bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mercenaries or refugees? the evidence from the inscriptions of Merenptah on the ‘Sea Peoples’
Authors: Kopanias Konstantinos
Published: November 2022

During the fifth regnal year of Merenptah (either 1208 BC or 1219 BC), king Merey of the Rebu/Lebu attacked Egypt, together with his archers and many northern warriors. These northerners were not affiliated with any of the existing minor or major kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean, since they are only identified by obscure ethnonyms. Five inscriptions of Merenptah refer to these particular events, but they offer scarce historical information; a sixth one, inscribed on a wall of the Amun temple in Karnak, is the most elaborate one. Although the Karnak inscription has often been cited, most scholars usually focus on the parts referring to the ‘Sea Peoples’, which are often examined in isolation and out of their context. The aim of this paper is to re-examine the available evidence.
Manliness, violation, and laughter: rereading the space and context of the Eurymedon vase
Authors: Llewellyn-Jones Lloyd
Published: November 2022

The focus of this short study is a well-known and much discussed object: a red-figured type VII oinochoe, dated to the mid-460s BC and attributed (perhaps) to the Triptolemos Painter, or certainly to his circle. Since Konrad Schauenburg’s 1975 publication of the artefact, it has been known as the ‘Eurymedon Vase.’ It has rightly been classified as ‘unique’ by Amy Smith and although it is beyond the scope of this study to spend too much space re-rehearsing the scholarship on the vase in any detail, a general overview might prove profitable for what follows below.
Integrating Local History and Landscape Archaeology: two case studies from western Greece
Authors: Simoni Helene , Papagiannopoulos Kostas
Published: November 2022

Local History examines the history of a relatively small geographical area, the boundaries of which are based on particular characteristics of its landscape, natural and/or cultural, and is mostly practised by amateur historians who intend to write a book about their place of origin or residence without being committed to following strict research standards and rules. On the other hand, Landscape Archaeology is an academic discipline that is defined as the archaeological study of the relationship of people with their environment in the Past, as well as the relationships between people within the environmental context which they inhabited. Even though the academic framework in which landscape archaeologists operate provides more reliable and better documented results, their work seems to lack the vigour that closer communication with locals and a deeper understanding of the hidden perceptions of a community can provide.
Robert B. Koehl (ed.). Studies in Aegean Art and Culture. A New York Aegean Bronze Age Colloquium in Memory of Ellen N. Davis.
Authors: Dickinson Oliver
Published: November 2022

This is a publication, in paperback format, of papers that were mostly presented at a special session of the New York Aegean Bronze Age Colloquium, held to honour the memory of Ellen Davis. Although her output was not very extensive, it included studies of considerable importance apart from her magnum opus on Aegean Bronze Age vessels of precious metal, and several of the papers are clearly intended to complement these studies and carry them further. The papers vary considerably in length, in breadth of topic, and in the amount of illustration provided, but all have something interesting to say.
Michael J. Walsh, Tamás Kiss and Nicholas S.H. Coureas (eds). The Harbour of all this Sea and Realm: Crusader to Venetian Famagusta
Authors: Carr Mike
Published: November 2022

This volume derives from the editors’ desire to stimulate interest in the fascinating medieval town of Famagusta, located on the east coast of Cyprus, and to underpin the urgency in saving its valuable heritage. The book begins with a three-part multi-authored introduction by Michael Walsh, Tamás Kiss and Nicholas Coureas. Walsh’s section (pp. 3-8) highlights the precarious state of the walled city of Famagusta and the problems faced in preserving it. In 2008 it was placed on the international Watch List of Endangered Sites by the World Monuments Fund and the city remains ineligible to apply for UNESCO World Heritage Site status because of the current political situation.
Jonathan Harris. The lost world of Byzantium
Authors: Intagliata Emanuele E.
Published: November 2022

The lost world of Byzantium is a rather agile and engaging read covering the history of the Byzantine Empire from the foundation of Constantinople to its fall by the hands of Sultan Mehmet II in 1453. The principle aim, as part of the wider scope of the work, is ‘to investigate why Byzantium lasted for so long, in spite of all the upheavals and invasions that threatened its existence’ (preface, p. x). The ten chapters dedicated to this purpose are structured chronologically; each chapter starts with an excerpt from a written source, a hint on the main lens through which the historical facts are to be examined. The history of Byzantium is recounted by those prominent figures that directly acted to make the empire great, or that brought it to its collapse. It is a history, then, made by emperors, generals, courtiers, and patriarchs, described from the centre (Constantinople), and where the middle and lower classes are mentioned rarely, if at all.
Joanita Vroom. Byzantine to Modern Pottery in the Aegean. An Introduction and Field Guide.
Authors: Bintliff John
Published: November 2022

This is the second edition (the first was 2005) of an extremely useful field guide to ceramics in the post-Roman Aegean. It is exceptionally well-illustrated, well cross-referenced, and goes well beyond earlier studies in giving scope to cooking and household wares alongside the better-known tablewares of the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods. Joanita Vroom’s wide involvement in projects across many regions of Aegean Greece, Albania and Mainland Turkey have allowed her firsthand experience of the wide variety of ceramic products in time and space, both from survey and excavation contexts.
S. Müth, P. I. Schneider, M. Schnelle, P. D. DeStaebler (eds) Ancient Fortifications. A Compendium of Theory and Practice.
Authors: Lohmann Hans
Published: November 2022

