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Showing 1 - 20 of 5348 items
By Caroline Cheung. 2024
The story of the Roman Empire’s enormous wine industry told through the remarkable ceramic storage and shipping containers that made…
it possibleThe average resident of ancient Rome drank two-hundred-and-fifty liters of wine a year, almost a bottle a day, and the total annual volume of wine consumed in the imperial capital would have overflowed the Pantheon. But Rome was too densely developed and populated to produce its own food, let alone wine. How were the Romans able to get so much wine? The key was the dolium—the ancient world’s largest type of ceramic wine and food storage and shipping container, some of which could hold as much as two-thousand liters. In Dolia, classicist and archaeologist Caroline Cheung tells the story of these vessels—from their emergence and evolution to their major impact on trade and their eventual disappearance.Drawing on new archaeological discoveries and unpublished material, Dolia uncovers the industrial and technological developments, the wide variety of workers and skills, and the investments behind the Roman wine trade. As the trade expanded, potters developed new techniques to build large, standardized dolia for bulk fermentation, storage, and shipment. Dolia not only determined the quantity of wine produced but also influenced its quality, becoming the backbone of the trade. As dolia swept across the Mediterranean and brought wine from the far reaches of the empire to the capital’s doorstep, these vessels also drove economic growth—from rural vineyards and ceramic workshops to the wine shops of Rome.Placing these unique containers at the center of the story, Dolia is a groundbreaking account of the Roman Empire’s Mediterranean-wide wine industry.By Dr Geza Vermes. 1999
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran, Palestine, in 1947 was one of the greatest archaeological finds of…
all time. Written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and hidden in caves by an ancient Jewish sect, these mysterious manuscripts revolutionized our understanding of the Bible, of Judaism and the early Christian world. Geza Vermes is the world's leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, whose English translations brought these extraordinary documents to thousands, and whose life has been inextricably interwoven with the scrolls for over sixty years. In this illuminating book he relates the controversial story of their discovery and publication around the world, revealing cover-ups, blunders and academic in-fighting, but also the passion and dedication of many of those involved. He shares what he has learned about the scrolls and, evaluating passages from them, gives his views on their true significance and what they can teach us, as well as those areas where scholarly consensus has not yet been reached. Few scholars have been as closely associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls as Vermes. Writing with candour and unique authority, he has created an ideal introduction to understanding these miraculous documents.By Neil Oliver. 2018
"Everyone should have two copies - one for the car and one for the house to plan journeys. . .…
a reminder to think more about the places you pass and less about your route, because every British journey is through rich history." (Edward Stourton)From much-loved historian Neil Oliver, comes this beautifully written, kaleidoscopic history of a place with a story like no other.The British Isles, this archipelago of islands, is to Neil Oliver the best place in the world. From north to south, east to west it cradles astonishing beauty. The human story here is a million years old, and counting. But the tolerant, easygoing peace we enjoy has been hard won. We have made and known the best and worst of times. We have been hero and villain and all else in between, and we have learned some lessons.The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places is Neil’s very personal account of what makes these islands so special, told through the places that have witnessed the unfolding of our history. Beginning with footprints made in the sand by humankind’s earliest ancestors, he takes us via Romans and Vikings, the flowering of religion, through civil war, industrial revolution and two world wars. From windswept headlands to battlefields, ancient trees to magnificent cathedrals, each of his destinations is a place where, somehow, the spirit of the past seems to linger.By Frances F. Berdan. 2023
The Aztec Economy provides a synthesis and updated examination of the Aztec economy (1325–1521 AD). It is organized around seven…
