Scholarly Publications - Archaeology

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Open Access
Liminal insularity or islandness? Relational and comparative perspectives on big islands in the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea in the early middle ages (sixth to twelfth centuries)
(Routledge, 2025-12-29) Kilger, Christoph; Kusserow, Max; Zavagno, Luca
Big islands (and archipelagos) in the Mediterranean, such as Sardinia, the Balearics, Malta, Crete, and Cyprus, have generally been considered distant military outposts on the political and religious frontiers of the Byzantine Mediterranean. However, archaeological evidence documents high economic resilience and patterns of sociocultural fluidity. Similarly, Gotland in the Baltic Sea has been regarded as an island paradox: on the one hand, a liminal and secluded place on the edge, where communities displayed idiosyncratic identities through material culture; on the other hand, it was a highly interactive space throughout early history, sustaining complex global connections with the wider medieval world. As the relational turn within recent insular studies argues that islands and island communities cannot exist in isolation but thrive with and through their connections, one should consider “islandscapes” as intrinsically liminal. Indeed, islands, as places where sea and land meet, are “visually” geophysical, spatial, and human objects of the liminal, while recently, historiography has also stressed the link between spatial relational thinking and the concept of “islandness” as opposed to that of insularity. This chapter, therefore, focusses on a comparative study between insular spaces in the early medieval Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea as liminal and relational spaces of connectivity. Undeniably, there are both similarities and differences in insular cultural developments that require explanation on both a general and particular level; so, we argue that relationality as a theoretical concept in insular studies is applicable to exploring spatial dimensions of liminality as tied to the pragmatic experiences of islanders in a fragmented global medieval world.
Open Access
Herodes Attikos and the city of Athens: patronage and conflict under the Antonines
(Brill, 2025-07-09) Tobin, Jennifer
Herodes Attikos, teacher, orator, millionaire, is perhaps best known for the many buildings and sculptures he erected in Greece, Italy and Asia Minor. No area benefited more than his native Athens, where his munificence rebuilt the Panathenaic Stadium, constructed the Odeion on the slopes of the Acropolis, and funded many public festivals. In addition to these donations, his position as the wealthiest citizen in Athens as well as his ties to the imperial family gave him political power in the city, agai nst which the Athenians at times rebelled. His generosity bred gratitude while his wealth and power bred resentment. This book examines Herodes’ relationship with Athens through the study of the buildings, statues and inscriptions he funded there. While it delves into the motives and mechanisms of his benefactions it also highlights the political and social currents in Athens of the second century AD.Herodes Attikos, teacher, orator, millionaire, is perhaps best known for the many buildings and sculptures he erected in Greece, Italy and Asia Minor. No area benefited more than his native Athens, where his munificence rebuilt the Panathenaic Stadium, constructed the Odeion on the slopes of the Acropolis, and funded many public festivals. In addition to these donations, his position as the wealthiest citizen in Athens as well as his ties to the imperial family gave him political power in the city, agai nst which the Athenians at times rebelled. His generosity bred gratitude while his wealth and power bred resentment. This book examines Herodes’ relationship with Athens through the study of the buildings, statues and inscriptions he funded there. While it delves into the motives and mechanisms of his benefactions it also highlights the political and social currents in Athens of the second century AD.
Open Access
Bodies and behaviours: archaeological material culture and the interpretation of identity at the neolithic transition
(Springer, 2026-01-03) Baysal, Emma Louise
The Neolithic transition changed lifestyle practices as well as fundamentally altering how human groups interacted with one another and the landscapes they inhabited. With this process came transformations in expressions of identity. While prehistory brings a set of challenges in the limited contexts and materials through which embodied identities can be observed, there are many surviving elements of material culture offering clues about identities during the Neolithic. This chapter uses a conspectus of research on Neolithic body-artefact relations to ask what theoretical and interpretive frameworks have been used to approach the question of identities as seen in the available archaeological record. A critical appraisal is made of these approaches to the construction of identities in archaeological interpretation, looking at the tension between aesthetic and practical considerations and the place of communication in perception of intra and inter community identities. Particular attention is paid to the proximity of artefacts to the human body and the portrayal of artefacts in proximity to the human body. This chapter asks how much we know about how the materiality and communication of identity evolved through time, which areas of evidence have not yet been explored to their full potential, and where the limits of interpretation should lie.