Fortifications of different kinds and various ages are handed down to us all over the world in great numbers, frequently in excellent state of preservation and sometimes also of remarkable aesthetic qualities. Since prehistoric times they did not only determine the appearance of settlements, towns, and landscapes, but also the life of the inhabitants – economically, politically, and socially. Nonetheless, for any number of reasons, mostly founded in the history of the different archaeological disciplines, the systematic study of ancient fortifications did not keep up with the scientific research on ancient settlements or works of art.
David K. Pettegrew. The Isthmus of Corinth. Crossroads of the Mediterranean world
Authors: Peeters Dean
Published: November 2022

David Pettegrew’s book The Isthmus of Corinth. Crossroads of the Mediterranean world is an admirable synthesis on the landscape of the Isthmus, its urban and rural habitation and the socio-economic and political development of the area from the period of first Roman involvement in the region up till the early fifth century CE. The main aim of the book is to provide a new contextualised vision of the Isthmus, reacting against the timeless, static, and in some sense simplistic, view of a natural landscape that always functioned as a prosperous node of high socio-economic connectivity in the Mediterranean.
Demography and burial exclusion in Mycenaean Achaia, Greece
Authors: Jones Olivia A.
Published: November 2022

The Late Bronze Age period in Greece, known as the Mycenaean period (Figure 1), has been an influential research topic in Greek archaeology since the excavations at Mycenae (Figure 2) by Heinrich Schliemann in the late 19th century. The mortuary record in particular, with exceptional contexts such as the Shaft Graves filled with golden funerary masks, and the elaborately constructed beehive stone-built tholos tombs (pl. tholoi), have encouraged discussions of conspicuous consumption and shifts of power in early Mycenaean (MH III-LH I) Greece.
Locating Lost Gifts: Terracotta Figurines as Evidence for Ephemeral Offerings
Authors: Kopestonsky Theodora
Published: November 2022

For the most part, Greek gods were not altruistic or loving. In order to get something, one needed to coerce, manipulate, or even bribe a god. Although there was no guidebook to ritual practice or a standardized belief system in ancient Greece, certain rites were repeated in similar ways at multiple locations by different people. Offering a gift to a god was one of these fundamental, and common, actions in Greek ritual practice.
Urban Networks in the Roman Province of Achaia (Peloponnese, Central Greece, Epirus and Thessaly)
Authors: Karambinis Michalis
Published: November 2022

It is generally accepted that the late-Hellenistic era (c. 150–31 BC) was a period of disturbance for Greece. The wars between Republican Rome and the Hellenistic kingdoms as well as the Roman civil wars took place in major part on Greek soil. The ancient writers of late-Hellenistic but also of Imperial times (e.g. Polybios, Strabo, Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom and Pausanias) speak of ruins, depopulation and decline, and in fact this turbulent situation had negative effects both at province and city level. ‘Augustus and his successors tried to stop this decline by introducing some changes which favoured some large cities,’ but how successful were these changes in recovering the cities of Greece at a general level is not clearly defined.
Mapping Agro-Pastoral Infrastructure in the Post-Medieval Landscape of Maniot Settlements: The Case-Study of Agios Nikon (ex. Poliana), Messenia
Authors: Germanidou Sophia
Published: November 2022

Mani is geographically defined as the middle of the three peninsulas of the Peloponnese at the southernmost part of Greece. Distinctive geographic features of the area are the predominance of Mount Taygetos, the absence of rivers, the rocky composition of the soil as we move south, and the concomitant limited expanse of arable land (Figure 1a). Nowadays, in terms of administration, it is divided into two units; the NW of the rather fertile Messenian (Outer) (Figure 1b) and the more rugged and barren SE Lakonian (Inner) Mani.
Th. L. Papadopoulos & E. Papadopoulou–Chrysikopoulou. Excavations at the Mycenaean Cemetery at Aigion – 1967 / K. Aktypi. The Mycenaean Cemetery at Ayios Vasileios, Chalandritsa, in Achaea
Authors: Dickinson Oliver
Published: November 2022

These are two publications of material from Mycenaean chamber tombs excavated in rescue work in Achaean cemeteries, both at potentially important sites, but one considerably better documented than the other. The tombs at Aigion, an east Achaean coastal site with a long history that was probably the most prominent settlement of its region, are four of a larger cemetery (at least 15 tombs are known), which were excavated by the late E. Mastrokostas while ephor.
Maria Mina, Sevi Triantaphyllou and Yannis Papadatos (eds). An archaeology of prehistoric bodies and embodied identities in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Authors: Gallou Chrysanthi
Published: November 2022

