Throughout history, climate change has been an important driving force behind human behaviour. This archaeological study seeks to understand the complex interrelations between that behaviour and climatic fluctuations, focussing on how climate affected the social relations between neighbouring communities of occasionally differing nature. It is argued that developments in these relations will fall within a continuum between competition on one end and cooperation on the other. The adoption of a particular strategy depends on whether that strategy is advantageous to a community in terms of the maintenance of its well-being when faced with adverse climate change. This model will be applied to northern Mesopotamia between 3000 and 1600 BC. Local palaeoclimate proxy records demonstrate that aridity increased significantly during this period. Within this geographical, chronological, and climatic framework, this study looks at changes in settlement patterns as an indication of competition among sedentary agriculturalist communities, and the development of the Amorite ethnic identity as reflecting cooperation among sedentary and more mobile pastoralist communities.

The scarcity of water is a major problem in many parts of the Near East today and has been so in the past. To survive in such a region people should be able to structurally attain more water than rainfall alone can supply. The archaeology of this area should not only identify when people inhabited such a region and what the character of this habitation was, but also how people were able to survive in such a region and why they chose to live there in the first place. In this book these questions have been studied for the Zerqa Triangle; a region in the middle Jordan Valley around Tell Deir 'Alla (Jordan). By means of a detailed pedestrian archaeological survey the intensity of habitation of the region from the Neolithic to early modern periods is investigated. Efforts have been undertaken to reconstruct the agricultural practices in the various periods and simultaneously the means by which the different communities were able to practice agriculture; in other words, how did they irrigate the land? By focussing on the different social responses of communities, conclusions have been drawn on how and why people managed to create a living in this arid, but potentially very fertile region. This book not only contributes to the ongoing discussion of the archaeology of marginal areas, but also provides a huge amount of new data on the archaeology of the Jordan Valley, both in the form of newly discovered settlement sites from several different periods as well as remains from several more inconspicuous types of human activity present in the countryside.

The international conference "Egypt and Cyprus in Antiquity" held in Nicosia in April 2003 filled an important gap in historical knowledge about Cyprus' relations with its neighbours. While the island's links with the Aegean and the Levant have been well documented and continue to be the subject of much archaeological attention, the exchanges between Cyprus and the Nile Valley are not as well known and have not before been comprehensively reviewed. They range in date from the mid third millennium B. C. to Late Antiquity and encompass every kind of interconnection, including political union. Their novelty lies in the marked differences between the ancient civilisations of Cyprus and Egypt, the distance between them geographically, which could be bridged only by ship, and the unusual ways they influenced each other's material and spiritual cultures. The papers delivered at the conference covered every aspect of the relationship, with special emphasis on the tangible evidence for the movement of goods, people and ideas between the two countries over a 3000 year period.

The great, ninth century palace which Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) built at his new capital of Kalhu/Nimrud has been excavated over 150 years by various expeditions. Each has been rewarded with remarkable antiquities, including the finest ivories found in the ancient Near East, many of which had been brought to Kalhu by the Assyrian kings. The first ivories were discovered by Austen Henry Layard, followed a century later by Max Mallowan, who found superb ivories in Well NN. Neither Layard nor Mallowan was able to empty Well AJ: this was achieved by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage, who retrieved arguably the finest pieces found at Nimrud. Finally, an interesting collection of ivory and bone tubes was found by Muzahim Mahmud, the discoverer of the famous Royal Tombs, in Well 4. This volume publishes for the first time the majority of the ivories found in the Palace by location. These include superb examples carved in Assyria proper and across the Levant from North Syria to Phoenicia and provide an outstanding illustration of the minor arts of the early first millennium. In addition ivories found in the Central Palace of Tiglath-pileser III and fragmentary pieces found in the domestic contexts of the Town Wall Houses are also included. In addition to a detailed catalogue, this book also aims to assess the present state of ivory studies, discussing the political situation in the Levant, the excavation of the palace, the history of study, the various style-groups of ivories and their possible time and place of production. This volume is the sixth in the Ivories from Nimrud series published by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq now known as the British Institute for the Study of Iraq.

