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55 results in Archaeology

Page 1 of 3

Glazed Ceramics of the Islamic World 700–1600 CE

Glazed Ceramics of the Islamic World 700–1600 CE
  • Moujan Matin, Michael Tite
  • Published online:
    17 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025
    • Element
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  • Of all the material culture of the Islamic World prior to the sixteenth century, only ceramics survive in a way which forms a continuous representative visual history. As such, ceramics provide a unique collection of material from which to study the history of technology. The main technological developments associated with glazed Islamic ceramics were the introduction of tin-opacified glazes, stonepaste bodies, and an extended range of colorants. For each of these developments, consideration is given to the reasons why new technologies were introduced, from where the ideas for the new technologies originated, and why particular technological choices were made. In addition, brief consideration is given both to the very different glaze technologies employed in contemporary China, and to the subsequent spread of the glazed Islamic technology into Western Europe.
In Search of National Ancestors

In Search of National Ancestors
  • Heritage, Identity and Placemaking in China
  • Shu-Li Wang
  • Published online:
    08 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025
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  • This Element examines how international heritage discourses are internalized and reshaped in China, using the Yellow Emperor cults as a lens to explore broader themes of intangible heritage, religious resurgence, and identity construction. The central argument is that cultural heritage serves as a powerful tool for shaping new religious expressions and enabling Chinese localities to assert their uniqueness while redefining historical narratives. Through case studies of several localities across China, this research illustrates how these regions engage in heritage competition by branding themselves with Yellow Emperor culture to shape their identities. This study argues that the cult of the Yellow Emperor-a legendary figure-is empowered by nationalism, a local search for tradition and religious revivals, and is further amplified by international discourses that reinforce national identity through heritage-making. Together, these forces drive the resurgence of ancestral cults and contribute to cultural identity formation in contemporary China.

Rome in the Tenth Century
  • A History in Art
  • John Osborne
  • Published online:
    01 April 2025
    Print publication:
    24 April 2025
  • This is the third and final volume in a series examining the history of Rome in the early Middle Ages (700–1000 CE) through the primary lens of the city's material culture. The previous volumes examined the eighth and the ninth centuries respectively. John Osborne uses buildings (both religious and domestic), their decorations, other works of painting and sculpture, inscriptions, manuscripts, ceramics, metalwork, and coins as 'documents' to supplement what can be gleaned from more traditional written sources such as the Liber pontificalis. The overall approach is particularly appropriate for tenth-century Rome, which has traditionally been considered a 'dark age', given recent research on standing monuments and the large amount of new material brought to light in archaeological excavations undertaken over the last four decades. This magnificent and beautifully illustrated volume provides a triumphant conclusion to a series which will be indispensable for all those interested in early medieval Rome.
The Shang Economy

The Shang Economy
  • Roderick Campbell
  • Published online:
    27 March 2025
    Print publication:
    10 April 2025
  • This Element constitutes a systematic attempt to preliminarily reconstruct the Shang economy based on contemporary archaeological and textual evidence. At the same time, the rapid pace of Chinese archaeological discovery and the increasing deployment of archaeological science means that there is a wealth of new information making a new synthesis both challenging and necessary. This synthesis was written from the perspective that the study of ancient economy necessarily proceeds from the construction of models and the systematic exploration of principal economic components, including their articulation and change over time. Setting the Shang in comparative context with other ancient economies in this series, those principal components are the domestic and institutional economy, specialization, forms of exchange, and diachronic developments. It is hoped that with this organization, comparison with other ancient economies can be more easily made and the significance of the Shang case more clearly seen.

Amazons
  • The History Behind the Legend
  • David Braund
  • Published online:
    26 March 2025
    Print publication:
    24 April 2025
  • The idea of the Amazons is one of the most romantic and resonant in all antiquity. Greeks were fascinated by images and tales of these fierce female fighters. At Troy, Achilles' duel with Penthesilea was a clash of superman and superwoman. Achilles won the fight, but the queen's dying beauty had torn into his soul. This vibrant new book offers the first complete picture of the reality behind the legends. It shows there was much more to the Amazons than a race of implacable warrior women. David Braund casts the Amazons in a new light: as figures of potent agency, founders of cities, guileful and clever as well as physically impressive and sexually alluring to men. Black Sea mythologies become key to unlocking the Amazons' mystery. Investigating legend through history, literature, and archaeology, the author uncovers a truth as surprising and evocative as any fiction told through story or myth.
Making Memories in Ancient Egypt

