Ebooks de historia, página 3 de 2128

This book considers the history of the Prester John legend and its impact on the Crusades, investigating its entangled mythical history between East and West during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The present study thus responds to the still pressing need for a comprehensive historical investigation of the twelfth and thirteenth crusading history of the legend and its impact on the Muslim-Crusader encounters, examining various Latin, Arabic, Syriac, and Coptic accounts. It further reflects on new eastern aspects of the legend, presenting a new Arab scholarly view. This book first charts a pre-history of the legend in the late ancient Christian prophecy of the Last Emperor down to the emergence of the legend in the mid-twelfth century. Second, the work presents a historical discussion of the legend and its association with actual occurrences in the Far East and the Levant, analysing the legend history under the crusading crisis and the imperial papal schism in Europe. Meanwhile, the work considers the vague Prester John Letter addressed to Manuel I Komnenus, Byzantine Emperor, and its elaborate conception of a mythical eastern kingdom, revealing imaginative parallels on the wondrous East and legendary Eastern Christian kings in Arabic Muslim and Christian accounts of the Muslim geographer and cartographer al-Idrisi, the Coptic Abu al-Makarim and the Syriac Ibn al-Ibri (Bar Hebraeus), among others. Moreover, the book examines how the legend impacted war and peace processes between the Ayyubids and the Crusaders during the Fifth Crusade against Egypt (1217-1221), revealing how it was mingled with Arabic and Eastern Christian prophecies at the time. The study concludes by investigating the perception of Prester John by the papal and European envoys to the Mongols in the thirteenth century, revealing how the legend was instrumentalised (and even weaponised) to establish a Latin-Mongol crusade through a parallel exploration of relevant Latin, Arabic and Syriac sources.

This volume describes and illustrates the ceramic figurines excavated at the Maya site of Tikal, Guatemala, from 1956 through 1969. The collection includes both hand modeled and mold-made figures, human and animal, as well as related ceramic objects including figurine molds, flutes, and panpipes. The figurines are classified by subject matter, and the site distribution and dating discussed. These figurines are the largest excavated collection of ceramic figurines from a Maya site, and one of the major artifact categories from the site of Tikal. Most of the classifiable pieces are illustrated at a scale that allows comparison with similar objects from other Maya sites. The purpose of this volume is the presentation of the material from the site of Tikal; comparative material is limited.

This volume contains the excavation report for 12 cremation burials from the Phrygian site of Gordion in central Anatolia. These tombs, dating from the later seventh century to the third quarter of the 6th century BCE, were excavated by The University Museum between 1950 and 1969, and by the German brothers Alfred and Gustav Korte in 1900. The processes for interment through construction of tumulus and cremation procedure are carefully detailed, followed by an analysis of associated finds. Two tumuli of the Hellenistic period, both covering stone chambers with inhumation burials within, are included in an appendix. Further appendices discuss other specific materials excavated from the cremation burials. A discussion of the contemporary inhumation and cremation tumulus burials at Gordion in the Phrygian period, highlighting their continuities and significant differences, forms part of the conclusion, as does discussion of sociocultural developments at Gordion between ca. 650-525 BCE as illuminated by the mortuary remains. The tumuli afford insights into questions related to gender, religion, adult/child identity, trade, social status, ethnicity, transcultural affiliations, ceramic developments, jewelry manufacture, high-status artifact display (including ivory), feasting behaviors, animal sacrifice, hero cult, and widespread "killing" of artifacts associated with the cremation burials. This entirely new publication of Gordions tumuli makes available at last the elite cremation burials of the later Middle and early Late Phrygian (Achaemenid) periods excavated by The University Museum. By including the two Korte tumuli, it provides a complete assemblage of the cremation tumuli at Gordion. They afford remarkable new insights into life, death, and an elaborate system of value at Gordion during this most turbulent century.

