Umm al-Biyara, the highest mountain in Petra, southern Jordan, was the first Iron Age Edomite site to be extensively excavated. It was a domestic, unwalled site of stone-built longhouses dating to the 7th-6th centuries BCE. The stratigraphy, pottery, small finds and inscribed material, including the important bulla of Qos-Gabr, King of Edom are described, supplemented by chapters on the use of space and a landscape study of mountain-top sites in the Petra region. The later Nabataean remains on the edge of the summit indicate a major Nabataean complex of buildings, possibly a palace, which would make this the first Nabataean palace in Petra to be explicitly identified.

For thousands of years travellers wandered to, and spread out through, Egypt and the Near East, seeking trade, adventure and knowledge. For centuries travellers to - and from - the Near East carried knowledge with them and then carried home the new knowledge acquired in the region. And knowledge, as the Arabic proverb states, is light. The travels which are the subjects of these nine papers continue to represent the work of The Association for the Study of Travel in the Near East, which was set up to follow, study and record the experience of travel and travellers in the Near East. The book features travellers of great character. John Covel was in Constantinople in the 1670s where he became Chaplain and took away in his little-known diaries an extraordinary account of what it was like to be an Englishman in late 17th-century Greece and Asia Minor. James Rennell came to be considered as "one of the first geographers of this or any other age". He spent thirty years researching classical and modern sources on the geography of the Near East, including his splendidly intriguing study of the rate of travel by camels to establish distances.

To some, the Chalcolithic (4700/4500-3700/3600 BC cal.), as the first period with metallurgy, large sprawling villages, rich mortuary offerings, and cult centres, represents a developmental stage on the road to the urban Bronze Age, the "dawn of history". Others have called it 'the end of prehistory'. More recent scholarship focuses upon the diversification of the subsistence economy, elaborated craft production, and expanded networks for resource acquisition. Many of today's Chalcolithic specialists were taught by biblical archaeologists, such that the culture history paradigm remains deeply embedded. This volume grew out of a workshop held in Madrid in 2006 and aims to kick start a dialogue about how to move beyond culture history and chronology in order to re-engage with larger theoretical discourses. A vast swathe of research in the region ignores these issues and considers theory to be irrelevant. One has the impression that the political realities of the region (including a predilection for biblical archaeology) has left a large proportion of archaeologists in the region, including prehistorians, lost without a map. Contributors to this volume recognize that culture history is the platform upon which current archaeological research is discussed but differ in the degree of emphasis placed on previously defined entities or phases. Delineating levels of difference and similarity between temporal boundaries is critical in this process. The two themes of this volume - culture and chronology - combine the need for theoretical engagement with the establishment of broader, more precise empirical data using explicit classificatory schemes. This is, essentially, the rock and the hard place where much archaeological debate is wedged, and as such the volume will have resonance for scholars of other periods and regions.

This volume, the third in the series of reports on the excavations carried out at the Canhasan I mound in south-central Anatolia in the years 1961-1968, follows the publication of the stratification and structures (Canhasan Sites 1) and of the pottery (Canhasan Sites 2). Here, the primary aim is to present a descriptive account and catalogue of the registered small-finds. The small-finds have been grouped, described and then illustrated according to material, e. g., clay, stone, bone. The separation into discrete groups and the description of individual objects have both been deliberately simplified, the intention being to provide (where possible chronologically) an orderly arrangement from which those interested are able to scan and note the range of materials and, if they wish, to take up relevant aspects or indeed to inspect the objects for further study and research. The location of the site at Canhasan is set unequivocally between East and West, close to, if not on, a major land route from the Near East to the Aegean and to Europe. Inevitably, in this geographical context, some materials, such as obsidian and copper, will catch the eye. These have a utilitarian purpose and introduce the factor of distance between source and Canhasan. One object, however, - an ivory bracelet - not only emphasises, by its presence at Canhasan, the distant source of the material but points directly to the nature and dynamics of trade/transfer/exchange in the 6th millennium. The bracelet documents the role of personal display and human vanity as an incentive for material acquisition.

