AJA

The function of a large number of distinctive signs, usually called masons’ marks, carved on cut-stone blocks found in Minoan or Bronze Age buildings on the island of Crete remains a debated topic. Interpretations have varied from a simple practical use, aiding the builders in positioning the blocks, to a magical or religious function. In view of the constantly expanding corpus, this article considers the use of the marks visible in the walls of the Neopalatial palace at Malia (ca.

The Cretan Labyrinth has fascinated scholars and the wider public since antiquity. Traditionally, it has been regarded as a monument that did once exist, and it has been widely identified with the Minoan palace of Knossos. I argue that this approach has underestimated the variety and complexity of references to the Cretan Labyrinth and its capacity for metamorphosis from abstract memory to tangible monument and for relocation from one Cretan site to another.

This article presents new information about some recently discovered Athenian vase inscriptions that were incised before firing and later covered over with black glaze, together with a few other inscriptions previously known but never explained. These vase inscriptions were originally not meant to be seen but are visible today owing to recently developed technological capabilities.

Ancient Nicomedia, the most important capital of the eastern Roman empire during the Tetrarchy, now lies below the modern industrial city of İzmit. The first systematic archaeological research on Diocletian’s capital, supported with a grant from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), examines a series of monumental reliefs and statues from a terraced imperial cult complex, found in the Çukurbağ district at the heart of modern İzmit.

This article examines a series of engraved glass flasks manufactured as souvenirs of the Campanian cities of Puteoli and Baiae in the Late Imperial period. The corpus of flasks has not been reassessed since the 1970s. Since then, archaeological discoveries have offered important new contextual information about the uses of these souvenir flasks. The flasks visually emphasize monuments still standing in Late Imperial Puteoli and Baiae that connected the cities to Rome and its emperors.

By the late fourth to early third millennium B.C.E., Kura-Araxes (Early Transcaucasian) material culture spread from the southern Caucasus throughout much of southwest Asia. The Kura-Araxes settlements declined and ultimately disappeared in almost all the regions in southwest Asia around the middle of the third millennium B.C.E. The transition to the “post–Kura-Araxes” time in the southern Caucasus is one of the most tantalizing subjects in the archaeology of the region.

Agricultural production and the palatial redistribution of staples have played a key role in the debate concerning the emergence of social complexity in Minoan Crete. However, much of the focus has fallen on major settlements where such products were consumed, rather than on the landscape where agricultural surplus was produced.