The ancient Cypriot collections of the British Museum have inspired the essays in this volume in honour of Veronica Tatton-Brown, who for many years was their curator. Written by her academic colleagues and friends, the themes covered range from funeral rites at Late Bronze Age Enkomi to sculptured portraits of parents and children in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, along with the reconstruction of the Persian siege ramp at Palaipaphos and the history of Cypriot archaeology as revealed in the Museum's archives. The focus on individual objects ranges from the superb craftsmanship of an ivory gaming-box to an intriguing clay model of a dagger and its sheath, in a volume that highlights key points of interest in this rich and varied collection. Thomas Kiely is the Cyprus Curator in the Greek and Roman department of the British Museum.

In the absence of horses, saddle the dogs. This Arab proverb, suggesting the uncompromising determination of nomads to keep moving, whatever the obstacles, epitomizes also the travelling ethos of many early visitors to the 'exotic East'. The journeys examined here are linked by the light they shed on the experience of travel in Egypt, Greece and the Ottoman Balkans, and the Near East from the 17th to the early 20th century not so much what was seen as how one got there and how one got around once arrived; the vicissitudes and travails, both expected and strange that characterised the passage. The purpose of the trips examined range from religious pilgrimages to diplomatic, commercial and military journeys, to middle-class package tours. Each of them is of interest for what it reveals about the realities of travel in Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East at different times: the means by which travel was carried out, the dangers and discomforts encountered and the preparations made. The Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) is a registered educational charity promoting the study of the history of travel and travellers in the eastern Mediterranean, from Greece and the Ottoman Balkans eastward to Turkey and the Levant, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and the Mesopotamian region.

Project Paphlagonia was a multi-period, large-scale programme of regional survey in northcentral Turkey, today the provinces of Çankiri and parts of Karabuek, previously a little explored region. In total, an area of almost 8,500km2 was surveyed between 1997 and 2001, using both extensive and intensive survey techniques. More than 330 sites of archaeological and historical significance were located and recorded. The sites range in date from early prehistoric to Ottoman, and include Palaeolithic camp-sites, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age settlements and cemeteries, fortified defensive sites of the Hittite and other periods, Phrygian villages and burial tumuli, and a wealth of small towns, villages, farmsteads and hill-top refuges of the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and early Turkish periods. This volume, to be used in conjunction with the Project Paphlagonia website presents synthetic treatments of all these periods as well as studies of the geology, geomorphology and climatology of the region. Studies of long-term settlement trends and patterns complete this publication of an important and productive programme of archaeological and historical survey.

In 1979, the world was taken by surprise when the Iranian people revolted against their westernized ruling elite, and traded in the Shah for a radical Islamic republic ruled by the most senior Shiite cleric, ayatollah Khomeini. The Islamic revolution of Iran was a breaking point in history. It was the defining moment for Islam in the twentieth century and fuelled the Islamic confidence that has since then only grown. The roots of the revolution were deeply entrenched in the recent history of Iran, yet in the West, almost no one knew what was happening. The rise of ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic republic seemed to have come out of nowhere. In this book, historian Mark Thiessen tries to answer the most important questions of the Islamic revolution. What happened, and where did it come from? This book explores the background of the revolution, and gives a detailed account of its course. It analyzes the rise of Khomeini, and his ideology. By studying the archives of the Dutch embassy in Tehran, Thiessen finally tries to find out about the way the Dutch mission experienced and interpreted the revolution, at a time when the outcome was not yet clear.

The papers in this collection are the product of the conference "Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors in Ancient Anatolia: An International Conference on Cross-Cultural Interaction," hosted by Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. They cover an impressive range of issues relating to the complex cultural interactions that took place on Anatolian soil over the course of two millennia, in the process highlighting the difficulties inherent in studying societies that are multi-cultural in their make-up and outlook, as well as the role that cultural identity played in shaping those interactions. Topics include possible sources of tension along the Mycenaean-Anatolian interface; the transmission of mythological and religious elements between cultures; the change across time and space in literary motifs as they are adapted to new milieus and new audiences; the ways in which linguistic data can refine our understanding of the interrelations between the various peoples who lived in Anatolia; and the role that the Anatolian kingdoms of the first millennium played as cultural filters and conduits through which North Syrian or Near Eastern ideas or materials were transmitted to the Greeks.

The fifth volume in the series of final reports on the work of the Joint Expedition to Jerusalem in the 1960s describes the discoveries made in six sites in the ancient city and places them in the archaeological and historical context of Jerusalem and the surrounding lands. Among the most debated issues are the extent of the occupation of the city during the Iron Age, the location of the southern defence line in Herodian and Roman times, and the date of the destruction of an Umayyad palatial structure. There is fresh information on the civic amenities of the southern half of the Byzantine city, and on the structure of the Ottoman city defences built under Sulaiman the Magnificent in the sixteenth century. Fine glazed pottery, both locally made and imported, and the wide range of materials reaching Jerusalem through trade and pilgrimage, reflect elite patronage and the high status of the holy city under Islamic rule.

