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Are we reaching our audience effectively? Research based on classes held at the Jagiellonian University Museum with third age university students Since 2015, the Jagiellonian University Museum has regularly partnered with the Jagiellonian University of the Third Age (JUTA) by organizing lectures for seniors on selected issues concerning the history and collections of the university. The author of this paper extensively surveyed the attendees to evaluate how much information they were able to remember. To illustrate the absorption of knowledge by seniors, the questionnaires were analyzed in terms of three questions: (1) Did most of the respondents obtain a positive (i.e. good or highly satisfactory) or negative (unsatisfactory) result? (2) Which result (unsatisfactory, good, or highly satisfactory) did the largest number of respondents achieve? (3) What was the ratio of unsatisfactory to highly satisfactory results? The questionnaires highlighted the strongest points of the program, but also its shortcomings. Based on them, we can conclude that the lectures make a lot of sense, enriching the JUTA students with knowledge bordering on popular science as well as specialist knowledge. An important benefit of the study is feedback for those preparing and delivering the lectures.

This volume takes a broad view of the intersection of maritime activities with the socioeconomic development of the Mediterranean world. Focusing on evidence from the Roman and late antique eastern Mediterranean, with particular attention to the area of southwestern Turkey and southern Cyprus from the second century BCE to the seventh century CE, Leidwanger presents an economic history intrinsically connected to the dynamic maritime world.The initial chapter, “Maritime Interaction and Mediterranean Communities,” utilizes previous influential works of F. Braudel (1972), C. Broodbank (2000), and P. Horden and N. Purcell (2000) to establish the opposition of approaches taken in conceptualizing the Mediterranean from the perspective of a “unified sea” to “fragmentation and microregions” considered over the longue durée. In this volume, Leidwanger’s aim is to take a diachronic and multiscalar approach to the maritime activities that shaped the economic and daily lives of those tied to the Mediterranean. He applies his knowledge of connectivity in the analysis of the multiscalar movements between maritime landscapes to understand the impact of the sea on the development of commerce, among other facets of daily life, in the ancient classical (Roman/late antique) world. His work with social network analysis (SNA) is applied here to model the diachronic evolution of economies linked to maritime activity, as well as landscapes. At the core of his network analysis is the relationship between nodes; his consideration of both ports and shipwrecks, as well as their cargoes, represents distinct datasets, valuable by themselves but given a new dimension of depth considered together in his overarching analysis. The choice of southeast Turkey and Cyprus as the focal point for his case study provides numerous centers of maritime activity in addition to extensive archaeological evidence from a single region. Within the Braudelian process, the long durée temporal scale of his study allows for the observance of changes in maritime and economic patterns within this single, particularly active region.The physical and social parameters encountered in his model are explored in Chapter 2, “Topography and Tools of Interaction,” through the examination of the region’s marine and coastal topographies, currents, and winds, which in turn impacted ship-building technologies and construction techniques, cargos and their capacity, as well as crew size. The interplay between these parameters is exemplified in his incorporation of current research on sailing seasons with the Mediterranean and their influence and effect on maritime technology, specifically in shipbuilding. The data under consideration for this region and study derives from shipwrecks and is reinforced by evidence from ancient texts and iconography. Leidwanger notably distinguishes between the iconography of the elites in sources such as ornate mosaics and those reflective of the lower classes in the form of dipinto. He applies these parameters along with data from the replica fourth-century BCE ship Kyrenia II (originally wrecked off the coast of Cyprus) to demonstrate the strength of recent research, which shows that sailing not only continued into the night but also through the winter season. His model ascribes these considerations not to a linear development but rather views it as the result of knowledge and experience of sailors and merchants, who over time responded to local environmental and economic variables. Given that this knowledge existed on a local and regional level, a strong case emerges for the legitimacy of interconnected, smaller networks driving maritime exchange.Chapter 3, “Modeling Maritime Dynamics,” moves on to the theoretical implications of the author’s network model set within a regional scope. Leidwanger dives into the complex terminology of concepts of “regionalism” and “regions,” along with their ties to maritime connectivity. Using the parameters explored in Chapter 2 together with descriptions of regions and journeys by ancient authors, he argues that the experiences of mariners are reflected in the nomenclature of informal boundaries, which in turn highly influenced sailing habits. Leidwanger acknowledges the “importance of the interrelated mobilities of goods and people” (91), along with the centrality of fishing, which help to create links across regions, economies, and social classes. This multiscalar approach gives much greater agency to the broader spectrum of players involved in maritime trade, looking beyond elite movement between large ports.At the center of this volume is a valuable dataset presented in Chapter 4, “Exploring Shipwreck Data,” in which 67 shipwrecks are evaluated based on the proposed model put forth in the previous chapters. This is a significant analysis and contribution to the field as there are less than 200 total shipwrecks published from the Roman and late antique eastern Mediterranean. Leidwanger’s corpus therefore represents a valuable undertaking. The most compelling takeaway from his analysis is the identification of spikes in maritime activity during the early Roman and late antique periods, with a relative lull during the third century CE, a phenomenon limited to the eastern Mediterranean. Leidwanger uses his experience with network analysis to evaluate the connectivity based on the various cargoes of ships. The quantification of the data reveals not only patterns over the breadth of time covered in this study but also allows for the identification of important developments on variable scales and in different areas (152). This model takes into consideration the impact of dynamic landscapes, spatial and relational data from shipwrecks, and temporal rhythms, among other factors, presenting a more nuanced picture of the ancient maritime economy.The other line of evidence in his analysis is presented in Chapter 5, “Ports and Everyday Economies,” in which he provides an assessment of port sites. Here too, a multifaceted approach is taken to the material by evaluating the archaeological evidence, as well as issues of geography, topography, and environment. This