components that recur with other Elements in this series: historic and geographic background, domestic economy, institutional economy, specialization, forms of distribution and commercialization, economic development, and future directions. The Aztec world was complex, hierarchical, and multifaceted, and was in a constant state of demographic growth, recoveries from natural disasters, political alignments and realignments, and aggressive military engagements. The economy was likewise complex and dynamic, and characterized by intensive agriculture, exploitation of non-agricultural resources, utilitarian and luxury manufacturing, wide-scale specialization, merchants, markets, commodity monies, and tribute systems.By Deborah Barsky. 2023
This book provides a concise overview of human prehistory. It shows how an understanding of the distant past offers new…
perspectives on present-day challenges facing our species - and how we can build a sustainable future for all life on planet Earth. Deborah Barsky tells a fascinating story of the long-term evolution of human culture and provides up-to-date examples from the archaeological record to illustrate the different phases of human history. Barsky also presents a refreshing and original analysis about issues plaguing modern globalized society, such as racism, institutionalized religion, the digital revolution, human migrations, terrorism, and war. Written in an accessible and engaging style, Human Prehistory is aimed at an introductory-level audience. Students will acquire a comprehensive understanding of the interdisciplinary, scientific study of human prehistory, as well as the theoretical interpretations of human evolutionary processes that are used in contemporary archaeological practice. Definitions, tables, and illustrations accompany the text.By Eric H. Cline. 2024
In this gripping sequel to his bestselling 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the story of what happened after the Bronze…
Age collapsed—why some civilizations endured, why some gave way to new ones, and why some disappeared forever&“A landmark book: lucid, deep, and insightful. . . . You cannot understand human civilization and self-organization without studying what happened on, before, and after 1177 B.C.&”—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of The Black SwanAt the end of the acclaimed history 1177 B.C., many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in ruins, undone by invasion, revolt, natural disasters, famine, and the demise of international trade. An interconnected world that had boasted major empires and societies, relative peace, robust commerce, and monumental architecture was lost and the so-called First Dark Age had begun. Now, in After 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the compelling story of what happened next, over four centuries, across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean world. It is a story of resilience, transformation, and success, as well as failures, in an age of chaos and reconfiguration.After 1177 B.C. tells how the collapse of powerful Late Bronze Age civilizations created new circumstances to which people and societies had to adapt. Those that failed to adjust disappeared from the world stage, while others transformed themselves, resulting in a new world order that included Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, and Neo-Babylonians. Taking the story up to the resurgence of Greece marked by the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C., the book also describes how world-changing innovations such as the use of iron and the alphabet emerged amid the chaos.Filled with lessons for today's world about why some societies survive massive shocks while others do not, After 1177 B.C. reveals why this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions and new opportunities.By Nicholas De Lange. 2008
The Penguin Dictionary of Judaism is a remarkable feat of Reference scholarship by renowned Cambridge professor and translator, Nicholas de…
Lange. With an approachable A-Z format the book covers everything from Jewish traditions and biographical entries on key historical figures to theology, religious law and practice, and the history of Jewish thought. Each entry is presented with clarity, precision and authority. With extensive cross-referencing and invaluable additional material such as a chronology of Judaism and the Jewish calendar, this is an essential companion for students of Jewish studies, Hebrew, Religion and Theology plus anyone with a general interest in this rich religion.By Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2024
This is volume 83 issue 1 of Journal of Near Eastern Studies. The Journal of Near Eastern Studies (JNES) is…
devoted to the study of the civilizations of the Near East from prehistory to the early modern period in 1922. JNES embraces a uniquely broad scope of time, place, and topic, including contributions from scholars of international reputation on topics in Assyriology, Egyptology, Hittitology, Hebrew Bible, and adjacent ancient studies, as well as a second area of emphasis in early, medieval, and early-modern Islamic studies. The disciplinary range of the journal runs from history and language to religion and literature to archaeology and art history. Every issue includes new scholarly work as well as a book review section, which provides a critical overview of new publications by emerging and established scholars.By Keren R. McGinity. 2014