Gordion is a paramount site for understanding the culture of central Anatolia over more than 3,000 years, from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period, but is most renowned for its Iron Age horizon, when it was royal capital of the mighty Phrygian kingdom. The hundreds of bone and ivory artifacts excavated at Gordion constitute a highly diverse body of material, and this publication presents one of the largest and most important assemblages of its kind in the Near East. The artifacts give remarkable insight into the tools used in crafts and manufacturing processes, a variety of decorative items, the artistic developments among local craftspeople, as well as indications of trading connections with other regions to the east and west. Ivory was a highly valued material used for decorative pieces in many areas around the eastern Mediterranean. The objects from Gordion are a significant addition to this corpus and illustrate both widely dispersed features common in other contemporary ivory-working centers, as well as the singular motifs and styles that developed in the Phrygian milieu. A unique assemblage of ivory horse trappings from the Early Phrygian Citadel are an important illustration of this cultural confluence. While bone was primarily used for strictly utilitarian objects, there are numerous pieces that show this lowly material could be used for high quality items such as inlays set into the wooden furniture exceptionally attested at Gordion. Even the sheep knuckle bone (astragal), decorated with incised designs and letters, gives a glimpse into the daily life in the community.

This book presents the results of the first systematic archaeological study of Roman peasants. It examines the spaces, architecture, diet, agriculture, market interactions, and movement habitus of non-elite rural dwellers in a region of southern Tuscany, Italy, during the Roman period. Volume 1 presents the excavation data from eight non-elite rural sites including a farm, a peasant house, animal stall/work huts, a ceramics factory, field drains, and a site of uncertain function, here framed as individual chapters complete with finds analysis. Volume 2 examines this data synthetically in thematic chapters addressing land use, agriculture, diet, markets, and movement. The results suggest a different, more sophisticated Roman peasant than heretofore assumed. The data suggests that Roman peasants particularly in the first century BC/AD built specialized sites distributed throughout the landscape to maximize use of diverse land parcels. This has important implications for the interpretation of field survey data, the estimate of rural demographics from that survey, and assumptions about the long-term changes to human settlement. It also points to an important moment of agricultural intensification in this period, a contention beginning to be supported by other studies. The project also identified sophisticated systems of land use, including crop rotation and an important investment in animal agriculture. This work presents the first systematic data from Roman Italy for rural consumption, tracking the fine wares made at a production site to local sites nearby. This supports the largely theoretical problematizing of the so-called consumer city model and suggests the potential importance of rural aggregate demand. Movement studies, based on finds from the sites themselves, describe a more mobile population than anticipated, engaged in quotidian and long-distance movement patterns, supported by the small but steady stream of imports and exports into and out of this seemingly liminal region. The book concludes by addressing the implications of this new data for major questions in Roman social and economic history.

This volume presents funerary and domestic remains from the Late Helladic (LH) period at the settlement of Lerna, an important prehistoric site on the Gulf of Argos excavated by the ASCSA in the 1950s. Most of the material derives from the fill of two disturbed shaft graves from the later half of the LH I period, whose large ceramic and faunal assemblages are complemented by finds from an additional nine graves and domestic remains. Stratigraphic analysis of the shaft graves and surrounding remains contextualize the ceramics and miscellaneous objects recorded in the accompanying catalogues. Analysis of the pottery establishes a clear subdivision of LH I table ware into two phases and suggests a close relationship between kin groups at Lerna and at Kolonna on Aigina. Contributions by Sturt Manning on radiocarbon dating of the shaft grave fills, Ian Whitbread and Hans Mommsen on petrographic and chemical analysis of the pottery, and David S. Reese on the faunal remains shed further light on this important material. The combined evidence suggests that Lerna was continually settled throughout the LH I period, with decline in the early LH IIA period and abandonment in the LH IIB period. While publication of intact monumental tombs often focuses on the elite occupants and their precious grave goods, the value of the Lerna shaft graves lies in what they reveal about the hundreds of living participants in the funerary rituals