Making Memories in Ancient Egypt
  • Leire Olabarria
  • Published online:
    24 March 2025
    Print publication:
    17 April 2025
  • Memory is a fascinating way to approach modern and ancient cultures, as it raises questions about what, why, and how individuals and groups remember. Egyptology has had a major impact on the development of memory studies, with Jan Assmann's notion of cultural memory becoming a widespread model within the humanities. Despite this outstanding contribution of Egyptology to memory studies, remarkably few recent works on ancient Egypt deal with memory from a theoretical and methodological point of view. This Element provides a general introduction to memory, followed by a discussion of the role of materiality and performativity in the process of remembering. A case study from Middle Kingdom Abydos illustrates how memory can be embodied in the monumental record of ancient Egypt. The purpose of this Element is to present an up-to-date introduction to memory studies in Egyptology and to invite the reader to rethink how and why memory matters.

The Pottery Industries of the Roman East
  • Craft Communities and Working Practices
  • Elizabeth A. Murphy
  • Published online:
    20 March 2025
    Print publication:
    03 April 2025
  • What was the social experience of work in the ancient world? In this study, Elizabeth Murphy approaches the topic through the lens offered by a particular set of workers, the potters and ceramicists in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Her research exploits the rich and growing dataset of workshops and production evidence from the Roman East and raises awareness of the unique features of this particular craft in this region over several centuries. Highlighting the multi-faceted working experience of professionals through a theoretically-informed framework, Murphy reconstructs the complex lives of people in the past, and demonstrates the importance of studying work and labor as central topics in social and cultural histories. Her research draws from the fields of archaeology, social history and anthropology, and applies current social theories --- communities of practice, technological choices, chaîne opératoire, cultural hybridity,  taskscapes – to interpret and offer new insights into the archaeological remains of workshops and ceramics.
The Emergence of Aegean Prehistory

The Emergence of Aegean Prehistory
  • Andrew Shapland
  • Published online:
    17 March 2025
    Print publication:
    10 April 2025
  • This Element focusses on the emergence of Aegean Prehistory as a discipline, starting with the first recorded encounters with prehistoric monuments and artefacts and ending with the decipherment of Linear B in 1952. It broadens the history of Aegean Bronze Age archaeology as told in popular accounts as a series of excavations of great men, particularly Heinrich Schliemann at Troy and Mycenae and Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos. Though their work is of fundamental importance for the discipline, here it is placed within wider political, institutional and intellectual frameworks. This Element also provides an overview of the work of many other archaeologists across the Aegean and the regional and historical context in which they operated. It provides a brief but comprehensive history of the formative stages of the study of Aegean Prehistory.
Archaeological Wood and Woodworking

Archaeological Wood and Woodworking
  • Caroline Arbuckle Macleod
  • Published online:
    14 March 2025
    Print publication:
    10 April 2025
  • Wood is, and always has been, one of the most common and versatile materials for creating structures and art. It is therefore also a ubiquitous element of the archaeological record. This discussion of the study of archaeological wood introduces a number of approaches to the analysis of these organic remains, including a brief overview of wood science, factors that impact the survival of wood materials, wood anatomy, and dendrochronology. These sections are intended to help archaeologists and other interested non-specialists prepare to encounter archaeological woods, and to understand the potential scientific data that these remains could contribute to our understanding of the human past. This is followed by additional approaches from the social sciences. The study of woodworking techniques and toolmarks, combined with ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology, can push wood analyses further. A combination of these approaches can help to create a more holistic view of humankind's relationship to wood.

Religious Architecture and Roman Expansion
  • Temples, Terracottas, and the Shaping of Identity, 3rd-1st c. BCE
  • Sophie Crawford-Brown
  • Published online:
    06 March 2025
    Print publication:
    06 March 2025
  • Religious Architecture and Roman Expansion uses architectural terracottas as a lens for examining the changing landscape of central Italy during the period of Roman military expansion, and for asking how local communities reacted to this new political reality. It emphasizes the role of local networks and exchange in the creation of communal identity, as well as the power of visual expression in the formulation and promotion of local history. Through detailed analyses of temple terracottas, Sophie Crawford-Brown sheds new light on 'Romanization' and colonization processes between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE.  She investigates the interactions between colonies and indigenous communities, asking why conquerors might visually emulate the conquered, and what this can mean for power relations in colonial situations. Finally, Crawford-Brown explores the role of objects in creating cultural memory and the intensity of our need for collective history-even when that 'history' has been largely invented.
Will Heritage Save Us?