This edited volume publishes the proceedings of the international conference Embodied Identities in the Prehistoric Mediterranean: Convergence of Theory and Practice, held in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 10–12 April 2012. The twenty–nine contributions published here ‘connect archaeologists working in the eastern Mediterranean beyond the regional limits of their area of expertise, to the broader debates currently contested in the archaeology of the body’ (p. v.). This well–produced volume is efficiently organised around six broad themes: the represented body; material culture and the construction of identities; ritualised practice and the performance of identities; embodied knowledge through technology and space; the lived body and identities; interaction with the dead body.
Aneta Petrova. Funerary Reliefs from the West Pontic Area (6th-1st Centuries BC) (Colloquia Antiqua 14).
Authors: Damyanov Margarit
Published: November 2022

Aneta Petrova’s book is a most welcome contribution to research on the Greek colonies on the West Pontic coast. Based on her doctoral dissertation defended in 2005, it brings together all known funerary monuments with figured relief decoration from the region. To my knowledge, the archaeological investigations in the last decade or so have not added new specimens – at least not from present-day Bulgaria, where large-scale excavations have been conducted in the necropoleis of Apollonia and Mesambria.
Guillaume Biard. La représentation honorifique dans les cités grecques aux époques classique et hellénistique.
Authors: Spivey Nigel
Published: November 2022

Honorificabilitudinity is a bit of a mouthful: since Dante, at least, the Latinate term has been recognized as an overload of syllables. What follows is not a proposal that we use the word more often. Yet some kind of convoluted noun does seem necessary to denote the circular notion of ‘honour’ at once earned and conferred. Act as ‘honourably’ as you will, according to your own standards; but to become ‘honoured’ or ‘honorified’ depends upon a power-structure within society (in Britain this is ‘the Establishment’). So it happens that, just as some individuals are celebrities because they are celebrities, an ‘honours system’ can seem flagrantly remote from the actualities of personal conduct. Certain people are, it appears, born honourable; others gain honour by purchase, flattery, or self-promotion. The paradoxes of honorific culture in our own age warn that the study of honorific monuments in antiquity requires a circumspect approach.
Kathleen Warner Slane (with contributions by Ethne Barnes, David S. Reese and David R. Jordan). Tombs, Burials, and Commemoration in Corinth’s Northern Cemetery
Authors: Bes Philip
Published: November 2022

Each of us who has experience working within longer-running archaeological projects – of which the American excavations at Corinth is a prime example – is likely at one point or another to be confronted by that particular project’s excavation, documentation and/or storage history. One wishes to (re)study, and to have a fresh look at old excavations and the associated finds, motivated for instance by new concepts, or new questions. As it may turn out, the dossier in question is incomplete (finds or records have been lost), which as such hampers the desired complete (re)interpretation.
David Jacoby. Travellers, Merchants and Settlers in the Eastern Mediterranean, 11th-14th Centuries.
Authors: Ritondale Manuela
Published: November 2022

The choice of a suitable title for this collection of studies, originally published by David Jacoby between 2003 and 2008, must have been challenging. As a metaphor of the partial nature of any historical or archaeological context, the mentioned categories are far from representative for the whole range of topics the volume covers, and the relationship between them is not completely straightforward at first glance.
Elizabeth R. Gebhard and Timothy E. Gregory (eds). Bridge of the Untiring Sea: The Corinthian Isthmus from Prehistory to Late Antiquity
Authors: Ippolito Francesca
Published: November 2022

This volume is a collection of papers delivered at a conference celebrating 55 years (1952-2007) of archaeological works at the Corinthian Isthmus.

After an Introduction, which includes Early Iron Age through 5th century AD written sources mentioning Corinth and the Isthmus and a brief geographical and topographical description of the region, the authors summarize the research history, from the first recordings by travelers in the 15th century.
The context and nature of the evidence for metalworking from mid 4th millennium Yali (Nissyros)
Authors: Maxwell V. , Ellam R. M. , Skarpelis N. , Sampson A.
Published: November 2022

In the wider Aegean, it is now recognised that the very end of the Neolithic is a key period in the evolution of communities and in the roots of changes observed in the succeeding Early Bronze Age. One important aspect of this change was involvement in metallurgy. Establishing the nature of early metallurgy could enrich our understanding of the processes of change at work at this time.
Multi-faceted approaches and interdisciplinary narratives – regional archaeologies in Akarnania and Olympia (Western Greece)
Authors: Lang Franziska
Published: November 2022

Landscape is a multi-agent-system in which the agent ‘Landscape’ with its natural-spatial conditions causes and is subjected to changes through natural processes and events (such as natural disasters). On the other hand, landscape is transformed through human agents appropriating it by intentional and reflective actions (Werlen 2010b: 9–17).
To include or exclude? Marginalization of the deformed in the Classical Greek World
Authors: Sulosky Weaver Carrie L.
Published: November 2022

In the Classical period (c. 480–323 BC), the ideal Athenian citizen was kalos kai agathos – beautiful and good (Plato Charmides 154e, Gorgias 474d–475e). In order to be both beautiful and good, the ideal citizen must embody a panoply of noble personality traits. He must be free, civic-minded, selfless, courageous, loyal, honorable, helpful, truthful, hardworking, just, careful, practical, intelligent, reasonable, self-controlled, and moderate in all things. In addition to these intangible qualities, the ideal citizen must also possess important tangible ones: physical beauty and perfection.
The Hellenistic koine as a linguistic and ceramic concept
Authors: Laftsidis Alexandros
Published: November 2022