methodology highlights Leidwanger’s attention to regionalism and the variables specific to the different maritime and coastal landscapes. Using the GIS software Gephi for network analysis, he creates models of his study areas with port sites, providing new data on many unpublished sites. Exemplifying the usefulness of GIS applications, Leidwanger then combines his port-site models with data from terrestrial archaeological surveys on the agricultural production of commodities found in ports and wrecks to illustrate the connectivity between the inland networks of production and transport with those of the maritime pathways. This is an important contribution as it coalesces what are two usually distinct datasets from land and sea into a single, more complete picture of economic production and distribution. The mapping reveals a complex network of ports of varying scales that was intimately tied to environmental constraints, geography, and navigational abilities specific to that region. The value of local ports is highlighted in which the movement of goods through this highly localized geography could occur more easily, and frequently solidify connections with the regional network (195). The chronological framework of the author’s project allows for the recognition of development and changing patterns in the maritime networks of production and exchange in which during the Roman period the Aegean is the central node with networks radiating to more immediate connections in Cyprus, Cilicia, and the Levant, but also extending to the Adriatic, Black Sea, and the western Mediterranean in Gaul. However, the picture changes during late antiquity when Cyprus, Cilicia, and the Levant gain centrality within the broader production network.Chapter 6, “Maritime Networks in the Roman East,” brings together the data and arguments from the previous chapters and frames them within the eastern Mediterranean’s sociopolitical and economic spheres. Leidwanger discusses the shifts in maritime activity with concentrations in the early Roman period and during late antiquity. The economic zone created between Cyprus and the Aegean in the early Roman period, from the second century BCE to the second century CE, and reaching an apex slightly earlier than the western Mediterranean in the first century CE, shows that this region was integrated into the imperial network but maintained its own distinct zone of economic interaction. The other upturn in maritime activity corresponds to the establishment of Constantinople at the beginning of the fourth century CE, when the case-study regions of southwestern Turkey and southern Cyprus emerged as central nodes within the broader late antique economic networks, extending through the fifth century CE. At this time the regions developed greater connectivity through interregional trade as well as linking with broader networks associated with the Black Sea and Danube regions. Leidwanger reveals that the well-held perception of economic decline and reduction of late antique shipwrecks does not reflect a retraction of network use. Rather, late antiquity was a period of busy regional markets in the eastern Mediterranean.A short closing section, “Further Journeys,” postulates the direction of maritime archaeology and its development as a field of study. One area where the field could be exponentially enriched is with the addition of more multiscalar regional assessments, identifying southern France, Sicily, and Israel as regions with potential for regional projects similar to Leidwanger’s own. Echoing Horden and Purcell, the value of an analysis in the longue durée allows for greater detail, further broadening the chronological scope to include material from the Hellenistic through the later medieval periods in order to potentially add to this already rich corpus of evidence. Beyond expanding the temporal framework, Leidwanger suggests expanding the contextual data to include “other major indicators of mobility, interaction, and economic development throughout the hinterlands” (226). Ties between maritime networks with coastal and inland markets would provide new insights across a more unified regional economy.Two appendixes conclude the monograph. The first one of Roman and late antique shipwrecks from southwest Turkey and the northeast Mediterranean provides valuable information to further support Leidwanger’s analysis, such as the types of cargo recovered and wreck context in deposition. This is also a concise record, useful for future scholars to access the primary datasets (Parker, OXREP, DARMC) in one place through Leidwanger’s meticulous reassessment. The second appendix presents a thorough discussion of and data on wind patterns for the relevant regions through which one can see the impact of environmental variation on maritime movement.This volume makes several strong contributions to theoretical and methodological approaches toward the analysis of maritime economy. Leidwanger’s model highlights the continued need to move away from the previous, and somewhat current, trends of top-down approaches focused on exchange between large, urban ports. His case studies clearly demonstrate the complexity of maritime networks operating from the bottom-up, highly affected by regional variation in landscape, weather, and geography. They also highlight the local agency of mariners working at multiple levels of involvement in maritime movement and trade, producing a comprehensive model with aspects not previously considered in broader pan-Mediterranean models. An aspect of his research, rarely acknowledged, are the multifaceted roles these maritime agents played in trade, with varying identities, likely simultaneously as sailors, merchants, fishermen, and other operators that drove the regionalized worlds of maritime trade. Their small worlds, connected on a scale of no more than a few days’ journey in familiar territory, reinforce the focus on opportunistic harbors and regional networks operated by local experts. The geographical flexibility and dynamic nature of this model solidifies it as the primary mode of maritime trade in the eastern Mediterranean, despite different narratives held for traditional Mediterranean-wide models based on large port-to-port exchange.As with any study including ceramics and network analysis, petrography can add a whole other dimension of information. While this is an ideal inclusion for analysis, it is often unrealistic to be able to obtain extensive petrographic information, especially when looking at numerous assemblages from various excavations over an extended period. It would also be of interest to expand the dataset by including other ceramic vessel types, beyond those of transport amphorae, found in wrecks and port assemblages. Inclusion of ceramic vessels such as fine wares within this model would lend new information about their distribution from port to inland sites, including vessels moving with, and on, established agricultural market networks. As Leidwanger suggests in his “Further Journeys” section, inland trade-network studies provide another dimension of analysis toward understanding the complete movement of goods to inland sites, beyond their entrance at ports and small harbors.This volume represents an important move forward in our understanding of how multiscalar connectivity influenced not only maritime trade but the Roman economy itself. This comprehensive research provides a valuable model for future regional studies.

