The Prehistoric Periods is the first volume in a series of publications where the results of the Danish/ Greek excavations 1995 to 2001 in Ancient Chalkis in Aetolia, are published. For the first time ever, stratigraphically excavated deposits from the Final Neolithic, the Early Helladic, Middle Helladic and the Late Helladic periods in Northwestern Greece are published and presented in their proper scientific contexts. In addition to the archaeological contexts geological surveys in the area and studies in the fauna of marine shells and animal bones from the prehistoric layers are submitted. The results are supported by a series of C14 dates.

Rome's rise to empire is often said to have owed much to the efficiency and military skill of her armies and their technological superiority over barbarian enemies. But just how 'advanced' was Roman military equipment? What were its origins and how did it evolve? The authors of this book have gathered a wealth of evidence from all over the Roman Empire - excavated examples as well as pictorial and documentary sources - to present a picture of what range of equipment would be available at any given time, what it would look like and how it would function. They examine how certain pieces were adopted from Rome's enemies and adapted to particular conditions of warfare prevailing in different parts of the Empire. They also investigate in detail the technology of military equipment and the means by which it was produced, and discuss wider questions such as the status of the soldier in Roman society. Both the specially prepared illustrations and the text have been completely revised for the second edition of this detailed and authoritative handbook, bringing it up to date with the very latest research. It illustrates each element in the equipment of the Roman soldier, from his helmet to his boots, his insignia, his tools and his weapons. This book will appeal to archaeologists, ancient and military historians as well as the generally informed and inquisitive reader.

The temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari at Luxor is one of the most fascinating architectural monuments of Ancient Egypt. It has been explored and reconstructed by Polish archaeologists for several decades and the present volume is the most recent result of these activities. The author tracks the history of the sanctuary in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods when it housed a lively cult of two Ancient Egyptian `saints', the deified sages Amenhotep son of Hapu and Imhotep. The book contains the complete edition of Greek sources connected to this cult, including 320 inscriptions left by pilgrims on the walls of the temple, as well as several ostraca and votive monuments. On the basis of this material, different aspects of the cult are discussed in a synthetic part of the book. These include: the topography of the cult and its history; gods worshipped in the temple; forms of the cult; the economic side of the cult; the visitors of the temple. The study closes with a chapter devoted to Deir el-Bahari in the Late Antique period when the place was frequented by a pagan corporation of ironworkers from Hermonthis.

TRAC 2005 was held at the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham, under the auspices of The Roman Society. Of the twenty-three papers delivered here, this volume presents eight, plus three special contributions. These three papers were commissioned to mark the fifteenth year of TRAC with the intention that they should take stock of TRAC to date and look to where it may go in the future. A very clear message is conveyed: that TRAC must continue to evolve and that a continued existence in its current form, though possible, will ultimately fail to realise further success. In seeking to engage with new ideas and theories, the endeavour symbolised by the first conference, to bring theory from the margins of Roman archaeology, continues today.

This volume of the JRPS celebrates the career of Kay Hartley, described by Sheppard Frere as "the oracle on Romano-British mortaria". She has been associated with a number of important excavations, such as Heronbridge and Much Hadham, and it has been said of her that "no serious excavation report of the Roman period can be completed without either a contribution from her, or a reference to her work."

The book collects 13 papers delivered at a conference held in Warsaw in April 2004, devoted to the memory of an eminent Warsaw Papyrologist and Romanist, Henryk Kupiszewski. The authors of the book, leading scholars in the field of Legal History, Roman Law and Canon Law studies as well as Papyrology, used different methodological tools, proper for their disciplines, to present the multifaceted reality of marriage in Graeco-Roman Antiquity.

This is a facsimile reprint of the trail-blazing book by David Oates, originally published by the British Academy in 1968 and out-of-print for too long. It is primarily the report of his survey and excavation of sites in northern Iraq between 1954 and 1958, but it is at the same time a memorial to the great explorer, Sir Aurel Stein, whose pioneer fieldwork on the Roman frontiers in Iraq in 1938-39 provided the initial stimulus.

The study of Roman imperial statues has made remarkable strides in the last two decades. Yet the field's understandable focus on extant portraits has made it difficult to generalise accurately. Most notably, bronze was usually the material of choice, but its high scrap value meant that such statues were inevitably melted down, so that almost all surviving statues are of stone. By examining the much larger and more representative body of statue bases, Jakob Munk Højte is here able to situate the statues themselves in context. This volume includes a catalogue of 2300 known statue bases from nearly 800 sites throughout the Roman Empire. Moreover, since it covers a period of 250 years, it allows for the first time consistent geographic, chronological and commemorative patterns to emerge. Højte finds among other things that imperial portrait statues are connected chiefly with urban centres; that they were raised continuously during a given reign, with a higher concentration a couple years after accession; that a primary purpose was often to advertise a donor's merits; and that they increased six-fold in frequency from Augustus to Hadrian, an increase attributable to community dedications.