The expanded, politically unified entity that resulted from the conquests of Alexander III facilitated the movement of people, products, and ideas in a way much easier and more effective than before. The governance of the vast and ethnically diversified Hellenistic kingdoms required the use of an accessible linguistic device, which we know as Hellenistic koine. This dialect of Greek, being a key component of cosmopolitan Hellenistic culture, played an important role towards the homogenisation of the vast Hellenistic world, becoming a lingua franca and allowing people of totally different cultural backgrounds to interact with each other formally and informally. Common cultural elements throughout the Hellenistic world, seem, on the surface, to extend beyond language to the area of material culture and, in particular, pottery. In fact, several scholars, including Werner Technau, Konstantina Gravani and Stella Drougou, have argued for a koine ceramic language characterised by the appearance of common pottery shapes, production methods, and decorative techniques throughout the Hellenistic world. In this paper, however, I argue that linguistic koine and ceramic koine are not parallel phenomena, as many researchers seem to accept, even though they arise from similar political and cultural developments. The former was at least originally imposed by the political administration of the Hellenistic kingdoms upon the people living in the Hellenistic world, while the latter reflects a bottom-up process. Hence, the issues I will be exploring below are the form of both the linguistic and ceramic ‘koinai,’ their origin, and their different formative processes.
The Roman aqueduct of Philippi
Authors: Oulkeroglou Anastasios , Papadopoulos Stratis , Giamali Ioanna
Published: November 2022

Colonia Iulia victrix Philippiensium was founded by Mark Antony after the battle of Philippi in 42 BC and was re-founded by Octavian as colonia Iulia Philippiensis, then Augusta, after the naval battle in Actium in 31 BC. Philippi was one of the most important stations along the Egnatia Road. During the Antonine period, in the second half of the 2nd c. AD, the city’s center was reconstructed in its most monumental form. The aqueduct for the water supply of the city has been dated to the same period. It is an open-channel aqueduct with a barrel vaulted cover that collected water from the Kefalari area (karstic springs of Voirani), about seven kilometers north-northwest of Philippi.
Byzantine Kastra in the Dark Ages: the case of Oria Kastro on Kythnos
Authors: Veloudaki Christianna
Published: November 2022

During the first three centuries after the founding of the Eastern Empire, the islands of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea knew a period of relative calm and prosperity, acting as supply stations for vessels following the sea routes to and from Constantinople. Most of them had flourishing maritime market towns that functioned as processing and exporting centres. From the 7th century onwards, however, it can be observed that many of these ancient coastal cities either shrank dramatically in size or were gradually abandoned and the so-called kastra, i.e. fortified settlements built on top of remote hilltops, took their place. Little is known about this transitional period (7th-9th century AD) in the Aegean world as there are barely any written sources and most of the ancient cities and the Byzantine kastra in the Cyclades remain undocumented. Consequently, the beginning of the transition process and the exact causes behind it remain unclear. Pirate raids and the Arab threat after the 640s are the reasons traditionally put forward by Greek and foreign scholars, however, recent studies suggest that the Arab fleets are unlikely to have been a serious threat to the islands before the occupation of Crete by the Andalus Muslims in AD 827.
The potential of a terrace-wise economy: Hygassos’ agricultural heritage in the Hellenistic Rhodian Peraia (Bozburun Peninsula)
Authors: Oğuz-Kırca E. Deniz , Liritzis Ioannis , Demirciler Volkan
Published: November 2022

The Bozburun Peninsula (Hellenistic Rhodian Peraia, i.e the mainland possessions of ancient Rhodes) lies immediately north of the Island of Rhodes (Figure 1). It is an unspoiled (it used to be incredibly barren) territory which has remained as an area of seclusion throughout history.
Frederick W. Cooper and Diane Fortenberry (eds). The Minnesota Pylos Project 1990-98
Authors: Dickinson Oliver
Published: November 2022

This is a somewhat delayed but extremely welcome volume. It contains a detailed account of the discoveries made in the field and study seasons of the Minnesota Pylos Project. This began with the decision of the Greek Ephoreia of Messenia that a state plan was needed of the remains of the Mycenaean palace excavated by C.W. Blegen on the site often called Ano (surely correctly Epano) Englianos, here most often simply Englianos, identifiable as the legendary Pylos, seat of king Nestor, from the Linear B archive found there. Once work had begun, it quickly became apparent that many widely accepted beliefs about the architectural history of the site were wrong, and a full study of the surviving remains was instituted, including those in various soundings beneath the palace and exploratory trenches in adjacent areas.
Milena Melfi and Olympia Bobou (eds) Hellenistic Sanctuaries between Greece and Rome.
Authors: Spawforth A. J. S.
Published: November 2022