<i>The Material Fall of Roman Britain, 300–525 CE</i> By Robin Fleming. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2021. Pp. 303. $45. ISBN 978-0-8122-5244-6 (cloth).

Reviewed by: The Afterlife of the Roman City: Architecture and Ceremony in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages by Hendrik W. Dey David K. Pettegrew Hendrik W. Dey The Afterlife of the Roman City: Architecture and Ceremony in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015 Pp. 296. $99.00. This is a bold, ambitious, and innovative work. In just 250 pages of text, Dey offers a wide-ranging survey of the transformation of the ancient city and the persistence of late antique urban forms from the third to ninth centuries. He does so by presenting a vast array of evidence from regions as distant as Arabia and Germany that shows the centrality of colonnaded avenues and processional ceremonies in post-antique urban centers. Porticated streets, Dey argues, were the common stages for expressions of civic authority in late antiquity, and their development, elaboration, and maintenance well into the early middle ages point to the continuity of the urban habit and civilization itself. Dey’s argument is built on the recognition of three predominant patterns of ancient cities: patronage, processional ceremonies, and linear architectural schemes—which together came to form an essential expression of urban topography in late antiquity. As emperors multiplied after the establishment of the Tetrarchy and created new capitals, they increasingly sponsored the construction of colonnaded avenues for staging ceremonies such as the adventus. Ceremonial processions from city gate to palace along crowd-lined avenues functioned to create distance, awe, and authority between the potentates and their acclaiming publics (Chapter Two). Other agents of power adopted this pattern in the fourth to sixth centuries by constructing and embellishing porticated streets and the symbolic monuments between or along them, such as city gates, commemorative arches, palaces, baths, circuses, and theaters. Ecclesiastical authorities especially partnered with secular powers to commission episcopal residences, cathedrals, and significant extramural churches, and to stage liturgical processions and the translation of relics along porticated avenues (Chapter Three). This new architecture of power persisted in most regions of the former Roman Empire, including the western Germanic kingdoms, even into the murky seventh and eighth centuries, when cities were materially poorer, smaller, and less connected, and when power concentrated among an even smaller class of ecclesiastical and political elite. Despite the sharp decline in new urban investments, porticated colonnades continued to be maintained for public procession; Dey presents evidence that encroachment and demonumentalization date to the ninth century or later (Chapter Four). Indeed, Dey makes the case that monastic centers and palace-centers of Carolingian Francia (e.g., Centula and Aachen) dating to the late eighth and early ninth centuries were modeled on the colonnaded topography still prominent in Christian capitals such as Jerusalem, Rome, and Constantinople (Chapter Five). Porticated avenues remained important as far as (and as long as) emperors, kings, bishops, patrarichs, and state officials needed to express their authority through ceremonial processions. The Afterlife of the Roman City is compelling because its integration of multiple and diverse sources (textual, material, and iconographic) creates a broad [End Page 162] and consistent picture of a persisting urban topography, ceremony, and authority, despite the very real gaps in evidence. The author’s extensive coverage gives him liberty to pivot from detailed, technical descriptions of urban topography to colorful stories about specific ceremonial processions to discussions of the image or idea of cities. Swept along by the lucid presentation of the material, the reader can easily forget that, apart from a few cases like the fascinating inscribed acclamations from late antique Ephesus, the evidence of architecture (a colonnaded avenue) and ceremony (e.g., adventus) rarely aligns for the same contemporary urban context. Dey’s general and broad picture of persistence, moreover, raises a number of questions about real differences in contexts across space and time. For example, how did the subtle differences in late antique urban topography speak to distinct evolutions of ceremony between regions and cities over six centuries? What did the absence of porticated avenues in cities indicate about authority and its expression in those urban centers? And how did the development of porticated streets and ecclesiastical ceremonies in cities relate to the development of the (distinctly linear) early Christian...