Excavations have uncovered important new evidence of the second century AD Roman pottery industry, with up to eight kilns and a probable potters' workshop recorded on the west side of a major tributary of the Walbrook stream. Two distinct phases of production can be seen, and a stock of unused Samian ware from a pit suggests that pottery may have been sold in a shop attached to the production centre. The pottery industry went into decline in the latter half of the second century, though scattered structures, pitting and dumping were associated with the site in the third and fourth centuries. Research shows that the Roman kilns were producing Verulamium region white ware, linking them to the Verulamium industry, one of the most important regional producers of highly Romanised wares and specialist products such as mortaria.

Chatzidakis scrutinizes the first evidence for Mystras, before the Frankish Conquest of 1249; the city's acme, under the Franks (from 1249 to 1262), and subsequently, in the days of the Kantakouzenoi and the Palaiologoi; and again when, as capital of the Despotate of the Morea (from 1348 to 1460), Mystras became "the centre and very soul of the Peloponnese", a city in constant communication, politically and culturally, with the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople itself. And indeed the rich decoration of Mystras' churches - the Metropolis, the Aphendiko, the Peribleptos, or the Pantanassa, for instance - is a brilliant example of Constantinople's art at its greatest. Chatzidakis also has a chapter about each of the monuments and its architecture, painting, and sculptured decoration, with notes on the minor chapels. The Castle, the walls, the palaces, and the houses - the indispensable framework for a better understanding of the art of Byzantine Mystras - are examined in the last part of the book.This new edition retains the author's original text in its original form, comprising a detailed study of the monuments and the city over the centuries. All that is new is the additions and adjustments made necessary by recent findings, the result of conservation and restoration work on the archaeological site by the Fifth Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities (Sparta). Essential additions have also been made to the chapter on the Museum: these are due to the recent new exhibition on display since 2001, and in particular to the conservation and study of the dress of the Byzantine princess. This edition also has the benefit of new photographs of the site and the monuments.

Olympia is part of the volume entitled "treasures of the Greek Museums" which introduces the reader to the priceless works of art housed in the museums of Greece. The texts, written by experts, furnish details of the historical and cultural context of these masterpieces. The most important achaeological sites are also presented, with exclusive aerial photographs and other lavish illustrations.

A renewed interest in chronological problems has surfaced in recent years. In this volume deriving from the first international conference of the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Black Sea Studies thirteen contributions by scholars from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, USA, Canada, Belgium and Denmark review and discuss the elements on which the chronology used in Black Sea archaeology and history in the period c. 400-100 BC is built up. The subjects include: amphora and amphora stamp chronologies (Mark Lawall; Sergej Ju. Monachov; Niculae Conovici; Vladimir Stolba), coin chronology (François de Callataÿ), the Athenian pottery (Susan I. Rotroff), epigraphic evidence (Jakob Munk Højte), and a number of case studies presenting the material on which is based the dating of a series of Greek and barbarian/non-Greek sites and burial monuments on the northern shores of the Black Sea (Valentina V. Krapivina; Valeria Bylkova; Lise Hannestad, Miron I. Zolotarev, Ju. P. Zaytsev, Valentina I. Mordvinceva).

This collection of seventeen essays explores the dramatic changes in Western conceptions of the body, encompassing the cultural shifts that occurred across Empire, religion and science, from antiquity to the eighteenth century.

The ordinary people who made up the largest section of the population in the cities and towns in the Roman world were largely ignored by contemporary writers and have often been marginalised in traditional studies of Roman urbanism, but research into their patterns of work and social interaction have increased markedly in recent years. This book has come out of a conference on 'Roman Working Lives and Urban Living' held at the University of Durham in 2001. The conference was planned as a forum for people researching urban space and architecture, commercial and retail structures, organisation of craft activity and social theory. The twelve papers presented here have been organised into two categories: Urban living and the settings for working lives and People at work: Owners, and artisans, crafts and professions . The range of topics and variety of approaches in the papers emphasise the wealth of the material available, and it is hoped that this will stimulate further research into the lives of the 'silent voices' of Roman urban society.

The Augustan elegiac poet Sextus Propertius composed four books of elegies; erotic, political, and personal, in the first two decades of the reign of the emperor Augustus. Propertius unique combination of passionate commitment to love and life with profound Hellenistic learning and wit has endowed his elegies with a vividness and variety which still fascinates after two thousand years. Of the four books of Propertius, Book 2 has always presented the most impenetrable, difficulties of text and interpretation. Paolo Fedelis major commentary on the book, written in lucid and elegant Italian, brings to bear on it the learning and judgement acquired in a lifetime of engagement with and experience of the work of Propertius. Its thorough and detailed treatments of the elegies of Book 2 will greatly improve the accessibility of these complex and tantalising poems to both scholars and students. Translation and Commentary in Italian