The remarkable Herodian dynasty flourished from the second century BCE to the second century CE. This book examines its origins, measures its impact on Jewish society, and discusses the influence it had beyond Judaea. It argues that the Herodian dynasty played a central part in the workings of the Eastern Roman Empire. The author suggests that Herod the Great would be better described as a 'Hellenized Phoenician' rather than simply as an 'Idumaean' and draws on a variety of evidence to support this view. The Herodian dynasty is seen in the context of the political structure of the province of Judaea and life in Greco-Roman Palestine as a whole.

The Upper Pleistocene era encompassed a period of dramatic cultural developments in the south-eastern Mediterranean basin. This book highlights and synthesizes the latest research and current scientific debate on the archaeology of this time period in North Africa and the Near East. Recent archaeological research in North Africa has meant this region now plays a decisive role in scientific debate. After decades of neglect, the archaeological record from North Africa has now been seen to parallel in significance that of the Near East. This book offers an opportunity to observe the Afro-Asian side of the Mediterranean basin as an uninterrupted land, as it was for its Upper Pleistocene inhabitants. Areas of focus include the Out-of-Africa movement of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) into the Levant and the transition from the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age to the Upper Palaeolithic/Later Stone Age, during which a change of lifestyle took place, based on plant cultivation and animal husbandry. These topics are of crucial interest to anyone studying human evolution, prehistoric archaeology, anthropology, and palaeo-environmental studies. This volume brings together data as well as perspectives from various scholars, often separated by their areas of interest and location. This volume is complementary to The Mediterranean from 50,000 to 25,000 BP: Turning Points and New Directions edited by M. Camps and C. Szmidt (Oxbow Books, 2009).

This volume is intended as a tribute to the memory of the Sumerologist Jeremy Black, who died in 2004. The Sumerian phrase zà-mí-zu dug-ga-àm 'Your praise is sweet' is commonly addressed to a deity at the close of a work of Sumerian literature. The scope of the thirty contributions, from Sumerology to the nineteenth-century rediscovery of Mesopotamia, is testament to Jeremy's own wide-ranging interests and to his ability to forge scholarly connections and friendships among all who shared his interest in ancient Iraq.

This book contains the publication of the Greek and Coptic inscriptions that were brought to light during archaeological work on the site of Qasr Ibrim (Egyptian Nubia) carried out by the Egypt Exploration Society from 1963 onwards.

This book explores the dynamics of small-scale societies in the ancient Near East by examining the ways in which particular communities functioned and interacted and by moving beyond the broad neo-evolutionary models of social change which have characterised many earlier approaches. By focusing on issues of diversity, scale, and context, it considers the ways in which economy, crafts, technology, and ritual were organised; the roles played by mortuary practices and households in the structure and development of ancient societies; and the importance of agency, identity, ethnicity, gender, community and cultural interaction for the rise of socio-economic complexity. The contributors to this volume are well-known archaeologists in the field of Near Eastern studies; all are currently engaged in fieldwork or research in Cyprus, the Levant, or Turkey. The variety and depth of the research they present here reflect the richness of the archaeological record in the 'cradle of civilisation' and convey the vibrancy of current interpretive approaches within the field of Near Eastern prehistory today.

This volume presents a collection of papers focusing on archaeological approaches to landscape in the context of the adoption of agriculture in Southwest Asia and Northwest Europe. Case studies are presented from these contrasting regions, one where the transition to farming is indigenous, and the other where the transformation is initiated externally. This allows us to consider to what extent hunter-gatherer and farmer landscapes may be different, or the degree to which apparent differences have been constructed by our expectations and traditions of interpretation. While the concept 'landscape' enjoys considerable popularity in archaeological interpretation, it is somewhat ill-defined and inconsistently used. Some have suggested that this fluidity allows landscape to be a 'usefully ambiguous concept' but at times there is a danger that this very ambiguity affords imprecision in our narratives. This is particularly important where differing traditions of archaeological interpretation meet, as, for example, in the transition from hunting and gathering to farming. The transition has been understood as a major division in archaeological practice and attitudes to 'landscape' across the transition reflect this dichotomy. The results of these debates are illuminating, and raise questions beyond the immediate geographical scope of the volume. The contrast between the two regions provides valuable comparisons between traditions of archaeological theory and interpretation and the bodies of evidence. Bill Finlayson is the Director of the Council for British Research in the Levant, Graeme Warren is a College Lecturer in the School of Archaeology, UCD, Ireland.

