American Journal of Archaeology

This article is based on research into the archaeological collections exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867. In the course of that research, various documents were found relating to an Early Christian lead vessel, discovered in Carthage and since disappeared, that attracted the attention of many scholars at the time. This article aims to trace the history of the vase from its discovery to its exhibition in Paris through illustrations and published and unpublished documents. Archival data are drawn on to offer a description of the lost vase’s iconography that is as complete as possible.

The Late Antique (ca. 450 CE) infant cemetery uncovered at Poggio Gramignano near Lugnano in Teverina (Italy) has been interpreted as a catastrophic death assemblage associated with an acute epidemic of Plasmodium falciparum malaria and a resulting episode of increased infant mortality. Previous research has noted the unique mortuary ritual associated with these burials but has not adequately considered the social implications of the nonnormative burial of the infant and even fetal dead. This paper considers 10 newly uncovered burials of infants and one child from the cemetery, analyzed in situ using an archaeothanatological approach to separate postdepositional taphonomic change from the social and ritual dimensions of intentional funerary behavior. The mortuary treatment provided to these individuals suggests a possible fear of the dead, and more significantly, maternal grief and a desire for remembrance that contrasts with Roman cultural expectations surrounding the mourning of infants. The treatment of these individuals in death provides valuable and specific insight into the attitudes of this rural community’s shared stress surrounding unexplained illness, infant death, and traditional beliefs in an era of significant cultural and social transition.

The recent excavations in Patara, Turkey, one of the important port cities of the Lycian region, enabled access to new important data about the Ptolemaic presence in the city and the region. The subject of this study is 19 gold trichrysons found in a bundle formed by two lead plates wrapped together. Fifteen of these coins were struck in Alexandria, and four others were from Cyprus, probably Salamis or Kition. It is the first Ptolemaic hoard found in an archaeological excavation in the Lycian region. It comes from the Tepecik settlement in Patara, which served as a garrison for Ptolemaic soldiers. The hoard in all likelihood belonged to a military officer or commander. We propose that it was buried during the First Syrian War, before ca. 272/1 BCE.

Early Greek alphabetic writing has received extensive attention in the literature. Yet such writing is often treated as immaterial, both literally and metaphorically. My study addresses this problem by offering a systematic investigation of the material properties of nearly 300 inscribed objects, mostly ceramic, that date from ca. 750–600 BCE and originate from seven sites across the Greek world. Inspired by work on classical art and text, and on the materiality of writing, I use a quantitative approach to investigate the ways in which early inscriptions interact with the fabric, the shape, and the decoration of the vessels on which they are rendered, reflecting also on the ramifications of this interaction for the socialization of early Greek inscribed objects in diverse contexts. The investigation exposes a range of hitherto neglected patterns attesting to the preferential inscribing and use of particular types of vessels in specific sites or contexts, and to the association of certain types of text with the material properties of the medium that carries it. More broadly, I argue that Greek epigraphy would benefit from methodologies that promote the documentation and interpretation of not only the textual but also the material properties of inscribed objects.