The Proceedings of the 14th International Conference for Nubian Studies are published in the research journal Kush for its 20th issue. Sixty articles are presenting the advances of international research on Middle Nile Valley archaeology and highlighting the richness and importance of Sudanese sites along the different phases of its Prehistory and History i.e. kingdoms of Kush (Kerma, Napata, Meroe), Medieval, Post-Medieval and Modern Periods. The eighty authors are coming from different disciplines: archaeology, linguistic, bio-anthropology, museum studies, etc. Their contributions are showing the nowadays implication of research in site management, cultural heritage and museums, especially in the frame of the bilateral programme Qatar Sudan Archaeological Programme.

Located on the shore of the Gulf of Argos, Lerna is one of the most important prehistoric sites in Greece, having been occupied with few interruptions over a period of some 5,000 years, from the 6th to the 1st millennium B.C. Following excavations under the direction of Professor J. Caskey from 1952 to 1958, the well-preserved, deeply stratified record resulted in Lerna becoming the undisputed "typesite" and master sequence for the Early and Middle Bronze Ages on the southern Greek mainland. However, the Middle Bronze Age settlement and material have never been comprehensively published. This volume presents a catalogue of the Middle Helladic ceramic material and an analysis of the material in terms of shape, decoration, and fabric with the objective of elucidating the changing patterns of ceramic production and consumption at a key mainland site.

Animals, Ancestors, and Ritual in Early Bronze Age Syria: An Elite Mortuary Complex from Umm el-Marra, edited by Johns Hopkins professor Glenn M. Schwartz, is a final report of the excavation of Tell Umm el-Marra in northern Syria, conducted in 1994-2010. It is likely the site of ancient Tuba, capital of a small kingdom in the Early and Middle Bronze periods, in the Jabbul plain between Aleppo and northern Mesopotamia. Its study advances our understanding of early Syrian complex society beyond the big cities of Antiquity. Of particular importance in the Early Bronze excavations are the results from the site necropolis, tombs of high-ranking persons containing objects of gold, silver, and lapis lazuli. Separate installations hold kungas (donkey x onager hybrids), sometimes along with human infants. This site provides the first archaeological attestation of the kunga equids, unique in the archaeology of third-millennium Syria and Mesopotamia.

Excavations at ancient Methone since 2003 by the Greek Ministry of Culture have uncovered remains from the Late Neolithic period through the fourth-century B.C. destruction by Philip II of Macedon. These discoveries extend the history of the city, a colony of Eretria (Euboia) since the late eighth century B.C., by nearly three thousand years into Greek prehistory. This volume presents results of the project in selected artefacts, burials, and structures representing the chief phases of the city, in chronological order. An introduction covers historical sources, excavations from 2003 to 2013, and the unique location of Methone. Part I details the prehistoric settlement at Methone, from the fourth millennium to 1000 B.C., and the Bronze Age burials. Part II focuses on the copious artifacts and ecofacts from the Early Iron Age "Hypogeion" shaft. Part III presents artifacts and architecture from the Archaic and Classical periods, through the final days of the siege of the city in 354 B.C. The significance of this work lies in its interdisciplinary methods, combining stylistic analysis of artifacts and source-critical philology with natural history, bioarchaeology, materials analysis, and geochemistry, whose results reveal the long-term history of a site crucial to the economic and political history of Classical Greece and the north Aegean.

This volume brings together the final reports of salvage excavations carried out in the vicinity of Tel Qashish in the northern Jezreel Valley, Israel, from 2010 to 2013. These include the Middle and Epipaleolithic flint workshops at Tel Qashish West and Tel Qashish South, the early Early Bronze Age I settlement at Tell el-Waer, the late Early Bronze Age I features and the Late Bronze Age II cultic repository at Tel Qashish, as well as some early Roman remains. Twenty-nine chapters by twenty-five authors present the context, stratigraphy, finds, and analyses of these four major aspects of the excavations.