This volume deals with the period from 300 BC to AD 100. The sixteen chapters, all in English, arise from an Oxford conference in September 2010 taking the post-Classical polis sanctuary in Greece, Sicily and Magna Graecia as its focus. The main disciplinary emphasis is on classical archaeology and art; two chapters (Yves Lafond; Maria Kantirea) foreground epigraphy; another includes an excavator’s unpublished note revealing a new inscription about Damophon of Messene (Melfi in the second of her three contributions). The chapters are not grouped thematically, although two sub-divisions stand out: one dealing with broader topics and regions, and the other focused on a particular polis or sanctuary.
Tamara M. Dijkstra, Inger N.I. Kuin, Muriel Moser and David Weidgenannt (eds) Strategies of Remembering in Greece under Rome (100 BC – 100 AD)
Authors: Karambinis Michalis
Published: November 2022

This collective book is the result of a conference ‘Strategies of Remembrance in Greece under Rome,’ held at the Netherlands Institute at Athens in October 2016, and it stemmed from three research projects run in Germany and the Netherlands, in which the editors participated. It consists of 11 articles (two papers presented at the conference are not included in the volume), and geographically it is focused on the Roman province of Achaea.
Sharon E. J. Gerstel (ed.). Viewing Greece: Cultural and Political Agency in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean
Authors: Roussos Konstantinos
Published: November 2022

The present volume is a collection of essays resulting from a number of events (conferences, classes, lectures) that took place in parallel to the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections (2013–2015). The exhibition was first presented in Washington, DC, then in Los Angeles, and finally, a reduced version travelled to Chicago.
Gavin McGuire. Minoan Extractions: A Photographic Journey 2009–2016 Sissi Archaeological Project / Yannis Hamilakis and Fotis Ifantidis. Camera Kalaureia: An Archaeological Photo-Ethnography
Authors: Tzortzopoulou-Gregory Lita
Published: November 2022

Gavin McGuire. Minoan Extractions: A Photographic Journey 2009–2016 Sissi Archaeological Project. Viii+168 pages, 137 black and white photographs. Text in English and Greek. 2017. Oxford: Archaeopress. ISBN 1784916366 £30.00. Yannis Hamilakis and Fotis Ifantidis. Camera Kalaureia: An Archaeological Photo-Ethnography – Μια αρχαιολογική φωτο-εθνογραφία. pp. 170, full colour throughout. Full text in English and Greek. 2016. Oxford: Archaeopress. paperback ISBN 9781784914127 £30.00. hardback ISBN 9781784914134 £55.00. epublication ISBN 9781784914141 Open Access.
Corien W. Wiersma, Dimitris Agnousiotis, Evangelia Karimali, Wietske Prummel and H. Reinder Reinders. Magoúla Pavlína. A Middle Bronze Age site in the Soúrpi Plain. pp. 189, 43 col. ills incl. maps + 58 b&w and 1 mixed, 4 tables. 2016. Groningen: Barkhuis
Authors: Dickinson Oliver
Published: November 2022

Magoula Pavlina is a slight elevation, about 1.9 m high and 4 hectares in area, less than 1 km from the beach ridge of an inlet from the Pagasitic Gulf and close to the Salambrias river that runs into the inlet, in a well-watered area of eastern Thessaly that used to be marshy but was drained for agriculture in the 1930s. It is not actually clear that it is a magoula, that is, an artificial mound built up from the remains of ancient settlement debris (p. 18, bottom), like several important sites in the neighbourhood such as Zerelia (Wace and Thompson 1912, 150–66); but some prehistoric pottery was noticed on its surface in 1978. Ploughing for the first time (in the modern era, at least) in 1996 brought a mass of artefacts to the surface, and the Groningen Institute of Archaeology, which was conducting a survey in the region in partnership with the Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities in Volos, quickly made an arrangement with the land-owner to give the site a survey. In two days over 9000 items were collected, predominantly pieces of pottery; a sample consisting of pottery, stone and clay artefacts, and mammal and mollusc remains was reserved for close study. This volume publishes the results, replacing earlier partial reports.
Ian McPhee and Elizabeth G. Pemberton. Late Classical Pottery from Ancient Corinth, Drain 1971-1 in the Forum Southwest. Corinth VII.6. pp. 400, 80 ills, 4- plates, 18 charts. 2012. Princeton NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Authors: Van der Enden Mark
Published: November 2022

Volume VII.6, late Classical Pottery from Corinth, is another fine addition to the American School at Athens Corinth Excavation series. McPhee and Pemberton present in this volume the ceramic material (plus other artefacts) associated with Drain 1971-1 excavated in the southwestern area of Corinth’s Roman forum. The material attested in this deposit has been dated to the latter part of the 4th century BC and is expertly presented by the authors. Corinth VII.6, therefore, further enhances our understanding of ceramic developments at Corinth during the late Classical/early Hellenistic period, a timeframe of great geo-political change, not necessarily reflected as McPhee & Pemberton assert in the use of ceramic utensils by Corinth’s inhabitants.
H. Reinder Reinders et al. The City of New Halos and its Southeast Gate. pp. 205, with col. ills. 2014. Groningen: Barkhuis (Groningen Archaeological Studies Vol. 27). ISBN 978-9-49143-168-5, hardcover €70.
Authors: Farinetti Emeri
Published: November 2022