Open Access
Hieroglyphic inscriptions on Hittite pottery from Late Bronze Kinet Höyük (Hatay, Turkey)
(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2025-05-23) Gates, Marie-Henriette; Peker, Hasan
Like many Late Bronze sites in Cilicia, the ancient seaport at Kinet Höyük adopted a material culture reflecting Hittite standards from central Anatolia. The process, dynamics, and intentions engineering this assimilation have long been explored from many perspectives, including the ceramic repertoire. This paper contributes to the discussion by introducing a group of Kinet LB vessels with Anatolian Hieroglyphic potmarks and seal impressions that were intended to be read as script. Their references to 'king/royal' and 'palace' convey an official status to the seaport, identified with Hittite Izziya; and attest to Kinet's formal standing as an outpost of the Hittite state already in the Old Kingdom.
Open Access
A nominally new dictionary of ancient Greek: GI, GE, GD and LSJ⁹
(Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) * Departamento de Publicaciones, 2025-08-21) Olson, S. Douglas
This article is a close examination of portions of Franco Montanari's new series of Greek dictionaries (GI, GE and GD), with particular attention to a number of lemmata beginning with alpha and mu in the recent German-language edition. A general consideration of lexicographic best practices is offered in that light. Contrasts are drawn throughout between LSJ⁹ and Montanari in regard to the handling and checking of primary references, the choice of lemmata and the organization of entries, and the relationship between the two works is traced via study of a group of individual lemmata beginning with alpha. The article concludes with a detailed analysis of the handling of ἀλαός, ἀλαόω and μάκελλον and cognates in LSJ⁹ and Montanari, with alternative suggestions for how the material might be most effectively organized, presented and understood.
Open Access
Itiner-e: A high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire
(Springer Nature, 2025-11-06) De Soto, P.; Pažout, A.; Brughmans, T.; Vahlstrup, P. B.; Auir, Á.; Bongers, T.; Christoffersen, J. E. B.; Crépy, M.; Johansen, M. H.; Lewis, J.; Manière, L.; Massa, Michele Rüzgar; Møller, L. M. H.; Redon, B.; Renda, G.; Şahin, H.; Sobotková, A.; Spatzek, A. L.; Verhagen, P.; Weissova, B.
The Roman Empire’s road system was critical for structuring the movement of people, goods and ideas, and sustaining imperial control. Yet, it remains incompletely mapped and poorly integrated across sources despite centuries of research. We present Itiner-e, the most detailed and comprehensive open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire. It was created by identifying roads from archaeological and historical sources, locating them using modern and historical topographic maps and remote sensing, and digitising them with road segment-level metadata and certainty categories. The dataset nearly doubles the known length of Roman roads through increased coverage and spatial precision, and reveals that the location of only 2.737% are known with certainty. This resource is transformative for understanding how mobility shaped connectivity, administration, and even disease transmission in the ancient world, and for studies of the millennia-long development of terrestrial mobility in the region.
Open Access
Invisible archaeologies of decolonization: Western Asian archaeology, a view from Türkiye
(Routledge, 2026-01-26) Baysal, Emma Louise; Yelözer, Sera
The discourse on decolonization in Western Asian archaeology continues to be shaped and evaluated predominantly from outside the region. This external framing views Western Asian archaeology as a separate entity from Western Asia itself, rarely centring the perspectives of local archaeologists or the needs of the communities directly affected by archaeological research. Progress is often measured through activities rooted in Western academic structures — conference organization, publishing, and systems of gatekeeping that define research agendas. In this article, we respond to B. S. Düring’s [2024. ‘Gatekeepers, Geographies, and Access in the Archaeology of West Asia’, Public Archaeology, 23(1–4): 109–21] assessment of decolonization efforts in Western Asian archaeology. We offer a perspective from within Türkiye, a country frequently homogenized or marginalized in regional debates, to critically examine the internal dynamics of decolonization. Drawing on some parameters engaged in decolonization debates, including academic genealogies, publishing practices, visibility, and public engagement, we explore the disconnect between externally constructed narratives and local realities. We argue for a reorientation of the decolonization debate that centres the perspectives, challenges, and priorities of those living and working in the region. Ultimately, we highlight the need to recognize and engage with the specific historical, institutional, and political contexts that shape archaeological practice in Türkiye and rethink what meaningful decolonization might look like from within.