&“Captures the telling details and the idiosyncratic trajectory of interfaith relationships and marriages in America.&” —The Forward When American Jewish…
men intermarry, goes the common assumption, they and their families are &“lost&” to the Jewish religion. In this provocative book, Keren R. McGinity shows that it is not necessarily so. She looks at intermarriage and parenthood through the eyes of a post-World War II cohort of Jewish men and discovers what intermarriage has meant to them and their families. She finds that these husbands strive to bring up their children as Jewish without losing their heritage. Marrying Out argues that the &“gendered ethnicity&” of intermarried Jewish men, growing out of their religious and cultural background, enables them to raise Jewish children. McGinity&’s book is a major breakthrough in understanding Jewish men&’s experiences as husbands and fathers, how Christian women navigate their roles and identities while married to them, and what needs to change for American Jewry to flourish. Marrying Out is a must read for Jewish men and all the women who love them. &“An important analysis of this thorny issue . . . filled with vivid vignettes about intermarried couples.&” —Jewish Book WorldBy Anita Diamant. 2003
From the bestselling author of The Red Tent and Good Harbor, a collection of intimate, autobiographical reflections on the milestones,…
revelations, and balancing acts of life as a wife, mother, friend, and member of a religious community.Before The Red Tent won her international literary acclaim, Anita Diamant was a columnist in Boston. Over the course of twenty years, she wrote essays that reflected the shape and evolution of her life, as well as the trends of her generation. In the end, her musings about love and marriage, birth and death, nature versus nurture, politics and religion—and everything from female friendships to quitting smoking—have created a public diary of the progress of her life that resonated deeply with her readers. Now, Pitching My Tent collects the finest columns of a writer who is a reporter by training and a storyteller by heart, all revised and enriched with new material. Personal, inspiring, and often funny, Pitching My Tent displays the warmth, humor, and wisdom that Diamant's legions of fans have come to cherish.The final chapter in the definitive, three-volume history of the world's first known stateArchaeologist John Romer has spent a lifetime…
chronicling the history of Ancient Egypt, and here he tells the epic story of an era dominated by titans of the popular imagination: the radical iconoclast Akhenaten, the boy-king Tutankhamun and the all-conquering Ramesses II. But 'heroes' do not forge history by themselves. This was also a time of international trade, cultural exchange and sophisticated art, even in the face of violent change.Alongside his visionary new history of this, the most famous period in the long history of Ancient Egypt, Romer turns a critical eye on Egyptology itself. Paying close attention to the evidence, he corrects prevailing narratives which cast the New Kingdom as an imperial state power in the European mould. Instead, he reveals - through broken artefacts in ruined workshops, or preserved letters between a tomb-builder and his son - a culture more beautiful and beguiling than we could have imagined.Romer carefully reconstructs the real story of the New Kingdom as evidenced in the archaeological record, and the result - the final volume of a lifelong project - secures his status as Ancient Egypt's finest chronicler.By Elie Wiesel. 1993
A Passover Haggadah, enhanced with more than fifty original drawings, Elie Wiesel and his friend Mark Podwal invite you to…
join them for the Passover Seder—the most festive event of the Jewish calendar.Read each year at the Seder table, the Haggadah recounts the miraculous tale of the liberation of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt, with a celebration of prayer, ritual, and song. Wiesel and Podwal guide you through the Haggadah and share their understanding and faith in a special illustrated edition that will be treasured for years to come. Accompanying the traditional Haggadah text (which appears here in an accessible new translation) are Elie Wiesel's poetic interpretations, reminiscences, and instructive retellings of ancient legends. The Nobel laureate interweaves past and present as the symbolism of the Seder is explored. Wiesel's commentaries may be read aloud in their entirety or selected passages may be read each year to illuminate the timeless message of this beloved book of redemption.By Gershom Gorenberg. 2000
