AJA

Early and Middle Minoan goldwork has sparked numerous studies, with particular emphasis on possible foreign influences and the role of gold in the development of social hierarchies. This paper contends that the value and uses of gold can only be understood in connection to the broader organization of production and distribution.

Although literary and epigraphic texts attest to the widespread use of random selection in the ancient Mediterranean, archaeological evidence beyond the Athenian-style kleroterion is rare. A recent discovery at Morgantina may improve this situation: a terracotta ball inscribed with a personal name was recovered in 2018 during excavations inside a house dated to the middle of the third century BCE.

This article focuses on 12 fragments of Roman sculptures preserved in the storage rooms of Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli. Ten can be identified as portraits of Hadrian, Antinous, Commodus, Caracalla, and possibly Elagabalus. Another is a head with a ringlet hairpiece (Löckchentoupet), which could represent a female member of Hadrian’s family or a servant.

Ancient Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir) in southern Israel is a key site for understanding the Canaanite cultures of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages and the Kingdom of Judah in the Iron Age of the Levant. It has been intensively excavated since 1932 by a number of entities. This article presents the excavation results by the Fourth Expedition to Lachish in 2013–2017. Fieldwork focused on the site’s northeastern corner, a neglected area believed to have been uninhabited in some periods.

Cupids depicted in the early fourth-century CE mosaics of the Roman villa at Piazza Armerina in Sicily are marked with a V on their foreheads; this has been explained as a symbol connected to a workshop. I adduce evidence from Roman literature and from the artistic tradition of Cupid in Roman art that suggests the mark is, in fact, the stigma, a tattoo regularly applied by the Romans to people convicted of serious crimes.