Publications by Year: 2009

2009
The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Stern, E. Marianne, and Gladys D. Weinberg, The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2009).Abstract

The authors present 404 glass vessels excavated in the Athenian Agora. Although mostly fragmentary, examples are given of almost every type of glass known from the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, and representative finds from Byzantine and later times. The remarkable value of this contribution to the history of glass is that so many of the fragments from the Agora can be dated by context. The catalogued objects are discussed by period and shape with extensive descriptions of the various techniques of their manufacture. An appendix to the volume presents evidence for a possible Late Roman glass furnace in the Agora. The wide scope of glass vessel types presented in this volume will provide an essential reference book for those interested in glass known from antiquity.

Gladys D. Weinberg is the author of Corinth XII: The Minor Objects (Princeton 1952; repr. 1987). E. Marianne Stern is an archaeologist and practicing glassblower who has written extensively on ancient glass.

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Aphek-Antipatris II: The Remains on the Acropolis (The Moshe Kochavi and Pirhiya Beck Excavations)
Gadot, Yuval, and Esther Yadin, Aphek-Antipatris II: The Remains on the Acropolis (The Moshe Kochavi and Pirhiya Beck Excavations) (Tel Aviv University, 2009).Abstract

The second volume of the final excavation report, Aphek-Antipatris II, deals with the remains of the Middle Bronze, Late Bronze and Iron Ages excavated between the years 1972 and 1984. It includes discoveries on the acropolis as well as a Late Bronze Age stone-built tomb, obviously related to the elite faction. The excavation of the acropolis of Tel Aphek revealed a series of six 'palaces' starting in the Middle Bronze Age IIA. This was followed by a larger structure dated to the Middle Bronze Age IIB which is one of the few palaces known from this period in teh southern Levant. The importance of Tel Aphek's guardianship of one of the main crossroads in Canaan is evident from its last palace, the free-standing Late Bronze Age Egyptian Governor's Residence. The plethora of well-dated finds found buried under its collapsed and burnt second storey, made their exposure the highlight of the excavation on the acropolis. The unique late 13th century BCE inscriptions shed light on the conduct of the Egyptian administration in Canaan while also revealing the existence of Canaanite language lexica. The pottery assemblage of Palace VI should be taken as an absolute chronological peg for the problematic transition period between the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. In the latter period several different groups of peoples settled successively on the levelled acropolis. The frequent change in the nature of these settlements well reflects the turbulent years that passed between the end of Egyptian rule over Canaanite city-states and the establishment of a new order of early states.

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Asomata - An Archaic Cemetery in Emathia
Koukouvou, Angeliki, and Eurydice Kefalidou, Asomata - An Archaic Cemetery in Emathia (Kyriakidis Brothers, 2009).Abstract
The basic aim of burial archaeology is to approach a social reality through the study of the graves of a specific society. The research methods used in the burial archaeology of the historic period are based on examining together, wherever feasible, all the information provided by the archaeological finds on the one hand and any historical evidence on the other. Interment is only part of a society's funeral rites, and perhaps not the most important part, but it is usually all that has survived into the present. This is particularly true in the case of the Archaic period in Macedonia, for which there is very little textual evidence and no figurative representations of funerary customs, as there are for that period in Attica, for example.

This study attempts a global consideration of the Archaic cemetery that was excavated in 2000 and 2002 near the village of Asomata, 4km south of Beroia, using burial archaeology methods to study and assess such elements as the spatial distribution, typology and size of the graves, the demographic data and pathology of the population (study of skeletal remains), the grave goods and other traces of funeral ritual, and, finally, the relationship of this cemetery to others in the region and Macedonia in general.

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The Bronze Age Cemeteries at Karmi Palealona and Lapatsa in Cyprus (Excavations by J.R.B. Stewart)
Webb, Jennifer M., David Frankel, Kathryn O. Eriksson, and J. Basil Hennessy, The Bronze Age Cemeteries at Karmi Palealona and Lapatsa in Cyprus (Excavations by J.R.B. Stewart) (Paul Astroms Forlag, 2009).Abstract
The modern village of Karmi is located 330m above sea level on the northern slopes of the Kyrenia range, approximately 6km due west of the Agirdha pass and immediately below the castle of St. Hilarion. The ancient sites at Karmi Lapatsa and Palealona thus lie approximately midway between major contemporary settlements at Lapithos (8km to the northwest) and Bellapais Vounous(12km to the east) in one of the most densely populated and dynamic regions of the island during the Early and Middle Bronze Age. Although the settlements associated with the cemetery sites reported here were probably relatively small, both the architecture and content of the tombs are of considerable interest. The value of these assemblages is further increased by the fact that they derive from the northern half of Cyprus, which has been inacessible to Greek Cypriot and foreign archaeologists since 1974. Excavated in 1961, this publication of Karmi Lapatsa and Palealona is long overdue.
Excavations at Tel Beth-Shean Vol. III (1989-1996): The 13th-11th Century BCE Strata in Areas N and S
Mazar, Amihai, and Nava Panitz-Cohen, Excavations at Tel Beth-Shean Vol. III (1989-1996): The 13th-11th Century BCE Strata in Areas N and S (Israel Exploration Society, 2009).Abstract

This volume is the third in the series of final reports on the Beth-Shean Valley Archaeological Project, directed by Amihai Mazar on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1989. The current volume presents the results of the excavations in Areas N and S at Tel Beth-Shean, which relate to the heyday of the Egyptian garrison town of the 19th and 20th Dynasties and its aftermath, corresponding with Levels VII, VI and Late VI of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania Expedition (13th-11th centuries BCE). The volume starts with an overview of the main results (including those in Area Q, previously published), followed by a detailed analysis of the stratigraphy and architecture of Areas N and S, extensive discussions accompanied by detailed illustrations of the local Canaanite and Egyptian-style pottery, as well as the imported pottery, and a wide variety of artifacts, many of them related to the Egyptian presence. Thirty authors contributed to this volume, which includes 215 line drawings and graphs, 74 pottery plates and 435 photographs.

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