The new millennium dawned quietly, defying modern-day prophets of apocalypse. Yet for countless believers around the globe - Christians, Jews…
and Muslims -- anticipation that the world is about to end burns more intensely than ever. God's kingdom is near, they believe, and the key to salvation is Jerusalem's Temple Mount, -- the most sacred and contested real estate on earth. In The End of Days, leading Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg portrays how such faith has fueled the real-world struggle in the Middle East and reveals why, even in times of peacemaking, it continues to be a powerful catalyst for conflict. Adroitly portraying former-hippies-turned-true-believers, American radio evangelists of the End, radical Palestinian sheikhs, and Israeli ex-terrorists, Gorenberg weaves a story that stretches from California churches to West Bank settlements. He explains why believers hope for the End, and why prominent American fundamentalists provide hard-line support for Israel, while looking forward to an apocalypse in which they expect Jews to die or else convert. He makes sense of the messianic fervor that has driven Israeli settlers to oppose peace, and describes the Islamic apocalyptic visions that cast Israel's actions in Jerusalem as diabolic plots. He examines, as well, what happens when secular politicians try to channel these religious passions for their own purposes. At the center of this story is the Temple Mount, where Solomon and Herod built their Temples, where the Dome of the Rock now stands -- and where both Jewish extremists and millions of Christian fundamentalists expect the Third Temple to be built soon. Holy to both Judaism and Islam, the Mount is where nationalism and faith join in a volatile mix. Any attempt to spark the End by clearing the ground for the Temple, therefore, could ignite holy war. This book explains the Mount's dangerous fascination for fundamentalists, and shows why the risks will actually increase in the new millennium as prophesied dates pass and believers look for a way to ensure that the End comes. Cain murdered Abel, according to an ancient legend, in an argument over who would possess the Temple Mount. That parable sums up the passions aroused by the sacred hilltop. The End of Days shows, with clarity and poise, how conflict over Jerusalem is rooted not only in the past but even more in expectations of the future, and how the fiery belief in apocalypse has a very real impact on contemporary life and international politics.Furnishing an accessible introduction to the traditions and teachings of the Kabbalah, this informative volume discusses the origins, history, study,…
and trends of Jewish mysticism, covering such topics as meditation and mystical techniques, the Kabbalahistic theory of creation and the human role in the universe, Kabbalahistic philosophy, and more.By Daniel F. Harrison. 2024
Few maritime landscapes in the Great Lakes remain so deeply and clearly inscribed by successive cultures as the St. Clair…
system—a river, delta, and lake found between Lake Huron and the Detroit River. The St. Clair River and its environs are an age-old transportation nexus of land and water routes, a strategic point of access to maritime resources, and, in many ways, a natural impediment to the navigation of the Great Lakes. From Indigenous peoples and European colonizers to the modern nations of Canada and the United States, this work traces the region’s transformation through culturally driven practices and artifacts of shipbuilding, navigation, place naming, and mapmaking. In this novel approach to maritime landscape archaeology, author Daniel F. Harrison unifies historiography, linguistics, ethnohistory, geography, and literature through the analysis of primary sources, material culture, and ecological and geographic data in a technique he calls "evidence-based storytelling." Viewed over time, the region forms a microcosm of the interplay of environment, culture, and technology that characterized the gradual shift from nature to an industrial society and a built environment optimized for global waterborne transport.By Scott M. Fitzpatrick, Jon M. Erlandson, Kristina M. Gill. 2024
Examining dynamic interactions between humans and island environments This volume explores the impacts humans have made on island and coastal…
