This article presents the results of excavations in Early Bronze Age levels at the site of Hamoukar in northeastern Syria. During the 2008 and 2010 field seasons, excavations in the lower town at Hamoukar uncovered evidence for three distinct architectural phases dating to the second half of the third millennium B.C. Prior to these excavations, attention had been focused on the final phase of Early Bronze Age occupation in the lower town, when the settlement was violently destroyed and then abandoned. It is now possible, however, to provide a backstory for the settlement’s violent end and also a more complicated––if still preliminary––account of exactly how the urbanisation process played out at the site. This article presents a summary of the Early Bronze Age stratigraphic sequence in the lower town at Hamoukar and, at the same time, a description of new evidence for the evolution of social, economic, and ritual practice across three phases of urban development. A brief comparison with urban trajectories at two other contemporary sites highlights the heterogeneity of cities and urban dynamics in Early Bronze Age northern Mesopotamia.

This article revisits the editorial history of the Babylonian (Akkadian) version of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) Inscription (DB) to establish the extent of the surviving text in light of a re-examination of the inscription at Mount Bīsotūn (Behistun). Questions arising about the reliability of the standard edition presented in Von Voigtlander (1978) prompted a critical review of her new readings, which significantly expand the text by approximately two-thirds compared to what previous commentators recorded and what is visible on the rock face today. The article focuses on the results of this scrutiny, supported by information from Von Voigtlander’s correspondence with George G. Cameron and Matthew W. Stolper, highlighting the implications of their discussions.

For centuries, the Homeric Question has fuelled fierce debate among scholars. The Homeric epics are widely regarded as having their origins in the Late Bronze Age, with oral transmission continuing until a final redaction in the eighth to second century BCE.

The question of whether a single poet wrote both The Iliad and The Odyssey, the time and place in which Homer(s) worked and lived, and the circumstances of the poems’ final composition are still subjects of discussion.

In the present paper, a fairly simple statistical χ2 analysis has been carried out to evaluate the frequency of the keywords related to metals and weapons, which are mainstays of the material culture of this ancient period.

A thorough examination of The Iliad discloses a pronounced predominance of the keyword ‘bronze’, exhibiting a higher frequency in The Iliad than in The Odyssey. On initial observation, the prevalence of dominance appears to be a consequence of the warlike nature of The Iliad. Notwithstanding, a significant dominance endures even when the intrinsic disparities between the two poems are taken into account and suitably adjusted.

This remarkable discrepancy suggests the potential for distinct authorship, editorial involvement, or redaction locations for The Iliad and The Odyssey.

This brief note corrects an aspect of our 2024 paper looking at the evidence for the route of the Dorchester aqueduct in which we attributed a previously hypothesised route for the aqueduct to Christopher Sparey-Green.

The excavations at Wroxeter conducted by J.P. Bushe-Fox examined a zone of the Roman city very different to the public baths and macellum complex extensively investigated in the later twentieth century. Bushe-Fox’s work in Insula 8 is the best and largest sample of Wroxeter’s residential buildings investigated to date; the focus of this paper is the large number of complete ceramic vessels included in the pits and wells he excavated. Recognition of the act of burying complete vessels, and of that practice as a meaningful tradition in antiquity, has developed over the last 25 years. Revisiting the Bushe-Fox excavations has provided a large body of new evidence for the practising of domestic rituals at Wroxeter.