The Transport Amphorae And Trade Of Cyprus

Placed as a stepping stone on the sea route between Europe and the New East, Cyprus has always been a meeting place of many cultures. Though rarely united politically through many millennia of history - and for extended periods subject to foreign rule - the island nonetheless managed to maintain specific and unique identities. This publication seeks to throw new light on important aspects of the economy of Cyprus between c. 700 BC and AD 700 through a concerted study of the transport amphorae found in and around the island. These standardised containers of fired clay were commonly used for shipping foodstuffs from their places of production to the consumers in antiquity. Completely preserved or found only in fragments, such vessels are a prime source of information about the island's exports and imports of agricultural products, and ultimately about the fluctuations in the economy of Cyprus through a crucial millennium and a half of her history. The jars thus contribute both to our understanding of the changing intensities of Cypriot connections with other centres around the Mediterranean and to the documentation of regional patterning within the island itself.

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.

Placed as a stepping stone on the sea route between Europe and the New East, Cyprus has always been a meeting place of many cultures. Though rarely united politically through many millennia of history - and for extended periods subject to foreign rule - the island nonetheless managed to maintain specific and unique identities. This publication seeks to throw new light on important aspects of the economy of Cyprus between c. 700 BC and AD 700 through a concerted study of the transport amphorae found in and around the island. These standardised containers of fired clay were commonly used for shipping foodstuffs from their places of production to the consumers in antiquity. Completely preserved or found only in fragments, such vessels are a prime source of information about the island's exports and imports of agricultural products, and ultimately about the fluctuations in the economy of Cyprus through a crucial millennium and a half of her history. The jars thus contribute both to our undertanding of the changing intensities of Cypriot connections with other centres around the Mediterranean and to the documentation of regional patterning within the island itself.

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 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.

Insularity – the state or condition of being an island – has played a key role in shaping the identities of populations inhabiting islands of the Mediterranean. As entities surrounded by water and usually possessing different landscapes and ecosystems from those of the mainland, islands allow for the potential to study both the land and the sea. Archaeologically, they have the potential to reveal distinct identities shaped by such forces as invasion, imperialism, colonialism, and connectivity. The theme of insularity and identity in the Roman period has not been the subject of a book length study but has been prevalent in scholarship dealing with the prehistoric periods. The papers in this book explore the concepts of insularity and identity in the Roman period by addressing some of the following questions: what does it mean to be an island? How has insularity shaped ethnic, cultural, and social identity in the Mediterranean during the Roman period? How were islands connected to the mainland and other islands? Did insularity produce isolation or did the populations of Mediterranean islands integrate easily into a common ‘Roman’ culture? How has maritime interaction shaped the economy and culture of specific islands? Can we argue for distinct ‘island identities’ during the Roman period? The twelve papers presented here each deal with specific islands or island groups, thus allowing for an integrated view of Mediterranean insularity and identity.

This is the first monograph devoted solely to the ceramics of Cyprus in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. The island was by then no longer divided into kingdoms but unified politically, first under Ptolemaic Egypt and later as a province in the Roman Empire. Submission to foreign rule was previously thought to have diluted - if not obliterated - the time-honoured distinctive Cypriot character. The ceramic evidence suggests otherwise. The distribution of local and imported pottery in Cyprus points to the existence of several regional exchange networks, a division that also seems reflected by other evidence. The similarities in material culture, exchange patterns and preferential practices are suggestive of a certain level of regional collective self-awareness. From the 1st century BC onwards, Cyprus became increasingly engulfed by mass produced and standardized ceramic fine wares, which seem ultimately to have put many of the indigenous makers of similar products out of business - or forced them to modify their output. Also, the ceramic record gradually became less diverse during the Roman Period than before - developments which we today might be inclined to view as symptoms of an early form of globalisation.

This book explores seaborne trade in the Roman Mediterranean through the study of amphorae, the maritime transport containers found in every archaeological site from the East to the West, on land and underwater, per terram per mare. New data are presented on amphorae exported, variously, to the Black Sea, the Adriatic, the western Mediterranean, Cyprus and the Aegean. Shipwrecks and harbour assemblages are discussed together with finds from urban centres, providing insights into the diverse mechanisms of maritime commerce during the Roman period. The interdisciplinary and international character of amphora studies is well reflected in the variety of topics addressed in the 19 chapters: typology and distribution, methodological issues and new interpretations, the limitations and potential of underwater sites, sea routes and exchange patterns. The volume will be of interest particularly to pottery specialists, maritime archaeologists and economic historians, but also to anyone who wishes to understand the role of Roman amphorae in modern scholarship.

