American Journal of Archaeology

Currently, long-distance trading, gateway communities, and the longboat are understood to have emerged in the Aegean during Early Bronze (EB) IB/IIA. This longboat-trading model envisages an essentially static configuration of trading communities situated at nodal points in maritime networks of interaction, an arrangement that was brought to an end, by the beginning of EB III, with the introduction of the masted sailing ship. This article questions this EB IB/IIA emergence date and argues instead that trading, gateway communities, and the longboat have a deeper and more dynamic history stretching back at least as far as the end of the Neolithic (Final Neolithic [FN] IV). The results of recent excavations at the FN IV–Early Minoan (EM) IA coastal site of Kephala Petras in east Crete paint a picture of an early trading community that, thanks to its close Cycladic connections, enjoyed preferential access to valued raw materials, to the technologies for their transformation, and to finished objects. This monopoly over the resource of distance was in turn exploited locally and regionally in east Crete, as a social strategy, to construct advantageous relationships with other communities. FN IV–EM IA Kephala Petras thus appears to represent the earliest known of a series of Early Bronze Age gateway communities (e.g., Hagia Photia, Mochlos, Poros-Katsambas) operating along the north coast of Crete.

The statue landscape of Hellenistic cities and sanctuaries was constantly changing, but the process of the gradual accrual of statues is customarily elided on site plans, which tend to show—if they represent statue bases at all—the final phase of this long and complex process. Investigating the way statue landscapes developed over time can provide a better understanding of the political, social, and spatial dynamics at play in portrait dedication. This article takes as a case study for such an approach the portrait statue monuments set up along the dromos of the Sanctuary of Apollo on Delos. Our aim is to unpack the processual dimension of this statuary display by representing this process visually through phase plans and a three-dimensional model of the dromos made in Trimble SketchUp. Parsing into phases the gradual accumulation of statues along the dromos reveals the historical dimension of statue dedication and exposes the tensions between individual and group identity that could be negotiated visually through the location, material, and size of a portrait monument. Finally, we argue that imaginative reconstruction can help us think through  the implications of display context for sculptural style: the ever-increasing number of portrait statues in the Late Hellenistic period may have been a driving force behind the stylistic changes that occurred in Late Hellenistic portraiture.

This hypothetical 3D reconstruction shows the gradual accumulation and increasing density of statue monuments on the Delian Dromos over approximately 150 years. It is an attempt to represent the process of change over time. The authors believe this model is a useful tool for trying to gauge and interpret the visual effects of statue collocations on the ancient honorific landscape.

Ceremonial textiles in the ancient Mediterranean are well attested in literature and visual representations but are often difficult to document because of the limited preservation of the textiles themselves. Several depictions of textile production in elite contexts from pre-Roman Italy, as well as the common occurrence of textile tools in assemblages of prestige grave goods, have traditionally been used to illustrate the social significance of textile skills for Etrusco-Italic women. Less attention has been directed to the actual practice of such skills in ritual or social ceremonies. This study brings forth new evidence from the numerous tools for spinning and weaving found in Etrusco-Italic sanctuaries to elucidate the relationships between textiles, women, and the sacred sphere.

Amorgos is widely known for its Early Cycladic antiquities, which now predominantly adorn private collections and numerous museums outside Greece. Some of the finest Cycladica associated with the island emerged before the first systematic excavations were conducted in 1894 by Christos Tsountas. With the exception of brief references, this early period of Cycladic exploration is little known. This article attempts to identify and reconstruct the private excavations that took place on Amorgos and the organization, operation, and trafficking of the island’s Early Cycladic antiquities between 1880 and 1894. By integrating archival and archaeological material, this study offers glimpses of the cultural history of late 19th-century Amorgos and of some of the protagonists who paved the way for the systematic investigation of the early Cyclades.

Scale and symmetry in monumental architecture are embraced by archaeologists as the primary vocabulary in past statements of power. In ancient Mesopotamia in particular, the excessive size of public buildings implied the control of both space and people. The predictable, often symmetrical plans regulated and reflected control over users’ behavior. However, interpretations based on plans alone remain simplistic; analyses from ground level can better encompass the lived experience of a building’s occupants or users. Close ground-level phenomenological analysis of movement through the Neo-Assyrian capital city of Khorsabad (constructed and inhabited 717–706 B.C.E.), particularly its citadel, indicates that manipulation of fields of view, interplay of light and shadow, and variations in sound were equally important means of conveying ideological messages.

This article explores the complexity of nonurban and rural landscapes. Using published and unpublished survey data from the Balikh River valley and integrating remotely sensed data sets, such as satellite imagery, I demonstrate that subregional environmental diversity can constrain emerging urban landscapes and result in long-term, stable nonurban and/or rural settlement patterns. Rather than viewing these areas of low occupation density as “backwaters,” I suggest that they reveal divergent settlement trajectories that were crucial components of regional settlement systems.

Sanctuaries and religion were instrumental in forming the worldview of the ancient Cypriots, and one would expect that social power relations, meanings, and identities were expressed through the holistic concept of sacred landscapes. This contribution primarily discusses the change in the use and perception of sacred landscapes, which were originally constructed in the era of the Cypriot basileis (kings) but continued to function in a new political environment under the control of the Ptolemaic strategos (general). Furthermore, it proposes a contextualized methodology for approaching the study of sacred landscapes in Iron Age Cyprus, revealing new possibilities and their effects on our understanding of Cypriot social, cultural, and political histories and at the same time indicating the limits and the dangers of such a task. Drawing on ideas from theoretical/methodological studies of landscape archaeology and their relevant applications in other Mediterranean histories, this article explores how spatial order (i.e., the hierarchical arrangement of sites), as observed in sacred landscapes, is expected to articulate social order and to be linked with shifting relations of power and cultural influence in an ancient Cypriot context. It also suggests that a closer consideration of sacred landscapes and their complexities from a long-term perspective not only makes the transition from the Cypriot city-kingdoms to the Hellenistic period more comprehensible but also illuminates the political and sociocultural histories of both periods when they are studied in their own terms.

The 2012 edition of the “Archaeology in Jordan” newsletter presents short reports on select excavations and archaeological projects in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan conducted during 2010 and 2011. Reports are generally organized geographically from north to south.

In the 1970s, a fragmentary sculpted portrait of the empress Livia wearing a wreath of wheat was found in a monumental building (dubbed the Imperial Cult Building) on the forum of ancient Thysdrus (El Jem, Tunisia). Published here for the first time, the head dates to ca. 10–20 C.E. The new Livia is part of a cluster of Augustan and Julio-Claudian statuary—an Augustus, a possible Octavia, and three hitherto-unpublished headless statues—that sheds new light on the prosperity and public ambitions of Thysdrus in the Early Empire. The unadulterated crown of wheat accentuates ties to Ceres with unusual emphasis but fits in with contemporary African coinage and dedications.

Among Heinrich Schliemann’s discoveries of architecture at Mycenaean Tiryns in the Argolid Plain in southern Greece, one of the most impressive was a single huge rectangular stone slab that covered the floor of a relatively small square room. The slab’s surface was smoothed down and provided with drilled sockets to anchor a wooden dado. The slab was tilted slightly to provide a slope for water to run off through a carved trough and surely served as an unusual floor for a room devoted to bathing, not far from the Throne Room of the palace. This article deals with the bathing room and, in particular, a proposed wooden bench built along its side walls. It also investigates what we know about bathing in the Aegean during the Late Bronze Age.