This book gives a structured account of Egypt's transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule by identifying key relationships between ecology, land tenure, taxation, administration and politics. It ...introduces theoretical perspectives from the social sciences and subjects them to empirical scrutiny using data from Greek and Demotic papyri as well as comparative evidence. Although building on recent scholarship, it offers some provocative arguments that challenge prevailing views. For example, patterns of land ownership are linked to population density and are seen as one aspect of continuity between the Ptolemaic and Roman period. Fiscal reform, by contrast, emerges as a significant mechanism of change not only in the agrarian economy but also in the administrative system and the whole social structure. Anyone seeking to understand the impact of Roman rule in the Hellenistic east must consider the well-attested processes in Egypt that this book seeks to explain.
In a series of studies, Ian Moyer explores the ancient history and modern historiography of relations between Egypt and Greece from the fifth century BCE to the early Roman empire. Beginning with ...Herodotus, he analyzes key encounters between Greeks and Egyptian priests, the bearers of Egypt's ancient traditions. Four moments unfold as rich micro-histories of cross-cultural interaction: Herodotus' interviews with priests at Thebes; Manetho's composition of an Egyptian history in Greek; the struggles of Egyptian priests on Delos; and a Greek physician's quest for magic in Egypt. In writing these histories, the author moves beyond Orientalizing representations of the Other and colonial metanarratives of the civilizing process to reveal interactions between Greeks and Egyptians as transactional processes in which the traditions, discourses and pragmatic interests of both sides shaped the outcome. The result is a dialogical history of cultural and intellectual exchanges between the great civilizations of Greece and Egypt.
•Different types of Iron Age pottery share mineral temper in postglacial landscape.•Production process of Burnished pottery differ from other contemporary types.•Silt in pottery aids provenance ...determination in postglacial environment.•Burnished pottery was made locally.
This article explores the technological aspects of pottery from Lithuania during the pre-Roman and Roman periods, aiming to uncover the distinctive characteristics of Burnished pottery in comparison to Late Striated and other common contemporary ceramics. A secondary objective of this study is to illuminate the potential for provenancing in a glacial-formed environment and to shed light on the elusive origins of Burnished pottery. These objectives were pursued through the application of ceramic petrography and chemical analysis via pXRF on 88 pottery samples collected from ten archaeological sites. Petrographic analysis revealed differences in temper size and firing conditions between Burnished and Late Striated pottery, but chemical signatures between the various pottery types appeared indistinguishable. Furthermore, it was observed that the size, shape, and quantity of fine natural inclusions in the ceramic matrix of petrographic samples often differed between sites. However, these characteristics overlapped between Burnished pottery and some samples of other contemporary pottery types which were made with finer clay and were found at the same site. The observed results led to the conclusion that nearly every aspect of the Chaîne Opératoire of the production process differed between Burnished pottery and the other common contemporary types. Despite these technological differences, the majority of Burnished wares were likely produced locally. Additionally, a combination of chemical and petrographic analysis could be employed for provenance determination in glacial-formed environments. However, occasional overlap of chemical and petrographic data between sites could lead to incorrect ascriptions of provenance.
The aim of this paper is to provide new data on forest management and arboricultural practices in the Roman and Late Antique periods in the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula. In this study, the ...waterlogged branches found in three wells at the sites of Iesso and Vilauba in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula were analysed. To determine management practices the roundwood method, based on the correlation between age and diameter, has been applied. The study has revealed the presence of a wide range of species collected on surrounding forests, especially in riparian forest. Moreover, it is remarkable the abundance of fruit trees at both sites, being the most abundant Prunus sp. The comparison of the archaeological branches with a reference collection of modern twigs from cultivated and non-managed individuals of the Prunaceae family, Salix sp. and Sambucus nigra, has provided clear evidence of management practices in these taxa. In addition, direct evidence of pruning was observed on some branches of Vitis vinifera.