The existence of openings in the city wall determines the very essence of the city: gates are both the weakest and the strongest spots of a town, and they form the connection with the outside world, affecting the character of the inner space. In this volume, the description itself of the city of New Halos, the examination of its urban layout and its surroundings, moves towards, and at the same time culminates in, the detailed description of one of its gates, the Southeast Gate, systematically excavated during the period 1995-2006.
Guy D. R. Sanders, Jennifer Palinkas, Ioulia Tzonou-Herbst, with James Herbst. Ancient Corinth: Site Guide, 7th Edition. pp. 208, with col. plates. 2018. Princeton NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 978-0-87661-661-1, hardcover
Authors: Valente Rossana
Published: November 2022

Since the beginning of the excavations in Ancient Corinth by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1896, a multi-period, intricate stratigraphy of the urban landscape of this site has been unravelled. This century-long history of excavations in Ancient Corinth has been previously disseminated by six editions of the site guide published by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Previous editions were curated by the ASCSA director Rhys Carpenter in 1928 and in 1933; the scholar Charles Morgan in 1936; Oscar Broneer in 1947 and 1951, whose 1951 edition was revisited by Robert Scranton in 1954; and, finally, Corinth director Henry Robinson in 1960.
Alan Kaiser. Archaeology, Sexism and Scandal. The long-suppressed story of one woman’s discoveries and the man who stole credit for them. pp. 272 with ills. 2015. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-7524-9, paperback $28.
Authors: Haagsma Margriet J.
Published: November 2022

This well-researched and very readable book tells the story of a young woman who started her professional career in Classics and Classical archaeology in the late 1920s when she enrolled as an undergraduate student in the Department of Classics at the University of Alberta, where I currently teach. It charts how, after obtaining her BA, Mary Ellingson (née Ross), was admitted as a graduate student in archaeology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1931. There, she wrote an MA and PhD dissertations on the terracotta industry in Olynthus, based on the excavations in which she participated in 1931 under the guidance of the famous and distinguished David Moore Robinson, professor of archaeology and director of the Olynthus project. The author of this book, Alan Kaiser, professor in archaeology at the University of Evansville where Mary Ross-Ellingson taught for many years, became inspired to tell her story by leafing through her bequest to the university after her death. It consisted of a scrapbook, which had been sitting on a shelf in his department and in which she reports her experiences during the 1931 season at Olynthus in text and images. Based on this treasure trove of photographs and letters to family, Kaiser discovered a long known but inconvenient truth: that Mary Ross-Ellingson’s MA thesis and part of her PhD were published under Robinson’s name as volumes VII and XIV in the Olynthus series without giving credit to the real author.
Oliver Hülden, Das griechische Befestigungswesen der archaïschen Zeit. Entwicklungen – Formen – Funktionen
Authors: Lohmann Hans
Published: November 2022

This extensive and lavishly illustrated work is based on the Munich habilitation thesis of the author and is the most comprehensive treatment of the subject to date. The regrettably long-neglected Greek fortifications have received increased attention in recent years and decades. The extensive bibliography (pp. 523-560) lists over 700 titles, two of which are particularly noteworthy because they deal with the same subject: F. Lang, Archaische Siedlungen in Griechenland. Struktur und Entwicklung (Berlin 1996) and R. Frederiksen, Greek City Walls of the Archaic period (Oxford 2011). The latter goes back to a dissertation from 2001 and for that reason alone justifies a renewed in-depth study of the Archaic fortifications of the Greek world.
Marta González González, Funerary Epigrams of Ancient Greece: Reflections on Literature, Society and Religion
Authors: Marchand Fabienne
Published: November 2022

This book aims to review funerary epigrams from the Archaic and Classical periods, and to place them in their social and religious contexts. It consists of eight chapters, followed by 16 pages of bibliography, an index of inscriptions and table of concordances, plus five pages of indices. The main monuments are illustrated with 11 plain black and white figures, which archaeologists will not find particularly useful.
Laura Pfuntner, Urbanism and Empire in Roman Sicily
Authors: Karambinis Michalis
Published: November 2022

Roman rule signalled radical changes in the urban systems of the Mediterranean. More complex is the understanding of the restructuring that occurred in the Greek speaking lands, where a dense network of poleis existed already since the Archaic period. In the province of Achaia, although the basic elements of its Classical past were maintained (e.g., a modular urban system with hundreds of self-governing poleis which were sustained mainly by surpluses produced in their territories), in the Roman period this area was characterized by a significantly smaller number of cities and rural sites, in respect to pre-Roman times. Of great importance was the establishment of a few highly-centralized administrative centres of free or colonial status and economically privileged, that now became the focus of Roman administration and wealth. The majority of minor centres had from now on a marginal role, and many of them remained completely outside the new economic system.
Bleda S. Düring and Claudia Glatz (eds), Kinetic Landscapes, the Cide Archaeological Project: Surveying the Turkish Western Black Sea Coast
Authors: Crow James
Published: November 2022

