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This book presents detailed technical documentation of the authors' ten-year archaeological excavation of La Isabela, America's first colony. The artifacts and material remains of the town offer rich material for comparative research into Euro-American cultural and material development during the crucial transition from the medieval era to the Renaissance. The period when La Isabela was in existence witnessed great innovation and change in many areas of technology. The archaeological evidence of La Isabela's architecture, weaponry, numismatics, pottery, and metallurgy can be precisely dated, helping to chart the sequence of this change and revealing much that is new about late medieval technology. The authors' archaeological research also provides a foundation for their insights into the reasons for the demise of La Isabela.

This book examines the history of the most important sites that constitute Rome's Egyptian frontier, and provides a summary of what is currently known or theorized about the Roman occupation of these sites. It describs the period spanning 29 bc to the end of the fifth century ad, including the two centuries of the late Roman period, ending at approximately the start of the Byzantine period. The book aims to attract the attention of Egyptian government officials, archaeological funding organizations, and adventure tour companies, so that they might take further steps to protect not only Greco-Roman sites, but also all of the ancient sites in Egypt's deserts. Although Egypt continued to develop and prosper well into the middle of the third century, when the rest of the Roman Empire experienced a series of political and economic crises, the province ultimately could not remain immune to the gradual decline in Roman stability. This book, however, focuses on issues relating to the remote desert regions of Roman Egypt. Today, archaeologists from nearly a dozen nations are at work in many of these areas, and every year they uncover additional evidence that sheds new light on old theories concerning the role of Rome's Egyptian frontier and the nature of its administration.

Ancient chroniclers, including Julius Caesar himself, made the Druids and their sacred rituals infamous throughout the Western world. This book shows the Druids' day-to-day lives, which were far less lurid and much more significant than is commonly thought. Exploring the various roles that Druids played in British and Gallic society during the first centuries bc and ad—not just as priests but as judges, healers, scientists, and power brokers—it argues that they were a highly complex, intellectual, and sophisticated group whose influence transcended religion and reached into the realms of secular power and politics. With deep analysis, fresh interpretations, and critical discussions, the book gives the Druids a voice that resonates in our own time.

Constantine the Great (285–337) played a crucial role in mediating between the pagan, imperial past of the city of Rome, which he conquered in 312, and its future as a Christian capital. This book examines his remarkable building programme in Rome. The author begins by examining the Christian Church in the period before the Peace of 313, when Constantine and his co-emperor Licinius ended the persecution of the Christians. He further focuses on the structure, style, and significance of important monuments: the Arch of Constantine and the two great Christian basilicas, St. John's in the Lateran and St. Peter's, as well as the imperial mausoleum at Tor Pignatara. The author advances a new interpretation of the archaeology of the Tomb of St. Peter beneath the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica. The tomb, he concludes, was not the original resting place of the remains venerated as those of the Apostle but was created only in 251 by Pope Cornelius. Drawing on the most up-to-date archaeological evidence, the author describes a cityscape that was at once Christian and pagan, mirroring the personality of its ruler.

The first democracy, established in ancient Greece more than 2,500 years ago, has served as the foundation for every democratic system of government instituted down the centuries. This book tells the full and remarkable story of how a radical new political order was born out of the revolutionary movements that swept through the Greek world in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., how it took firm hold and evolved over the next two hundred years, and how it was eventually undone by the invading Macedonian conquerors, a superior military power. This history addresses the most crucial issues surrounding this first paradigm of democratic governance, including what initially inspired the political beliefs underpinning it, the ways the system succeeded and failed, how it enabled both an empire and a cultural revolution that transformed the world of arts and philosophy, and the nature of the Achilles heel that hastened the demise of Athenian democracy.

This book explains the relationships between house and city, between household and community, as they were worked out in practice at Olynthus in northern Greece. This polis was occupied for a short period of time, for eighty-four years at the most, and was then violently destroyed, leaving tens of thousands of artifacts on the final floors of its houses, and for the most part never reoccupied. A large part of the city was excavated between 1928 and 1938 by David M. Robinson, who published his findings in fourteen massive volumes. Only at Olynthus can the remains of a planned city occupied for less than three generations, and so relatively unmodified by later rebuilding, be studied, and the architecture of houses but also their contents as well, with well-preserved assemblages on the final destruction floors, be considered. The neighborhood and regional planning of the city are analyzed; its house blocks are considered as not only physical units of civic organization but social units as well, and larger regional patterns in the city are evaluated. Thus, the archaeology of Olynthus offers a fuller and richer picture of Greek domestic and civic life than almost any other Greek site.

The stories behind the acquisition of ancient antiquities are often as important as those that tell of their creation. This book provides a comprehensive account of the history and development of classical archaeology, explaining how and why artifacts have moved from foreign soil to collections around the world. Greek and Roman archaeological study was closely intertwined with ideas about class and social structure; the rise of nationalism and later political ideologies such as fascism; and the physical and cultural development of most of the important art museums in Europe and the United States, whose prestige depended on their creation of collections of classical art. This book shows how classical archaeology has influenced attitudes about areas as wide-ranging as tourism, nationalism, the role of the museum, and historicism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art accompanied by a discussion of the history of each of the major national traditions and their significant figures.

In the early fourth century, a lawyer and public figure from the Nile valley city of Hermopolis made a six-month business related journey to Antioch. The day-to-day details are preserved on papyrus documents and offer a remarkable record of this journey, covering everything from distances traveled to daily food purchases, from medicinal supplies to fees paid for services. This book translates these important documents and places them in the wider context of the social history of the Graeco-Roman world. The memoranda relating to Theophanes' journey are presented within a historical narrative that offers an array of revelations on diet, travel, social relations, and other topics. The book creates an account of daily life in the years preceding Emperor Constantine's rise to power in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.

For more than a millennium, the Byzantine Empire presided over the juncture between East and West, as well as the transition from the classical to the modern world. This book eschews the usual run-through of emperors and battles and instead recounts the empire's extraordinary history by focusing each chronological chapter on an archetypal figure, family, place, or event. The book's introduction presents a civilization rich in contrasts, combining orthodox Christianity with paganism, and classical Greek learning with Roman power. Frequently assailed by numerous armies—including those of Islam—Byzantium nonetheless survived and even flourished by dint of its somewhat unorthodox foreign policy and its sumptuous art and architecture, which helped to embed a deep sense of Byzantine identity in its people. Enormously engaging and utilizing a wealth of sources to cover all major aspects of the empire's social, political, military, religious, cultural, and artistic history, this study illuminates the very heart of Byzantine civilization and explores its remarkable and lasting influence on its neighbors and on the modern world.

Artemis of Ephesos was one of the most widely worshiped deities of the Greco-Roman world. Her temple, the Artemision, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and for more than half a millennium people flocked to Ephesos to learn the great secret of the mysteries and sacrifices that were celebrated every year on her birthday. This book sets out the evidence for the celebration of Artemis's mysteries against the background of the remarkable urban development of the city during the Roman Empire and then proposes an entirely new theory about the great secret that was revealed to initiates into Artemis's mysteries. The revelation of that secret helps to explain not only the success of Artemis's cult and polytheism itself but also, more surprisingly, the demise of both and the success of Christianity. Contrary to many anthropological and scientific theories, the history of polytheism, including the celebration of Artemis's mysteries, is best understood as a Darwinian tale of adaptation, competition, and change.