This article resumes the presentation of the archaeological finds discovered at Tropaeum Traiani, in Sector A (north of Basilica A) between 2005 and 2016. The main purposes of the archaeological ...investigations are to verify the hypothesis of the existence of some annexes of Basilica A on its northern side and, within a broader perspective, to uncover and research the entire insula delimited by the decumanus, cardo, AV1 and ABV IV streets. The authors have focused on the drinking vessels resulting from the excavation ; 77 fragments of drinking vessels, of various types, are analysed and catalogued, their study providing valuable information regarding the daily life of the city’s inhabitants.
În articolul de față se continuă prezentarea materialelor arheologice descoperite la Tropaeum Traiani, în Sectorul A (la nord de Basilica A), în anii 2005– 2016. Scopul principal al cercetărilor este verificarea ipotezei existenţei unor anexe ale Basilicii A pe latura nordică a edificiului și, într‑o perspectivă mai largă, se urmărește dezvelirea şi cercetarea întregii insula, cuprinsă între străzile decumanus, cardo, AV1 și ABV IV. Autoarele se concentrează în acest articol asupra vaselor de băut ; sunt analizate și catalogate 77 de fragmente de vase de băut, de tipuri variate, studiul lor oferind informații prețioase privind viața de zi cu zi a locuitorilor orașului.
Coastal areas are very dynamic environments where natural and man-induced modifications often interact. This is the case of the Graeco-Roman town of Elea-Velia, along the Cilento coast of southern ...Italy. The town was founded in the 6th century BCE on a hilly promontory bounded by two profound gulfs and assumed a prominent role in maritime commercial routes in the Graeco-Roman period. It declined in the Late Antiquity and was abandoned in the Middle Ages also due to serious landscape changes. In this study, the integration of geomorphology, borehole stratigraphy and analysis of archaeo-stratigraphical trenches was used to detail the relationship between geological and archaeological evidence. The huge amount of collected data allowed providing chronological constraints to the landscape modification occurred before and after the town foundation. The main environmental changes consisted in enhanced coastal progradation and alluvial fan deposition that mainly affected the lower quarters of the town. The results of this study suggest that alluvial flooding was one of the main causes of the Elea-Velia decline and subsequent abandonment. The increasing disruption of slope stability was driven by the neglect in the management of the hillslopes behind the town during periods of social-economic crisis, but a concomitant climate forcing cannot be excluded. To the final abandonment also contributed the declining of harbour activities and the consequent decreased relevance of Elea-Velia as a maritime centre.
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•The town of Elea-Velia was built on a promontory bounded by two gulfs.•Severe landscape modification occurred since the foundation of the town.•Coastal progradation caused the shifting of the coast from the town.•Man induced alluvial flooding caused the burial and abandonment of Elea-Velia.
Earth's climate history is often understood by breaking it down into constituent climatic epochs
. Over the Common Era (the past 2,000 years) these epochs, such as the Little Ice Age
, have been ...characterized as having occurred at the same time across extensive spatial scales
. Although the rapid global warming seen in observations over the past 150 years does show nearly global coherence
, the spatiotemporal coherence of climate epochs earlier in the Common Era has yet to be robustly tested. Here we use global palaeoclimate reconstructions for the past 2,000 years, and find no evidence for preindustrial globally coherent cold and warm epochs. In particular, we find that the coldest epoch of the last millennium-the putative Little Ice Age-is most likely to have experienced the coldest temperatures during the fifteenth century in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, during the seventeenth century in northwestern Europe and southeastern North America, and during the mid-nineteenth century over most of the remaining regions. Furthermore, the spatial coherence that does exist over the preindustrial Common Era is consistent with the spatial coherence of stochastic climatic variability. This lack of spatiotemporal coherence indicates that preindustrial forcing was not sufficient to produce globally synchronous extreme temperatures at multidecadal and centennial timescales. By contrast, we find that the warmest period of the past two millennia occurred during the twentieth century for more than 98 per cent of the globe. This provides strong evidence that anthropogenic global warming is not only unparalleled in terms of absolute temperatures
, but also unprecedented in spatial consistency within the context of the past 2,000 years.
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