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| AFTER MONTE ALBÁN : Transformation & Negotiation in Oaxaca, Mexico [Jeffrey P Blomster (ed)] Reveals the richness and interregional relevance of Post-classic transformations in the area now known as Oaxaca, which lies between Central Mexico and the Maya area and, as contributors to this volume demonstrate, achieved cultural centrality in pan-Mesoamerican networks. Large nucleated states throughout Oaxaca collapsed after 700CE, including the great Zapotec state centred in the Valley of Oaxaca, Monte Albán. Elite culture changed in fundamental ways as small city-states proliferated in Oaxaca, each with a new ruling dynasty required to devise novel strategies of legitimisation. The vast majority of the population, though, sustained continuity in lifestyle, religion, and cosmology. Contributors synthesise these regional transformations and continuities in the lower Rio Verde Valley, the Valley of Oaxaca, and the Mixteca Alta. They provide data from material culture, architecture, codices, ethnohistoric documents, and ceramics, including a revised ceramic chronology from the Late Classic to the end of the Post-classic that will be crucial to future investigations. REVIEW: "After Monte Albán truly fills a void in current archaeological perspectives on the development of late pre-Hispanic Oaxacan civilizations, placing them at the forefront of a new synthesis and at the same time highlighting a frontier of exciting research avenues for the future." -- Marilyn Masson, University at Albany (SUNY). "This is without a doubt one of the best volumes ever to be produced on the ancient history of Oaxaca." -- Heather S Orr, Western State College of Colorado. { 456pp, March 2008; HB, £52.50, 0870818961:9780870818967 , University Press of Colorado } |
| ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK CULT : Context, Ritual & Iconography ((Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity)) [Jesper Jensen, George Hinge, Peter Schultz & Bronwen Wickkiser (eds)] The papers in this volume illustrate the interplay between the studies of classical archaeology, religion, history, and musicology. The eight papers by the young scholars and their Nestor, Richard Hamilton, offer a fresh look at various aspects of ancient cult, including the use of the word cult in the academic disciplines of Archaeology and the History of Religion; the introduction of Asklepios to Athens, and a detailed study of the same god's sanctuary on the south slope of Akropolis, where it will be demonstrated that the layout of the early sanctuary on the east terrace was carefully designed after one central monument. The book also contains an innovative study of the Philippeion at Olympia, where it is argued that the tholos with its sculpture was a prototype for the use of divine images and royal ideology by Hellenistic rulers. Other papers include a statistical approach to the illustration of baskets on Classical votive reliefs, a theoretical study of the role of music in ancient Greek cult, and analysis of the use of the chorus as one of the most important expressions of ancient cult in Sparta. { 280pp, 170x240mm, June 2008; HB, £22.75, 8779342531:9788779342538 , Aarhus University Press } |
| HIEROGLYPHIC ARCHIVE AT PETRAS, SITEIAS ((Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens, 9)) [Metaxia Tsipopoulos & Erik Hallager; Contributions by Cesare D Annibale & Dimitra Mylona] This is the final and full publication of an archive with Cretan hieroglyphs found in Petras, Siteia. The archive consists of all kinds of written documents, and it has a unique collection of seals. { ca200pp, April 2008; PB, £20.95, 8779342930:9788779342934 , Aarhus University Press } |
| LOST RAMESSID & LATE PERIOD TOMBS IN THE THEBAN NECROPOLIS ((Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, Volume 33)) [Lise Manniche] This forthcoming volume of the Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications series is a study of tombs of officials in the Theban necropolis, now lost, but recorded in the manuscripts of travellers to Egypt in the early and mid 19th century. Accomplished draftsmen, notably Robert Hay, made facsimile drawings which are largely unpublished but have been re-drawn by the author for the present publication. Fragments of relevant wall-decoration in museums and other collections are included. { 164pp, June 2008; HB, £35.00, 8763505347:9788763505345 , Museum Tusculanum Press } |
| MEANS OF EXCHANGE : Dealing with silver in the Viking Age (Kaupang Excavation Project Publication Series, Vol. 2; Norske Oldfunn XXIII) [Dagfinn Skre (ed)] This second volume based on the excavations of the Viking town Kaupang 2000–2003 presents find types used in economic transactions – coins, hacksilver, ingots, weights and balances. Changes in type and volume of economic transactions at Kaupang and in Scandinavia are discussed, and the economic mentality of Viking crafts- and tradesmen is explored. Earlier, the study of Viking silver currency was based mainly on hoards containing coins and hacksilver. In this volume, the combined study of the find types mentioned, as well as the sophisticated chronology of settlements finds from sites like Kaupang, gives a completely new insight into economy and exchange. In the early 9th century, silver and goods seem to have come to Kaupang mainly from the Carolingian world. Silver, weighed with locally produced lead weights, was used as currency on a limited scale. The old øre unit was easily convertible to Carolingian units. After the mid-9th century this early system was altered. The increased availability of silver caused by the import of Islamic coins, as well as the introduction in most of Scandinavia in the 860s/870s of standardised weights of probable Islamic origin, paved the way from then on for an increasing use of silver as payment. These studies demonstrate that sites like Kaupang led the way in economic development in Scandinavia. The urban environment promoted an economic mentality which contributed significantly to the fundamental transformation of Scandinavian culture and society, which culminated in the region’s integration in Christian Europe in the High Middle Ages. { 384pp, April 2008; HB, £49.50, 8779343082:9788779343085 , Aarhus University Press } |