ecosystems and the ways these environments have adapted to anthropogenic changes over the course of millennia. Case studies highlight how island populations developed social and political strategies to effectively manage their ecosystems, ensuring the long-term survival of their societies and the persistence of their cultural traditions. In case studies from islands in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic, contributors apply resilience theory, historical ecology, niche construction theory, and human behavioral ecology to foreground Indigenous resiliency and sustainability. Modern island and coastal societies face daunting challenges in the decades to come, including climate change, sea level rise, and the loss of habitable lands and heritage resources. Sustainability in Ancient Island Societies argues that the study of past human responses to such changes, especially practices rooted in Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, can inform solutions to manage these threats today.Contributors: Rebecca Boger | Emira Ibrahimpasic | Frederique Valentin | Stuart Bedford | Davide Marco Zori | William Jeffery | Denise Elena | Edith Gonzalez | Mark Horrocks | Anaëlle Jallon | Sophia Perdikaris | Iarowoi Philip | Takaronga Kuautonga | Lindsey E. Cochran | Christopher Wolff | Todd Braje | Craig Shapiro | Allison Bain | Dr. Torben C. Rick | James Flexner | Tim Denham | Jon M. Erlandson | Robert Williams | Victor D. Thompson | Scott M. Fitzpatrick | Julie Field | Kristina M. Gill | Sandrine Grouard A volume in the series Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by Victor D. Thompson and Scott M. FitzpatrickBy Whitney Battle-Baptiste. 2011
Black feminist thought has developed in various parts of the academy for over three decades, but has made only minor…
inroads into archaeological theory and practice. Whitney Battle-Baptiste outlines the basic tenets of Black feminist thought and research for archaeologists and shows how it can be used to improve contemporary historical archaeology. She demonstrates this using Andrew Jackson‘s Hermitage, the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite in Massachusetts, and the Lucy Foster house in Andover, which represented the first archaeological excavation of an African American home. Her call for an archaeology more sensitive to questions of race and gender is an important development for the field.By Leslie Bedford. 2014
Leslie Bedford, former director of the highly regarded Bank Street College museum leadership program, expands the museum professional’s vision of…
exhibitions beyond the simple goal of transmitting knowledge to the visitor. Her view of exhibitions as interactive, emotional, embodied, imaginative experiences opens a new vista for those designing them. Using examples both from her own work at the Boston Children’s Museum and from other institutions around the globe, Bedford offers the museum professional a bold new vision built around narrative, imagination, and aesthetics, merging the work of the educator with that of the artist. It is important reading for all museum professionals.By Rebecca Storey, Glenn R Storey. 2017
This volume compares two of the most famous cases of civilizational collapse, that of the Roman Empire and the Classic…
Maya world. First examining the concept of collapse, and how it has been utilized in the historical, archaeological and anthropological study of past complex societies, Storey and Storey draw on extensive archaeological evidence to consider the ultimate failure of the institutions, infrastructure and material culture of both of these complex cultures. Detailing the relevant economic, political, social and environmental factors behind these notable falls, Rome and the Classic Maya contends that a phenomenon of “slow collapse” has repeatedly occurred in the course of human history: complex civilizations are shown to eventually come to an end and give way to new cultures. Through their analysis of these two ancient case studies, the authors also present intriguing parallels to the modern world and offer potential lessons for the future.By Doris B. Ash. 2022
Reculturing Museums takes a unified sociocultural theoretical approach to analyze the many conflicts museums experience in the 21st century. Embracing…
conflict, Ash asks: What can practitioners and researchers do to create the change they want to see when old systems remain stubbornly in place?Using a unified sociocultural, cultural-historical, activity-theoretical approach to analyzing historically bound conflicts that plague museums, each chapter is organized around a central contradiction, including finances ("Who will pay for museums?"), demographic shifts ("Who will come to museums?"), the roles of narratives ("Whose story is it?"), ownership of objects ("Who owns the artifact?"), and learning and teaching ("What is learning and how can we teach equitably?"). The reculturing stance taken by Ash promotes social justice and equity, ‘making change’ first, within museums, called inreach, rather than outside the museum, called outreach; challenges existing norms; is sensitive to neoliberal and deficit ideologies; and pays attention to the structure agency dialectic.Reculturing Museums will be essential reading for academics, students, museum practitioners, educational researchers, and others who care about museums and want to ensure that all people have equal access to the activities, objects, and ideas residing in them.