The historical relevance of the Thera (Santorini) volcanic eruption is unclear because of major dating uncertainty. Long placed ~1500 BCE and during the Egyptian New Kingdom (starts ~1565-1540 BCE) ...by archaeologists, .sup.14 C pointed to dates greater than or equal to50-100 years earlier during the preceding Second Intermediate Period. Several decades of debate have followed with no clear resolution of the problem-despite wide recognition that this uncertainty undermines an ability to synchronize the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean in the mid-second millennium BCE and write wider history. Recent work permits substantial progress. Volcanic CO.sub.2 was often blamed for the discrepancy. However, comparison of .sup.14 C dates directly associated with the eruption from contemporary Aegean contexts-both on and remote from Thera-can now remove this caveat. In turn, using Bayesian analysis, a revised and substantially refined date range for the Thera eruption can be determined, both through the integration of the large .sup.14 C dataset relevant to the Thera eruption with the local stratigraphic sequence on Thera immediately prior to the eruption, and in conjunction with the wider stratigraphically-defined Aegean archaeological sequence from before to after the eruption. This enables a robust high-resolution dating for the eruption ~1606-1589 BCE (68.3% probability), ~1609-1560 BCE (95.4% probability). This dating clarifies long-disputed synchronizations between Aegean and East Mediterranean cultures, placing the eruption during the earlier and very different Second Intermediate Period with its Canaanite-Levantine dominated world-system. This gives an importantly altered cultural and historical context for the New Palace Period on Crete and the contemporary Shaft Grave era in southern Greece. In addition, the revised dating, and a current absence of southern Aegean chronological data placed soon afterwards, highlights a period of likely devastating regional eruption impact in the earlier-mid 16.sup.th century BCE southern Aegean.
The history of leaving an individual mark behind reaches back to at least the Palaeolithic age, when early humans left negative imprints of their hands on the walls of caves. These negative ...handprints were produced by blowing pigment onto one hand, so that its life-sized outline would stay visible.1 In past societies with developed writing systems, such as ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire, written name tags would appear on man-made and natural surroundings, such as the walls and floors of buildings or caves as well as on rocks or trees.2 Even if a name was not always unique, it was a person's official identifier and therefore the personal mark left behind most frequently. In the same literate societies, however, we also find handprints left as personal traces3--like the written tags of the same eras, these were either incised into a surface with sharp stones or metal writing implements, or drawn in colour. Apparently, these hands, as a kind of physical imprint, were understood as individual markers in the same way as name tags and portrait sketches (which sometimes bore the addition of a name), even if they occur much more rarely than their written counterparts in Roman times. This paper was presented at the international conference "Tag. Name Writing in Public Space" at the John-F.-Kennedy Institut, Freie Universitat Berlin in September 2017. The event centred neither on personal marks nor graffiti in general, however, but on the practice of tagging. Tagging is part of modern graffiti culture, and tags--informal, non-commissioned inscriptions of names by visitors, passers-by, and inhabitants--form a large part of historical graffiti as well. The term graffiti is, nonetheless, a problematic one when one regards the diverse practices and forms to which it is usually applied and the eras they span (from historical graffiti to modern street art). The tags therefore represent an appropriate selection to avoid or minimalise the methodological difficulties in bringing together material from different cultures and times. This essay deals with one of the few large collections of ancient graffiti we possess: those from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, situated in the region of Campania on the southwestern coast of Italy.
This book is the first comprehensive monographic treatment of the New Kingdom (1539–1078 BCE) necropolis at Saqqara, the burial ground of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, and addresses questions ...fundamental to understanding the site’s development through time. For example, why were certain areas of the necropolis selected for burial in certain time periods; what were the tombs’ spatial relations to contemporaneous and older monuments; and what effect did earlier structures have on the positioning of tombs and structuring of the necropolis in later times? This study adopts landscape biography as a conceptual tool to study the long-time interaction between people and landscapes.
In Pharaonic Egypt, where donkey was the main beast of burden, which of this animal’s characteristic traits or situations could be paralleled with those of men? The author examines this question ...through two types of sources, both dated from the New Kingdom (1550–1050 BC). On the one hand, the comparisons and identifications between Egyptians and donkeys in didactic literature are explored; the animal is used to portray very contrasted characters, from disobedient student to overburdened soldier. On the other hand, the anthropomorphic representations of donkeys are presented, and the goal of such depictions are discussed.
The appearance of new media and its enormous diffusion in the last decades of the 20th century and up to the present has greatly increased and diversified the reception of Egyptian themes and motifs ...and Egyptian influence in various cultural spheres. So-called ‘popular’ or ‘pop’ culture (cinema, genre fiction, TV-series, comics, graffiti, computer and video games, rock and heavy music, radio serials, among others) often makes use of narratives and motifs drawn from the observation and study of ancient Egypt, updated and reinterpreted in various ways, and which is now the subject of study by scholars of Egyptology. The present monograph seeks to provide new evidence of this interdisciplinarity between Egyptology and popular culture. It explores the conscious reinterpretation of the past in the work of contemporary authors, who shape an image of the Egyptian reality that in each case is determined by their own circumstances and contexts.
Oral pathologies in ancient human remains provide a unique glimpse into the lifestyles, health, and societal norms of past civilizations, including ancient Egypt. However, comprehensive ...paleo-odontological studies accounting for temporal and sociodemographic variations remain scarce. We address this gap by analyzing oral pathologies in the remains of 68 and 57 adult individuals, respectively, unearthed from two adjacent yet temporally and socioeconomically diverse burial sites, representing the XIth dynasty (2160–1985 BCE) and the XXVth-XXVIth dynasties (948–525 BCE), at Luxor's Thutmose III Funerary Temple.
We examined dental wear, carious and periapical lesions, periodontal disease, and temporomandibular joint alterations, hypothesizing that dental wear correlates with age, lifestyle, and diet. We also postulated a link between higher caries frequency and elevated social status and posited the enhanced efficacy of evaluating interdental septa over measuring the alveolar bone-cementoenamel junction distance for periodontitis assessment.
Our findings confirm pronounced dental wear in both sites, with the XIth dynasty showing more severe wear, indicating differing dietary habits. While similar across the younger age groups, the later dynasties showed a significantly higher caries frequency than the XIth dynasty, in the older age groups. Furthermore, our results underscore the superior accuracy of evaluating interdental septa for periodontal disease assessment.
Variations in oral health, sociodemographic, and dietary trends across the studied burial sites, deepen our understanding of human health trajectories. Additionally, our methodology emphasizes paleo-odontology's vital role in deciphering the nuanced health-environment relationship in ancient societies, laying a foundation for subsequent investigations.
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