The Gilgal Neolithic sites are among the first sites where cultivation emerged in the Levant. This book provides the full report of the late Tamar Noy's excavations including stratigraphy, architecture, artifacts, art objects, faunal, and botanical collections.

This volume presents the research of the British team within the modern excavations at the northern Mesopotamian site of Chagar Bazar, resumed in 1999 after a 62-year hiatus since the excavations of Max Mallowan. It incorporates settlement archaeology approaches and theoretical ideas of "place" in exploring the site and its internal and external landscapes. The primary focus is the settlement during the early 2nd millennium BC (Old Babylonian Period, post-Samsi-Addu), its final ancient occupation. The authors have taken a contextual approach, integrating aspects of the settlement's internal variations, including both community and private architecture, together with burial practices and symbolic and functional material culture. While its political importance varied, Chagar Bazar's persistence of occupation meant that it played a key role within the regional landscape as a meaningful landmark.

Tylos Period Burials in Bahrain - Volume II - The Hamad Town DS 3 & Shakhoura Cemeteries

This book presents the structures and stratigraphy of the important Iron Age sequence at Tille Höyuek, a mound at a crossing of the Euphrates in eastern Turkey. The site, which was excavated between 1979 and 1990 by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, revealed ten major structural levels of the Iron Age, spanning the period from the 11th century to the 6th-4th centuries BC, as well as earlier and later remains, and the wide exposure of architecture provides a sequence of intelligible and impressive building plans. After the initial discussion of the background and methodology of their excavation, the successive levels are carefully described and fully illustrated. The earliest Iron Age occupation, simple buildings among the ruins of the Late Bronze Age, was followed by a major settlement of the Middle Iron Age, when the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Kummuh was at its height. Most impressive architecturally are a large palatial building centred on a courtyard paved with a pebble mosaic, which was probably built after the Assyrian annexation of Kummuh in 708 BC and continued in use through the seventh, and the excellently preserved Level X with many distinctively Persian architectural features (built in the latter half of the 6th or the early 5th century and probably lasting for a substantial time). The structures and stratigraphy are also important as the context for the first rigorously established ceramic sequence in this part of Turkey, which will be presented, together with the other materials and artefacts, in the companion to this volume (already complete in draft). Lying on the fringes of the Mesopotamian world, and with contacts with North Syria, North Mesopotamia, and the Levant rather than with Anatolia or the Mediterranean, Tille casts vivid new light on the cultural and political history of the region in the Iron Age.

Throughout history, climate change has been an important driving force behind human behaviour. This archaeological study seeks to understand the complex interrelations between that behaviour and climatic fluctuations, focussing on how climate affected the social relations between neighbouring communities of occasionally differing nature. It is argued that developments in these relations will fall within a continuum between competition on one end and cooperation on the other. The adoption of a particular strategy depends on whether that strategy is advantageous to a community in terms of the maintenance of its well-being when faced with adverse climate change. This model will be applied to northern Mesopotamia between 3000 and 1600 BC. Local palaeoclimate proxy records demonstrate that aridity increased significantly during this period. Within this geographical, chronological, and climatic framework, this study looks at changes in settlement patterns as an indication of competition among sedentary agriculturalist communities, and the development of the Amorite ethnic identity as reflecting cooperation among sedentary and more mobile pastoralist communities.

The scarcity of water is a major problem in many parts of the Near East today and has been so in the past. To survive in such a region people should be able to structurally attain more water than rainfall alone can supply. The archaeology of this area should not only identify when people inhabited such a region and what the character of this habitation was, but also how people were able to survive in such a region and why they chose to live there in the first place. In this book these questions have been studied for the Zerqa Triangle; a region in the middle Jordan Valley around Tell Deir 'Alla (Jordan). By means of a detailed pedestrian archaeological survey the intensity of habitation of the region from the Neolithic to early modern periods is investigated. Efforts have been undertaken to reconstruct the agricultural practices in the various periods and simultaneously the means by which the different communities were able to practice agriculture; in other words, how did they irrigate the land? By focussing on the different social responses of communities, conclusions have been drawn on how and why people managed to create a living in this arid, but potentially very fertile region. This book not only contributes to the ongoing discussion of the archaeology of marginal areas, but also provides a huge amount of new data on the archaeology of the Jordan Valley, both in the form of newly discovered settlement sites from several different periods as well as remains from several more inconspicuous types of human activity present in the countryside.