Embargo
Exchange networks and agro-economy at Kinet Höyük (Türkiye) from the 3rd–1st millennium BC traced through prized wood, olive, and grape charcoal remains
(Elsevier Ltd, 2026-02) Deckers, Katleen; Gates, Marie-Henriette
This paper presents the first systematic and diachronic synthesis of charcoal results from the Early Bronze to Iron Age excavations at Kinet Höyük, a Mediterranean seaport at the foot of the Amanus Mountains in southern Türkiye. The analyzed remains highlight the fuelscapes of exploitation of precious wood, olive and grape resources at the site, and how this particular supply of commodities responded to trade and exchange networks under fluctuating circumstances, from historical shifts in political power to environmental constraints. Although cedar seems not to have been available in the immediate vicinity, Kinet's inhabitants had access to other prized woods like pine, yew, boxwood, fir, and juniper, which were distributed over considerable distances throughout the Near East and even Egypt. Olive and grape cultivation also played important roles in Kinet's economy and its cultural and commercial identity to varying degrees over time. During much of the Bronze Age, Kinet Höyük was actively engaged in the Mediterranean's interlocking trade network. The subsequent breakdown of this network disrupted the site's economy, as recorded in the anthracological profile by an evident decline in olive, probably irrigated. In contrast, the Late Bronze Age Hittite grape and wine tradition, which also may have relied on irrigation, continued despite a short hiatus at the site and its probable resettlement by newcomers. Viticulture played an important role in Iron Age Kinet and was especially stimulated under the Neo-Assyrians, together with olive production. After the Neo-Assyrian withdrawal, large-scale olive and grape cultivation continued, plausibly oriented toward the Mediterranean trade, even as declining rainfall increasingly affected olive production.
Open Access
The Phoenician Jar Inscription at Kinet Höyük: a new script for an old cult
(University of Chicago Press, 2025-10) Adalı, Selim Ferruh; Lehmann, Gunnar; Gates, Marie Henriette
Open Access
An isotopic overview of dietary habits and subsistence practices in the Aegean World
(Frontiers Media SA, 2025-06-13) Irvine, Benjamin
This study provides a broad overview of human dietary habits and subsistence practices across time in the Aegean World (defined in the East by the coastal littoral of western Anatolia, Crete to the South, and eastern mainland Greece in the West). This was done principally through the collation and examination of previously published stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios (δ13C and δ15N values) from human bulk bone collagen. The sites/populations examined in this study date from the Neolithic to the Late Byzantine periods; ca. 6000 BC to the early 16th century AD. Broadly speaking, the stable isotope values demonstrate general consistency diachronically, although a slight and gradual increase in δ13C values over time is observed. The δ15N values are also broadly similar diachronically, with the exception of the Classical (and to a lesser extent Hellenistic and Byzantine) periods which have noticeably higher δ15N values than the preceding and following periods. Interestingly, and perhaps unexpectedly, there are no clearly observable differences between the sub-regions of the Aegean World (i.e., East Aegean, Crete, West Aegean). The observed findings would, therefore, suggest broadly similar dietary habits and subsistence practices in the Aegean World from the Neolithic period onwards, perhaps pointing toward dietary habits and subsistence practices being a further facet of connectivity in the region.