Will Heritage Save Us?
  • Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Sustainable Development Turn
  • Chiara Bortolotto
  • Published online:
    24 February 2025
    Print publication:
    20 March 2025
  • Drawing on extensive ethnographic engagement with the social world of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, this Element explores the mainstreaming of sustainable development principles in the heritage field. It illustrates how, while deeply entwined in the UN standardizing framework, sustainability narratives are expanding the frontiers of heritage and unsettling conventional understandings of its social and political functions. Ethnographic description of UNESCO administrative practices and case studies explain how the sustainabilization of intangible cultural heritage entails a fundamental shift in perspective: heritage is no longer nostalgically regarded as a fragile relic in need of preservation but as a resource for the future with new purposes and the potential to address broader concerns and anxieties of our times, ranging from water shortages to mental health. This might ultimately mean that the safeguarding endeavor is no longer about us protecting heritage but about heritage protecting us.
Retrospective and Prospective for Scientific Provenance Studies in Archaeology

Retrospective and Prospective for Scientific Provenance Studies in Archaeology
  • A. M. Pollard
  • Published online:
    06 February 2025
    Print publication:
    06 February 2025
  • Provenance has been one of the major scientific applications in archaeology for a hundred years. The 'Golden Age' began in the 1950s, when large programmes were initiated focussing on bronzes, ceramics, and lithics. However, these had varying impact, ranging from wide acceptance to outright rejection. This Element reviews some of these programmes, mainly in Eurasia and North America, focussing on how the complexity of the material, and the effects of human behaviour, can impact on such studies. The conclusion is that provenance studies of lithic materials and obsidian are likely to be reliable, but those on ceramics and metals are increasingly complicated, especially in the light of mixing and recycling. An alternative is suggested, which focusses more on using scientific studies to understand the relationship between human selectivity and processing and the wider resources available, rather than on the simple question of 'where does this object come from'.
Infrared Spectroscopy of Archaeological Sediments

Infrared Spectroscopy of Archaeological Sediments
  • Michael B. Toffolo
  • Published online:
    06 February 2025
    Print publication:
    06 February 2025
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  • Infrared spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between infrared radiation and matter. Its application to the characterization of archaeological sedimentary contexts has produced invaluable insights into the archaeological record and past human activities. This Element aims at providing a practical guide to infrared spectroscopy of archaeological sediments and their contents taken as a dynamic system, in which the different components observed today are the result of multiple formation processes that took place over long timescales. After laying out the history and fundamentals of the discipline, the author proposes a step-by-step methodological framework, both in the field and the laboratory, and guides the reader in the interpretation of infrared spectra of the main components of archaeological sediments with the aid of selected case studies. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Institutions and Environment in Ancient Southern East Asia (3000 BCE to 300 CE)

Institutions and Environment in Ancient Southern East Asia (3000 BCE to 300 CE)
  • Maxim Korolkov
  • Published online:
    01 February 2025
    Print publication:
    30 January 2025
    • Element
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  • Over the past decades, archaeological exploration of southern China has shattered the image of primitive indigenous people and their pristine environments. It is known, for example, that East Asia's largest settlements and hydraulic infrastructures in the third millennium BCE were located in the Yangzi valley, as were some of the most sophisticated metallurgical centers of the following millennium. If southern East Asia was not a backward periphery of the Central Plains, then what created the power asymmetry that made possible 'China's march toward the Tropics'? What did becoming 'Chinese' practically mean for the local populations south of the Yangzi? Why did some of them decide to do so, and what were the alternatives? This Element focuses on the specific ways people in southern East Asia mastered their environment through two forms of cooperation: centralized and intensive, ultimately represented by the states, and decentralized and extensive, exemplified by interaction networks.
Self and Body in Early East Asian Thought

Self and Body in Early East Asian Thought
  • Mark Edward Lewis
  • Published online:
    30 January 2025
    Print publication:
    30 January 2025
  • This Element examines evolving methods of cultivating the embodied self, including healing diseases and creating a superior person, in late Warring States and early imperial East Asia. It analyses many topics, including the textualization of bodily regimens and therapies, their systematization, their dissemination among different (and sometimes rival) social groups, and the diversity of traditions – religious, pharmacological, nourishing of life – that contested and combined to form a hegemonic medical practice. These topics in turn feature several issues: models of the body, regimens of cultivating and extending vitality, models of disease, and therapies for these ailments. All these ideas will be refined and extended through comparison with early Western medical traditions.