Archaeological knowledge of the Black Sea coast of Turkey is limited for all periods of history and prehistory. Lacking the instant appeal of the Classical to Roman monuments of the south and west coasts, or the universal prehistoric interest of sites like Çatal Höyük or Göbekli Tepe, the deeply forested and often inaccessible mountainous Black Sea coast remains largely neglected. The name Cide derives from the ancient Kydros (mod. Gideros), a modest Classical town set between the major coastal cities of Amastris (Amasra) in the west and Sinope (Sinop) - once capital of Mithradates’ empire - to the east.
Caroline Arnould-Béhar and Véronique Vassal (eds), Art et archéologie du Proche-Orient hellénistique et romain. Les circulations artistiques entre Orient et Occident. Volume 1 & 2
Authors: Erskine Andrew
Published: November 2022

In May 2017 Caroline Arnould-Béhar and Véronique Vassal held a one-day workshop on the art and archaeology of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East at the Catholic University of Paris. They followed this up with a second workshop a year later. The proceedings of the meetings are published in these two volumes, eleven papers in the first and twelve in the second. The object of the workshops was to explore the interaction between the East and West through an examination of the material culture of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East with a particular focus on forms of artistic expression. The topics covered include, among other things, funerary monuments, town-planning, architecture, sculpture, painting, and mosaics.
Bronze Age Cyprus and the Aegean: ‘exotic currency’ and objects of connectivity
Authors: Knapp A. Bernard
Published: November 2022

The island of Cyprus is justly regarded as a key juncture in the eastern Mediterranean world, one that played a prominent role in the exchange networks operating within and beyond that region, especially during the Late Bronze Age (LBA). With respect to the Aegean world, contacts are well represented by Aegean and Aegean-style objects and imagery found on the island, a form of ‘exotic currency’ often associated with elite feasting and funerary activities. The arts and crafts of Bronze Age Cyprus are particularly rich in representational terms, particularly evident in the floruit of figurative representations depicted on the pottery, metalwork, ivories and figurines of the LBA. When we focus down onto individual objects or classes of objects, the role of hybridisation practices also seems evident, and any discussion of connectivity between the Aegean world and Cyprus must take such practices into account. The purpose of the present study is to consider a representative example of these objects of connectivity during both the Prehistoric and Protohistoric Bronze Ages, always highlighting the Aegean dimension. In turn, the nature of Aegean-Cypriot relations during and at the end of the LBA is considered with respect to the merchants, mariners, exchange systems and spheres of interaction that characterised Cypro-Aegean connectivity.
Unlocking building biographies during the Late Bronze Age in Central Macedonia: the case of the Thessaloniki Toumba mound settlement
Authors: Efkleidou Kalliopi , Karantoni Maria , Triantaphyllou Sevasti , Andreou Stelios
Published: November 2022

The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, especially where continuous replication of the same buildings is involved, and to investigate how it was practiced in Late Bronze Age mound settlements in terms of building methods. Furthermore, we aim to investigate how building continuity or change related to people’s lives and the spatial organisation of their mundane activities and social practices which concerned their biological and social reproduction.
The settlement patterns of the Ierapetra Isthmus (East Crete) from the Archaic to the Venetian periods, as revealed through the SettleInEastCrete Program
Authors: Coutsinas Nadia , Katifori Marianna , Roussos Konstantinos , Argyriou Athanasios
Published: November 2022

The project, SettleInEastCrete. Spatial Dynamics and Settlement Patterns in Eastern Crete from the Classical to the Venetian Period, sets out to determine the pattern of development of the settlements in Eastern Crete from the Classical to the Venetian period. The goal is to shed light and explain the transition from the ancient autonomous city-states to the medieval cities and villages. Special attention is given to the economic, social, political and also environmental issues that influenced that evolution. Concentrating on the eastern part of Crete was particularly effective: in the same territory and over a long chronological period, and living under very different administrative systems, we were able to trace how the population responded, moving between centralised and dispersed modes of settlement. We also looked to see if some places enjoyed longer-term occupation and the reasons for such.
Ken Dark and Jan Kostenec, Hagia Sophia in Context. An Archaeological Re-examination of the Cathedral of Byzantine Constantinople.
Authors: Cormack Robin
Published: November 2022

Ken Dark and Jan Kostenec, Hagia Sophia in Context. An Archaeological Re-examination of the Cathedral of Byzantine Constantinople. pp. 152, with ills. Oxford: Oxbow, 2019. ISBN 978-1-78925-030-5, hardcover £55.
Impact of Global Financial Crisis on Islamic Banks of Pakistan
Authors: Muhammad Daniyal  , Hafizullah Rahimi  , Hafiza Ayesha Iftikhar
Published: November 2022