Ordet tradition kan tillægges mange betydninger, og som begreb har det en lang historie bag sig i den vestlige kultur. Selve ordet stammer fra det latinske tradere, at overlevere, og er et vigtigt begreb, når man forsøger at tolke det antikke menneskes sociale relationer ud fra arkæologiske fund. Forandring kan ikke forklares uden man kender til og er bevidst om den materielle kultur set over en længere tidsperiode. Derfor søger arkæologer ved hjælp af longue durée-perspektivet at spore vedvarende forandringer i det arkæologiske materiale. Dette rigt illustrerede værk fører læseren fra det forhistoriske Santorini til senantikkens Rom, fra detaljerede tekstilbeskrivelser til prædikantlister hugget i sten, for at undersøge, hvordan tradition har spillet en rolle i overleveringen af kultur. Hver af bogens bidragydere undersøger et specifikt aspekt af traditionens afgørende rolle i forståelsen af, hvordan identitet skabes og bevares i antikkens verden. Kultiske ritualer, brugen af magiske objekter og symboler, offerfund i græske helligdomme, begravelsesportrætter og jernalderens keramik er blandt de mange elementer, der bliver beskrevet. Tradition viser, hvordan kultur er iboende i os alle, og hvordan handlinger og objekter spiller en afgørende rolle i kulturel kontinuitet og forandring. Med sin grundige tværfaglige tilgang til emnet tilfører Tradition ny viden til forståelsen af den klassiske og antikke verden. Bidragydere: Niels Bargfeldt/Cecilie Brøns/Jane Fejfer/Solvejg Hansen/Signe Isager/Ifke van Kam-pen/Arja Karivieri/Jens Krasilnikoff/Eva Mortensen/Christian Mühlenbock/Marjatta Nielsen/Nora Petersen/Rubina Raja/Sine Grove Saxkjær & Jan Kindberg Jacobsen/Stine Schierup/Lone Wriedt Sørensen/Christina Videbech/Kristina Winther-Jacobsen. Jane Fejfer er lektor i klassisk arkæologi på Københavns Universitet Mette Moltesen er tidligere museumsinspektør ved Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Annette Rathje er lektor emerita i klassisk arkæologi ved Københavns Universitet. Tradition – from the Latin tradere, literally to hand over or hand down – has many meanings and as a concept has a long history in Western culture. When using archaeological remains to interpret the social relations of people of Antiquity, tradition becomes an important concept. We cannot explain change without knowing and being conscious of la longue durée of material culture. Thus, over a long-term perspective archaeologists seek to trace a record of continual change. This lavishly illustrated book takes readers from prehistoric Santorini to Late Antique Rome and discusses the role of tradition in the transmission of culture and the creation, maintenance and negotiation of identity in the ancient world. Covering a wide array of subjects, including cultic rituals and the use of magical objects and symbols, votive traditions in Greek sanctuaries, funerary portraits, and Iron Age pottery, Tradition reveals how culture inheres in each and how actions and objects alike play a role in the continuation and change of culture. With its thoroughly interdisciplinary approach, Tradition breaks new ground in the studies of the classical and ancient world. Contributors: Niels Bargfeldt/Cecilie Brøns/Jane Fejfer/Solvejg Hansen/Signe Isager/Ifke van Kampen/Arja Karivieri/Jens Krasilnikoff/Eva Morten-sen/Christian Mühlenbock/Marjatta Nielsen/Nora Petersen/Rubina Raja/Sine Grove Saxkjær & Jan Kindberg Jacobsen/Stine Schierup/Lone Wriedt Sørensen/Christina Videbech/Kristina Winther-Jacobsen. Jane Fejfer is associate professor of classical archaeology at the University of Copenhagen. Mette Moltesen is former curator of Ancient Sculp-ture at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. Annette Rathje is associate professor emerita of classical archaeology at the University of Copenhagen.