Open Access
Inequality at the dawn of the bronze age: the case of Başur Höyük, a 'royal' cemetery at the margins of the mesopotamian world
(Cambridge University Press, 2025-03-17) Wengrow, David; Hassett, Brenna; Saglamtimur, Haluk; Marsh, William; Brace, Selina; Pilaar Birch, Suzanne E.; Baysal, Emma Louise; Batlhan, Metin; Aydogan, Inan; Batlhan, Öznur Özmen; Barnes, Ian
On the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, archaeologists encounter evidence that challenges conventional understandings of early state formation as a transition from 'small-scale, egalitarian' to 'large-scale, stratified' societies. One such location is the Early Bronze Age cemetery of Başur Höyük, which presents evidence of grand funerary rituals - including 'retainer burials' and spectacular deposits of metallic wealth - in an otherwise small-scale, egalitarian setting. A further, puzzling feature of this cemetery is the preponderance of teenagers in the richest tombs. Here we describe the combined results of archaeological and anthropological analysis at Başur Höyük, including ancient DNA, and consider the challenges they pose to traditional accounts of early state formation.
Embargo
A stable isotopic and textual examination of the weaning process at Bronze Age Kültepe, Türkiye
(Elsevier BV, 2025-12) Özdemir, Kameray; Irvine, Benjamin Titus; Üstündağ, Handan; Michel, Cécile; Doğan, Turhan; Kulak, Furkan; Kulakoğlu, Fikri
Stable isotope analysis of archaeological human remains can provide us with the potential to study cultural practices in past people. This study focuses on examining a particular cultural practice, that of the weaning process. We apply δ13C and δ15N values from bulk bone collagen of subadults (n = 28; Early Bronze Age n = 5, Middle Bronze Age n = 23) (in conjunction with and relative to adult values) from Bronze Age Kültepe to investigate the timing and nature of the weaning process. By integrating stable isotope analysis of subadults with contemporary textual evidence, this study investigates what the timing and pattern of the weaning process at Bronze Age Kültepe can infer about broader cultural practices, household dynamics, and socio-economic factors. Kültepe, in east central Anatolia, is one of the largest Bronze Age settlements in Anatolia, inhabited from the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Bronze Age, and provides a good case study for being able to investigate how scientific methodologies and textual analysis can be combined to examine cultural practices; in this case, the weaning process. The results of this study suggest that, overall, the weaning process commenced at around 1–1.5 years of age and was completed by around 2.5–3 years of age. These estimated ages are in general agreement for isotopically observed weaning process ages and duration for prehistoric populations in Anatolia and the Near East, as well as the textual evidence from Kültepe.
Embargo
Dietary habits and subsistence practices at Early Bronze age Karataş-Semayük, southwest Anatolia
(Elsevier BV, 2025-11-06) Büyükkarakaya, Ali Metin; Adams, Donovan M.; Özdemir, Kameray; Irvine, Benjamin; Pilloud, Marin A.; Jazwa, Christopher S.
This study is an analysis of the dietary habits and subsistence practices of the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC) population of Karataş-Semayük on the Elmalı Plain near Antalya, Türkiye. We generated and analysed bulk collagen $δ^{13}C$ and $δ^{15}N$ values for 21 adult human individuals and five faunal remains (a pig, caprids, and cattle). For humans, there is a range in δ13C values of 1.3 ‰ from −20.1 ‰ to −18.8 ‰ and a range in $δ^{15}N$ values of 3.1 ‰ from 6.8 ‰ to 9.9 ‰. The mean $δ^{13}C$ value for the adult humans sampled in this study is −19.3 ‰ ± 0.3 ‰ and for $δ^{15}N$ the mean value is 8.3 ‰ ± 0.7 ‰. There is an overall consistency in isotopic values for the sampled population across time and space, suggesting that dietary habits were relatively uniform. There is, however, some potential and subtle variation between males and females which may, tentatively, suggest some sex-based differences in dietary habits at an intra-population level. The findings of this study also appear to support the findings of previous studies regarding dietary and agricultural homogeneity in the Early Bronze Age of Anatolia.