The volume contains some twenty Greek texts on papyrus and ostraca, both theological and documentary, found during the excavation carried out by the Polish Archaeological Mission (directed by prof. Wlodzimierz Godlewski) at Deir el-Naqlun, a monastic complex at the Fayum, Egypt. Among them, there are: seven leaves from a finely decorated codex of Psalms (P. Naqlun inv. 34/88); two ostraka (O. Naqlun inv. 64/86 and 53/88) containing contiguous fragments of the Gospel according to Mathew; a small archive (from hermitage no. 89 of the Naqlun laura) made up of three notarial documents dated to ad 585-593; a dozen of fragmentarily preserved letters. Volume one of P. Naqlun was published by the same author in 1994.

This catalogue makes available more than 600 complete or fragmentary stone vessels kept in the British Museum. Most of them were excavated at Nineveh and other major sites in northern Iraq and Syria, and are presented here for the first time. They range in date from prehistory down to the Persian and Hellenistic periods; the bulk belong in the eighth and seventh centuries, when the Near East under Assyrian rule grew increasingly cosmopolitan. The collection includes luxury items made for palaces and temples, often bearing royal inscriptions, besides many perfume-jars, mortars and other vessels for practical use. The catalogue incorporates extensive information on material culture, art, technology, economic relationships, and social and religious practices, and will be used by historians, archaeologists, philologists and anthropologists alike.

Burial Mounds of Bahrain - Social Complexity in Early Dilmun

Occupying a pivotal location on the western coast of Turkey, the Madra River Delta has always been a meeting place for the cultures of Anatolia and the Aegean, but active geomorphological processes in the area have hampered fieldwork, making it a significant challenge to reconstruct the history of the landscape and its exploitation by humans. Modern political geography has been another obstacle, encouraging the study of the area in isolation from the neighbouring islands of the northeastern Aegean, although from prehistory until the twentieth century they all belonged to one cultural area. The Madra River Delta Project called on distinguished international teams using innovative interdisciplinary approaches to meet these challenges, and the results presented here shed important new light on environmental changes in this part of the Anatolian coastal region, on their long-term impact on the inhabitants of the Delta, and on the cultural ties between the Delta and the island of Lesbos from the prehistoric to the Roman period. Two closing chapters focus on the area's medieval ceramics and its history in later Ottoman times. This volume places the story of the communities of this important coastal region in their environmental and cultural context.

Since 1970, the Bahrain National Museum has excavated thousands of graves from the so-called Tylos period (c. 300 BC to AD 600). The results of these excavations are now being published. The first volume presents c. 300 glass vessels from East Roman and Mesopotamian workshops, and c. 1800 pottery vessels of local produce. The interpretation of this material has made possible a new chronology of the Tylos period, and casts new light on relations between the Hellenistic Kingdoms and the Roman Empire on the one side and The Arabic region and the East on the other. Volume 2 will present two selected cemeteries from Bahrain and will outline the evolution of graves and burial customs throughout the Tylos period.

The Burdur Archaeological Museum holds material from a mountainous area of southwest Turkey where Pisidians in antiquity mingled with Phrygians, Lycians and other ancient peoples, coming to terms first with Greek and then with Roman culture. This volume presents its rich holdings of ancient inscriptions, ranging from Hellenistic royal letters and Roman imperial regulations to the votive offerings and gravestones of rural people. Larger cities such as Sagalassos and Kibyra are close to or just beyond the boundaries of Burdur province. The Museum collection is particularly strong in votive reliefs related to local rural cults; the most prolific is that of a club-bearing rider variously named as Herakles or Kakasbos, to which an extensive and penetrating excursus is devoted. As well as inscribed texts relief iconography is presented and discussed - indeed several items never carried an inscription. The physical form of votives and gravestones is also fully described, with more than 360 plates illustrating the range of monuments produced by local masons. Of the 350 monuments collected here, over 150 have not previously been published, and many of the rest have never been illustrated, so that the volume presents a substantial body of new evidence relating to the history, religion and culture of the area. All texts are translated into English and Turkish.