| MINOANS IN THE CENTRAL, EASTERN & NORTHERN AEGEAN -- NEW EVIDENCE : Acts of a Minoan Seminar 22-23 January 2005 in collaboration with the Danish Institute at Athens & the German Archaeological Institute at Athens ((Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens, 8)) [Erik Hallager, C F Macdonald & W-D Niemeier (eds)] In this book the scholarly world will be presented with new and hitherto unpublished material from proto- and neopalatial Crete found in the central, eastern and northern Aegean. { ca370pp, April 2008; PB, £29.95, 8779342922:9788779342927 , Aarhus University Press } |
| PANSKOYE 1, VOLUME 2 : The Necropolis ((Archaeological Investigations in Western Crimea)) [Eugeny Rogov & Vladimir Stolba] This is the second volume of the complete publication of Panskoye I, a short-lived Greek rural site in Northwestern Crimea dating from the period c. 400-270 BC. The settlement was founded by Olbia, the most important Greek city on the northern shores of the Black Sea. Half a century later the fortress was destroyed and the settlement taken over by another Greek city, Tauric Chersonesos. From then on and until its final destruction it formed part of the chora (territory) of this city. Both the necropolis and settlement provide invaluable archaeological information thanks to the unique combination of a very precise date with rich finds of the material culture such as pottery, metals, sculptures, coins, inscriptions, etc, as well as anthropological data allowing the paleodemographic reconstructions. { 350pp, 250x320mm, April 2008; HB, £37.95, 8772887710:9788772887715 , Aarhus University Press } |
| PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE : The Collection of Classical & Near Eastern Antiquities in the National Museum of Denmark [Bodil Bundgaard Rasmussen & John Lund (eds)] This publication celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Collection of Classical and Near Eastern Antiquities in the National Museum of Denmark. The Collection traces its roots back to the Royal Kunstkammer founded by King Frederik III around 1650 and to the private archaeological collection of King Christian VIII. On his death the two collections were joined and in 1853 a new one emerged, now named Cabinet of Antiquities, and open to the public -- a collection which over the ensuing 150 years has been constantly enlarged and enriched. In eight articles, various aspects of the history of the collection are tackled -- the authors taking their cues from highlights and humble objects alike: two marble heads from Athens, a mummy from Egypt, and a seemingly insignificant Syrian amulet which, nonetheless, can tell an intriguing tale from the past. We meet a largely forgotten 19th century Danish consul in Tunisia with an eye for antiquities, and accompany Danish archaeologists on expeditions to Hama in Syria and Luristan in Iran. New research in Corinthian pottery is presented and the reader is introduced to the principles employed in establishing the Greek and Roman galleries that were opened in 1994 together with plans for a new Cypriot gallery opened in 2002. The Collection of Classical and Near Eastern Antiquities encompasses not only the story of ancient cultures but is, in its own right, part of the history of Denmark as it unfolds the story of the many relations between Denmark and the Mediterranean countries over the centuries. { 200pp, 220x190mm, April 2008; HB, £18.95, 8789438086:9788789438085 , Aarhus University Press } |
| RUINS OF THE PAST : The Use & Perception of Abandoned Structures in the Maya Lowlands [Travis W Stanton & Aline Magnoni (eds)] From the Preclassic to the present, Maya peoples have continuously built, altered, abandoned, and re-used structures, imbuing them with new meanings at each transformation. RUINS OF THE PAST is the first volume to focus on how later Maya peoples perceived, used, and sometimes ritually destroyed ruins of structures built by ancestors. REVIEW: "All human societies are built on the stones and ashes of those that came before them, and all people construct their ideas of lived-space in relationship to that past... The editors grasp this concept and have brought together a remarkable group to discuss the ways in which architecture is used and re-used over time, and to speculate on how the re-users perceived the monuments of their past." -- Keith Prufer, Wichita State University. "The various authors present rich case studies that demonstrate ancient Maya people deliberately killed certain structures, re-used only select structures, and performed ceremonies of remembering and forgetting... A compelling body of work that will make a significant impact." -- Traci Ardren, University of Miami. { 384pp, March 2008; HB, £48.50, 0870818880:9780870818882 , University Press of Colorado } |
| VIKINGS IN THE ISLE OF MAN [David Wilson] The Isle of Man provides a microcosm of Viking settlement in the West. Set in the northern part of the Irish Sea, it was a major player in the economic and political life of this Norse region from the beginning of the tenth century until the end of the Scandinavian overlordship of the Hebrides and Man in the middle of the thirteenth century. This book presents, for the first time, for both specialist and general reader, a major survey of the Island in the period from the early tenth century to the middle of the eleventh century. The rich archaeological material - pagan grave-goods, silver-treasures, headland fortifications, farm-sites, inscribed and carved Christian memorial stones - and the wealth of evidence provided by runic inscriptions, place-names and institutions, provide a unique picture of a vibrant society striving to be ever more politically and economically powerful. The story tells of the gradual change from paganism to Christianity and of the absorption of a native population into a society dominated by incoming land-owners and a king owing allegiance to Norway. { 240pp, April 2008; PB, £15.00, 8779343708:9788779343702 / HB, £20.00, 8779343678:9788779343672 , Aarhus University Press } |