Corinth has been an important site for the study of ancient glass since the pioneering work of Gladys Davidson Weinberg. This volume presents the first attempt at Corinth to analyze the entire corpus of glass found in a single area, that located just east of the Theater, the focus of excavations conducted by the American School of Classical Studies in the 1980s. These excavations revealed a north-south street that flanked the Theater, as well as a series of buildings to its east, part of a residential neighborhood ranging in date from the Early Roman to the Early Byzantine period. In this volume-the first of the final reports from the East of Theater excavations-the author presents the glass finds, including over 450 cataloged examples of glassworking remains, vessel glass, and non-vessel glass. Significantly, these finds reveal shifting patterns in vessel types, manufacturing techniques, and trade, as well as evidence for local glass production throughout these periods. Included among the finds are fragments of two opus sectile panels, evidence of the type of luxurious decoration that once existed in these structures. This groundbreaking study provides a tantalizing glimpse into the lives of everyday Corinthians, advancing glass studies both within Greece and throughout the Mediterranean.

Between 2007 and 2014, a Greek-American team investigated an impressive array of Early Roman to Early Byzantine buildings and burials on the Koutsongila Ridge at Kenchreai, the eastern port of ancient Corinth. This volume presents the projects final results, revealing abundant evidence not only for the history of activity in a transitional urban/suburban landscape, but also for the society, economy, and religion of local residents. Important structural and mortuary discoveries abound, including a district of lavish houses with exquisite mosaic pavement and an Early Christian Octagon. The large artifactual assemblage encompasses a variety of objects from pottery and lamps to glass, coins, and jewelry. Bones and teeth from over 200 individuals illustrate differences in health over time, while thousands of bones and shells from a variety of animals attest to diet and subsistence. This study paints a picture of a Corinthian community, small but prosperous and well connected, actively participating in an urban elite culture expressed through decorative art and monumental architecture.

In the years 2004-2006, a joint team from the International Centre for Albanian Archaeology in Tirana, Albania, the Institute of Archaeology in Tirana, and the University of Cincinnati conducted excavations in the plain west of the walls of the ancient Greek colony of Apollonia, a short distance to the southwest of the modern village of Pojan. The site lies almost entirely within a complex of farm buildings known locally as Bonjaket. This volume represents the full publication of the results of three campaigns of excavation at the site. The new excavations discovered and documented a previously unknown monumental temple and have made it possible to describe for the first time the material remains of Greek rituals as practiced at the time of, or not long after, the foundation of Apollonia. Albania, the Institute of Archaeology in Tirana, and the University of Cincinnati conducted excavations in the plain west of the walls of the ancient Greek colony of Apollonia, a short distance to the southwest of the modern village of Pojan. The site lies almost entirely within a complex of farm buildings known locally as Bonjaket. This volume represents the full publication of the results of three campaigns of excavation at the site. The new excavations discovered and documented a previously unknown monumental temple and have made it possible to describe for the first time the material remains of Greek rituals as practiced at the time of, or not long after, the foundation of Apollonia.

The thirty-nine articles in this volume, One Who Loves Knowledge, have been contributed by colleagues, students, friends, and family in honor of Richard Jasnow, professor of Egyptology at Johns Hopkins University. Despite his claiming to be just a demoticist, Richard Jasnows research interests and specialties are broad, spanning religious and historical topics, along with new editions of demotic texts, including most particularly the Book of Thoth. A number of the authors demonstrate their appreciation for Jasnows contributions to the understanding of this difficult text. The volume also includes other studies on literature, Ptolemaic history, and even the god Thoth himself, and features detailed images and abundant hieroglyphic, hieratic, demotic, Coptic, and Greek texts.