The Peopling of the Caucasus
  • Early Human Settlement at the Crossroads of Continents
  • Aram Yardumian, Theodore G. Schurr
  • Published online:
    21 January 2025
    Print publication:
    23 January 2025
  • Located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the Caucasus region has played a critical role in the dissemination of languages, ideas, and cultures since prehistoric times. In this study, Aram Yardumian and Theodore Schurr explore the dispersal of human groups in the Caucasus beginning in the Palaeolithic period. Using evidence from archaeology, linguistics, and anthropological genetics, they trace changes in settlement patterns, cultural practices, and genetic variation. Highlighting the region's ecological diversity, natural resources, and agricultural productivity, Yardumian and Schurr reconstruct the timings and likely migration routes for human settlement following the Last Glacial Maximum, as well as the possible connections to regional economies for these expansions. Based on analysis of archaeological site reports, linguistic relationships, and genetic data previously published separately and in different languages, their synthesis of the most up to date evidence opens new vistas into the chronology and human dynamics of the Caucasus' prehistory.
The Neoliberalisation of Heritage in Africa

The Neoliberalisation of Heritage in Africa
  • Rachel King
  • Published online:
    11 January 2025
    Print publication:
    30 January 2025
  • The landscape of heritage on the African continent is the product of neoliberal economic and social interventions from the 1980s–2000s: the prevalence and influence of heritage NGOs; aid for cultural programmes contingent on government reforms; the use of national heritage policies and projects to signal ready capital; experiments in custodianship and private enterprise that balance conservation with consumerism; and so on. This Element synthesises literature from anthropology, archaeology, history, and geography to describe a significant period of heritage policy and discourse on the African continent – its historical situation, on-the-ground realities, and continuing legacies in the era of sustainable development and climate crises.
Economy and Commodity Production in the Aegean Bronze Age

Economy and Commodity Production in the Aegean Bronze Age
  • Catherine E. Pratt
  • Published online:
    10 January 2025
    Print publication:
    30 January 2025
  • This Element does not discuss every aspect of the economy. Rather, it focuses on the first stage of an economic cycle − that of production. Two of the major guiding questions are: What products were the Bronze Age palatial states concerned with producing in surplus? And how did the palatial states control the production of these essential commodities? To answer these questions, the Element synthesizes previous work while interspersing its own conclusions on certain sub-topics, especially in light of recent archaeological data that help to fill out a picture incomplete based on textual evidence alone. With these goals in mind, this Element brings together both textual and archaeological data to reconstruct the internal economy and the production of commodities under the purview of Minoan and Mycenaean palatial states.
Economies of the Inca World

Economies of the Inca World
  • R. Alan Covey, Jordan A. Dalton
  • Published online:
    09 January 2025
    Print publication:
    30 January 2025
  • The Inca Empire (c. 1400–1532) was the largest Indigenous state to develop in the Americas, spanning the extraordinarily rich landscapes of the central Andes. Scholarly approaches to Inca-era economies initially drew on Spanish colonial documents that emphasized royal resource monopolies, labor tribute, and kin-based land tenure. Anthropologists in recent decades have emphasized local economic self-sufficiency and the role of reciprocity in Inca economics. This Element adds to the existing literature by reviewing recent archaeological research in the Inca capital region and different provinces. The material evidence and documents indicate considerable variation in the development and implementation of Inca political economy, reflecting an array of local economic practices that were tailored to different Andean environments. Although Inca economic development downplayed interregional trade, emerging evidence indicates the existence of more specialized trading practices in Inca peripheral regions, some of which persisted under imperial rule.

The Ruins of Rome
  • A Cultural History
  • Roland Mayer
  • Published online:
    02 January 2025
    Print publication:
    06 February 2025
  • The beguiling ruins of Rome have a long history of allure. They first engaged the attention of later mediaeval tourists, just as they do today. The interest of travellers was captured in the Renaissance by artists, architects, topographers, antiquarians, archaeologists and writers. Once the ruins were seen to appeal to visitors, and to matter for their aesthetic quality, their protection and attractive presentation became imperative. Rome's ruins were the first to be the object of preservation orders, and novel measures were devised for their conservation in innovative archaeological parks. The city's remains provided models for souvenirs; paintings of them decorated the walls of eighteenth-century English country houses; and picturesque sham Roman ruins sprang up in landscape gardens across Europe. Writers responded in various ways to their emotional appeal. Roland Mayer's attractive new history will delight all those interested in the remarkable survival and preservation of a unique urban environment.

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