Open Access
The raging male – contextualizing explicit masculinity in Upper Mesopotamian early Holocene iconography
(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2026-02-04) Zimmermann, Thomas
This article attempts to interpret the phallocentric artworks known from Early Holocene sites, such as Göbekli Tepe, Karahantepe, and Sayburç, in the Harran plain (Şanlıurfa, southwest Türkiye), as possible relics of rituals centered on male-coded rites of passage from youth to adulthood. The absence of female elements together with the explicit exposure of male sexuality is compared to contemporary tribal initiation rites in the frame of cultural morphology. The diachronic review of key elements initiated is finally placed in a broader context, arguing for a slowly fading hunter-gatherer population on the threshold of new lifeways that exposes their cultural legacy more explicitly.
Restricted
The Routledge handbook of the Byzantine city: from Justinian to Mehmet ii (ca. 500 – ca. 1500)
(Routledge, 2024-01-01) Bakirtzis, Nikolas; Zavagno, Luca
The Byzantine world contained many important cities throughout its empire. Although it was not ‘urban’ in the sense of the word today, its cities played a far more fundamental role than those of its European neighbors. This book, through a collection of twenty-four chapters, discusses aspects of, and different approaches to, Byzantine urbanism from the early to late Byzantine periods. It provides both a chronological and thematic perspective to the study of Byzantine cities, bringing together literary, documentary, and archival sources with archaeological results, material culture, art, and architecture, resulting in a rich synthesis of the variety of regional and sub-regional transformations of Byzantine urban landscapes. Organized into four sections, this book covers: Theory and Historiography, Geography and Economy, Architecture and the Built Environment, and Daily Life and Material Culture. It includes more specialized accounts that address the centripetal role of Constantinople and its broader influence across the empire. Such new perspectives help to challenge the historiographical balance between ‘margins and metropolis, ’ and also to include geographical areas often regarded as peripheral, like the coastal urban centers of the Byzantine Mediterranean as well as cities on islands, such as Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily which have more recently yielded well-excavated and stratigraphically sound urban sites. The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City provides both an overview and detailed study of the Byzantine city to specialist scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike and, therefore, will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine urbanism and society, as well as those studying medieval society in general. © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Nikolas Bakirtzis and Luca Zavagno; individual chapters, the contributors.
Open Access
Ancient cities: the archaeology of urban life in the ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome
(Routledge, 2024-01-01) Gates, Charles; Goldman, Andrew
The third edition of Ancient Cities surveys the cities of the Ancient Near East, Egypt, and the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman worlds from the perspectives of archaeology and architectural history, bringing to life the physical world of ancient city dwellers by concentrating on archaeological evidence. Urban form is the focus: the physical appearance and overall plans of cities, their architecture and natural topography, and the cultural and historical contexts in which they flourished. Attention is also paid to non-urban features such as religious sanctuaries and burial grounds, places and institutions that were a familiar part of the city dweller’s experience. Objects or artifacts that furnished everyday life are discussed, such as writing systems, pottery, sculpture, wall paintings, mosaics, and coins. Ancient Cities is unusual in presenting this wide range of Old World cultures in such comprehensive detail, giving equal weight to the Preclassical and Classical periods, and in showing the links between these ancient cultures. In this new edition, in which Andrew Goldman has joined Charles Gates in updating the volume, readers and lecturers will be delighted to see a major revision of the chapters on Greek cities in South Italy and Sicily, the Etruscans, the development of the capital city, Rome, during the Republic as well as the Empire, and the end of the ancient city. This new edition includes several new and updated user-friendly features, such as: Here is the list from the provided text in Markdown format: - Clear and accessible language, assuming no previous background knowledge - Lavishly illustrated, with almost 350 line drawings, maps, and photographs, including new contributions from Neslihan Yılmaz Tekman adding to her already acclaimed illustrations - Suggestions for further reading for each chapter - A companion website with images, study guides, and an interactive timeline. With its comprehensive presentation of ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern cities, its rich collection of illustrations, and its companion website, Ancient Cities remains an essential textbook for university and high school students across a wide range of archaeology, ancient history, and ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Classical Studies courses.