This volume presents the terracotta miscellaneous finds from the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Acrocorinth. The finds comprise 21 classes, including protomes and masks, altars, plaques, models of various personal and household items, and loomweights and other textile tools (the latter initially studied by Gloria S. Merker and brought to publication by Nancy Bookidis). In addition to providing a catalogue of the finds arranged according to their subjects, the authors compare these finds with similar objects found elsewhere in Greece and refer to literary, epigraphical, and visual sources to understand their possible uses and meanings and the character of religious activity that may have triggered their dedication in the sanctuary. This volume will greatly facilitate comparative studies of ancient Greek miscellaneous finds and will be an important reference for historians of Greek art as well as of Greek religion.

This volume presents the Late Classical through Roman pottery from the University of Chicago excavations at Isthmia (1952-1989). In a series of three chapters-on the Late Classical and Hellenistic pottery, the Roman pottery, and the pottery from the Palaimonion-a general discussion is followed by a catalog presenting datable contexts and then by a catalogue of other noteworthy pottery. Appendixes discuss the stratigraphy of the Palaimonion and observations on new and previously published lamps. Amphora stamps are the focus of a further appendix, followed by a catalogue of the Slavic and Byzantine pottery found in the sanctuary area. Although the pottery is sometimes fragmentary, the range of materials over this thousand-year period is typical of Corinthian sites. The finds presented here provide critical information about the history of the Panhellenic sanctuary of Poseidon and the ritual activities that took place there.

Early-20th-century explorations of the Roman Forum at Ancient Corinth revealed a massive early imperial building now known as the Julian Basilica. The structure stood on a podium over four meters high, and it dominated the east end of the forum in size, aspect, and function until its destruction in the 4th century A.D. Within it was one of the largest known shrines to the imperial cult and the likely site of the imperial court of law for the Roman province of Achaia. The basilica housed 11 or more large-scale statues most likely to members of the Julio-Claudian family (including Augustus, Augustuss heirs Gaius and Lucius, and arguably Divus Iulius, Germanicus, Nero Caesar, and Claudius), as well as an altar to Divus Augustus and dedications to the genius Augusti, the gens Augusta, and other family members. This richly illustrated volume provides a contextual study of this important building, the remains of which were first published by Saul Weinberg in 1960 (Corinth I.5). Scotton treats the architectural remains, Vanderpool the sculptural remains, and Roncaglia the epigraphical material, each providing extensive catalogues with new photos, in addition to color reconstructions of the basilica and its grand interior.

A hill dominating the Nemea Valley, Tsoungiza is located only 10 kilometers northwest of the citadel of Mycenae. Excavations there have uncovered the remains of a Late Helladic settlement that stood at its southern end. This volume presents the results of these investigations with an unprecedented study of a small settlements economy and society in the Mycenaean period. Through an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates a wide variety of general and specialist studies, the authors demonstrate how agricultural production, craft activities, and ceremonial practices integrated the inhabitants of Tsoungiza into a regional exchange system within the Bronze Age world. The volume includes contributions by P. Acheson, S. E. Allen, K. M. Forste, P. Halstead, S. M. A. Hoffmann, A. Karabatsoli, K. Kaza-Papageorgiou, B. Lis, R. Mersereau, H. Mommsen, J. B. Rutter, T. Theodoropoulou, and J. E. Tomlinson.

This volume presents the Protogeometric through Hellenistic material (ca. 970-175 B.C.) from ASCSA excavations conducted in the 1950s at Lerna in the Argolid, one of the most important prehistoric sites in Greece. The material derives from two main sources: burials from a Geometric cemetery near the settlement and Late Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic wells from the mound proper. Although the material consists primarily of pottery and other ceramic finds, it also includes human remains, animal bones and shells, coins, inscriptions, and bronze and stone objects. Heather Graybehl provides a petrographic analysis, Mark L. Lawall discusses the transport amphoras and import patterns, David S. Reese presents the faunal material, and David Scahill presents and catalogues two Doric capitals. This study not only gives scholars greater insight into ceramic developments in the Argolid, it brings much-needed focus to the material culture of a historic settlement not known for strategic trading, politics, or military prowess. Lerna VIII will greatly facilitate comparative studies with other modestly sized communities in ancient Greece.