This study aims to compare the financial performance of conventional and Islamic banks, which remains a widely discussed topic after the latter’s development. Literature review suggests that Islamic banks outperformed conventional banks during the global financial crisis of 2008. The collected data supports the premise that the crisis of 2008 had no impact on Islamic banks. This empirical study tests this hypothesis and compares the ratios and stock prices between re, During and post crisis time period of full-fledged Islamic banks operating in Pakistan by conducting ratio analysis. It includes three study periods namely pre-crisis (2006), during crisis (2007-2009), and post-crisis (2010-2020). The findings states that the ratios and stock prices remain unchanged during the crisis. Through the application of Univariate Analysis of Variance (UAV), this study asserts that the asset turnover ratios of banks and stock return remained unaffected by the crisis. In contrast, Islamic banks profitability, efficiency, risk management, liquidity, asset quality, and Earning per share ratios were extensively affected by the said crisis.
Effect of Earnings Management on the Firm Value of the Listed Nigerian Oil and Gas Companies
Authors: Ahmed Adamu , Ibrahim Ali
Published: November 2022

The current research seeks to gather empirical data regarding the effect of earnings management on the firm value of the listed Nigerian oil and gas companies. This research is based on the data collected for a period of 13 years, that is, 2008-2020. Using the annual reports and accounts of listed oil and gas firms, data were collected through secondary sources. As of December 2020, all thirteen (13) listed oil and gas companies on the Nigerian stock exchange made up the study population. A panel data approach was used with random and fixed effect regression. The results confirmed that earnings management has a significant negative effect on firm value. This suggests that investors do recognize earnings manipulation and, as a result, it discounts the firm's value. This usually leads to a low firm value.  Therefore, this study recommends that earnings management practice should be constrained effectively due to its negative effect on a firm value.
Kinematic indicators in Riphean carbonate rocks of the Siberian Platform Western framing (on the example of the Alad’inskaya Formation)
Authors: Noskova E. S. , Agafonova G. V.
Published: November 2022

Introduction. New data on the structure of sections of the Middle Riphean Alad’inskaya Formation at the Kamenskaya subzone of the Yenisei Range (r. Irkineeva) were obtained. These sections indicate the tectonic nature of brecciated and banded dolomite varieties with the associated areas of cavern development, representing promising objects of oil and gas exploration works.

Aim. To substantiate the tectonic nature and structural confinement of cavern development areas in dolomites of the Alad’inskaya Formation.

Materials and methods. The sections of Alad’inskaya Formation carbonates, located along the Irkineeva river, were studied, including determination of the sample phase composition by the X-ray diffraction method (ARL X’TRA) and examination of samples in sections (Leica DMLR) and by a scanning electron microscope (TESCAN VEGA 3 LMH). Kinematic indicators were studied and classified; a model of structural formation in carbonate rocks was substantiated.

Results. A detailed layer-wise description of the studied section, illustrated by various-scale images, was carried out. The kinematic indicators of specified rocks with a reference to a particular section were revealed, described and systematized. A conclusion is made about the genetic association of dolomite breccia, banded dolomites, and cavern development areas with a local thrust, observed at the base of the studied section.

Conclusion. The tectonic nature of brecciated and banded dolomites of the Alad’inskaya Formation and the structural control of cavern development areas are substantiated. As a result, the model of structural formation in lamellar carbonates under longitudinal compression is verified.
Microbial carbonate rocks: composition, structures, textures, mechanisms and environments of formation. Emergence of the doctrine of microbial formations and their forms. Article 1
Authors: Kuznetsov V. G. , Zhuravleva L. M.
Published: November 2022

Introduction. Concepts describing bacterial effects on mineral formation and, first of all, on the formation of carbonate deposits, started to appear late in the 19th century both in Russia and globally. The precipitation of materials was demonstrated to take place directly at the sedimentation stage and continue in the formed precipitate during diagenetic processes. Research in this direction has recently intensified. Rocks and their constituent parts formed as a result of bacterial activity have been referred to as “biosedimentary structures” or “microbiolites”.

Aim. The paper presents the results of generalization and systematization of accumulated research data on the abovementioned forms.

Materials and methods. In addition to literature materials, carbonate rocks of various ages – from the Vendian and Lower Cambrian of the Siberian platform to the Crimea Neogene and sediments of contemporary oceans – were examined using macro- and microscopic (mainly) methods of studying and describing specific objects. Article 1 considers the main morphological types of such carbonate formations, both in the form of individual structural components of sedimentary rocks and rocks themselves with peculiar structural characteristics.

Results. Two main morphological groups of carbonate microbiolites were identified and characterized. The first group represents individual and independent forms of carbonate material, both of calcite, highly magnesian-dolomite and even pure magnesite composition. This type includes mineralized precipitates of bacterial forms represented by coccolites, tubules, filaments, as well as by plate and sheet structures – mineralized glycocalyx traces. In addition, this group features isolated carbonate objects, familiar to lithologists, including oolites, oncolites, microclusters of pelitomorphic carbonate materials, thrombolites and, apparently, such specific formations as tubiphytes, etc. The second group includes laminated forms of stromatolites with their specific internal structure, as well as mineralized microbial films and mats with a complex structure, etc.

Conclusions. In the overwhelming majority of cases, microbiolites are formed at the sedimentation stage, and their morphology and type are determined by specific paleogeographic and paleoclimatic conditions.