiln sites, with their amphorae being widely distributed in Lusitania.

The legendary overland silk road was not the only way to reach Asia for ancient travelers from the Mediterranean. During the Roman Empire’s heyday, equally important maritime routes reached from the Egyptian Red Sea across the Indian Ocean. The ancient city of Berenike, located approximately 500 miles south of today’s Suez Canal, was a significant port among these conduits. In this book, Steven E. Sidebotham, the archaeologist who excavated Berenike, uncovers the role the city played in the regional, local, and “global” economies during the eight centuries of its existence. Sidebotham analyzes many of the artifacts, botanical and faunal remains, and hundreds of the texts he and his team found in excavations, providing a profoundly intimate glimpse of the people who lived, worked, and died in this emporium between the classical Mediterranean world and Asia.