Open Access
Magnetic gradiometry survey at the urban centre of Türkmen-Karahöyük (Turkey)
(2024-09-01) Creamer, Petra M.; Alperstein, Jonathan; Massa, Michele; Osborne, James; Casana, Jesse
The understanding of urban centres in the ancient Near East, one of the main regions for investigating the development of cities, has been transformed in recent years through investigations using archaeological geophysical prospection tools. This paper presents results of our recent magnetic gradiometry survey at the large urban site of Türkmen-Karahöyük (Konya Plain, Turkey) conducted using a SENSYS Magneto MXPDA cart-based system. Results of the survey have successfully identified and characterized numerous areas of ancient settlement, industrial activity and burials across the massive site, offering new insights into the history of occupation at Türkmen-Karahöyük. Our findings are thereby helping to shape future investigations at the site and, more broadly, demonstrate the opportunities and challenges presented by cart-based geophysical survey instruments for archaeological investigations of mounded urban sites with extensive lower towns.
Open Access
Mass-hunting in South-west Asia at the dawn of sedentism: new evidence from Şanlıurfa, south-east Türkiye
(Cambridge University Press, 2024-09-30) Şahin, Fatma; Massa, Michele
Collation of satellite imagery and new fieldwork in Şanlıurfa (south-east Türkiye) has revealed large numbers of stone-walled desert kites, some of which may date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (c. 9500–7000 BC). The authors briefly explore the potential role of these structures in the processes of early sedentism and monumentality.
Open Access
Going local: an agency-based approach to collapse, resistance, and resilience in Hittite Anatolia
(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2024-05-24) Gerçek, Nebahat İlgi
Crisis and collapse have long been prominent themes in Hittite studies (much more so than the related topics of resistance and resilience) and most of the extant body of scholarship on these themes have concentrated on the disintegration of the Hittite Empire around 1200 BCE. Though the events, conditions and processes that culminated in the disintegration of the Hittite Empire elude historical reconstruction, recent studies have unanimously rejected monocausal explanations of collapse in favor of the view that it was brought about by a combination of factors - internal, external, acute or chronic. In Hittite scholarship, the study of collapse and its aftermath have typically operated within a markedly state-centered and progressivist framework, focusing primarily on figuring out "what went wrong." Meanwhile, especially in text-based studies, the agency and resilience of local, small(er)-scale, peripheral, and non-state individuals and communities, as well as their role in the construction, maintenance, and collapse of the Hittite empire, remain largely overlooked. The aim of the present paper is to shift the focus and scale of analysis away from the state, and to draw out from the textual record, the long-term agency, resistance, and resilience of local, small-scale, and often non-state individuals, communities, or socio-political institutions, which have typically been left out of text-based modern narratives. This paper will reassess the prominent view of the Hittite king (and state) as the absolute political, military, judicial, and religious authority, and argue that certain local and non-state communities and socio-political institutions exercised diverse kinds of agency, were remarkably resilient in the long term, and survived the final collapse of the Hittite state. In order to situate the inquiry in its broader scholarly and intellectual context, it will begin with an overview of where things stand in the study of the Hittite collapse. The next step will be to identify individual or collective local actors in the textual record. It will lastly focus on the interactions of diverse local agents with the Hittite state.
Open Access
From Hellenistic neighbourhood to bath-gymnasium and beyond: The archaeology east of the Upper Agora of Sagalassos
(Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2023) Beaujean, Bas; Claeys, Johan; Daems, D.; Doperé, F.; Talloen, Peter; Poblome, J.
Thirty years of excavations and research have turned the Upper Agora area of Sagalassos into one of the best-studied public spaces and political civic centers of Roman poleis in Asia Minor. The area to its east was the last remaining piece of the puzzle to be studied. Between 2015-2021, a series of large-scale excavations obtained a wealth of archaeological evidence, ranging from a Hellenistic neighbourhood to the main gymnasium of the Roman polis, and its rearrangement in Late Antiquity. As a result, these excavations provided information about a wide range of aspects of life in Hellenistic, Roman Imperial, and Early Byzantine Pisidia. This paper presents the relevant evidence and discusses its possible interpretations, so that it can be used to contribute to larger debates and themes within Classical and Anatolian Archaeology.