ABSTRACTHuman skeletal remains from Roman Britain are abundant and provide a rich repository of social as well as biological information concerning health, migration, diet and body/society interactions. At present, skeletal remains tend to be marginalised in studies of Roman trade, the military, economy, urbanisation and the like, yet they have huge potential to contribute to current debates. This article aims to highlight the potential of bioarchaeological analysis for understanding aspects of social identity in Roman Britain through the use of a more integrated, theoretical approach towards embodied interactions. It encourages future collaborative scholarship between bioarchaeologists, archaeologists and historians. The social determinants of health and identity will vary greatly between regions and the only way of establishing the diversity of life across the Roman Empire is through the instigation of a more comprehensive, large-scale, integrated study of funerary and skeletal assemblages.

This paper presents the first detailed review of all archaeobotanical records from Roman Britain. It reveals that some 50 new plants food (mostly fruits, herbs and vegetables) were introduced into this country during the Roman period. These introductions represent a major diversification of the plant component of the British diet at this time, adding important nutrients, variety of flavours, ways of expressing cultural identity, as well as social status. The geographical, chronological and social dispersal of these foods is analysed and three dispersal patterns and at least four consumer groups are identified. Methodological issues are discussed and gaps in the data highlighted. The role of these foods in expressions of cultural identity is briefly discussed, as is the impact of their introduction on the productive capacity of the agricultural economy.

THIS volume on Roman Britain and the English settlements is the first (though not the first to be published) in a series of fourteen covering the history of England, edited by Prof. G. N. Clark. The full-dress treatment of the theme commences with Caesar's invasion, but this is preceded by a thirty-page introduction in which the geographical background and the prehistory of Britain are sketched in. Prof. Collingwood's contribution carries us through the Roman period into the fifth century; there Mr. J. N. L. Myres picks up the story, discussing that same century from the Anglo-Saxon point of view, and then the general problems of the English Settlement. Roman Britain and the English Settlements By Prof. R. G. Collingwood J. N. L. Myres. (The Oxford History of England.) Pp. xxvi + 515. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1936.) 12s. 6d. net.

The life sciences in late antiquity (ad 300–600) and the early Middle Ages (ad 600–1000) centre around the study of three primary categories of ensouled or animate creatures, namely, plants (botany), animals (zoology) and man (anthropology). Major subdisciplines within these general areas of study include pharmacology, medicine, agriculture and veterinary science. The ancient Greek and Roman life scientists of the classical period (600 bc–ad 300) established much of the data and many of the fundamental concepts concerning the nature of the cosmos and its living inhabitants which scholars of the post‐classical period (ad 300–1000) would inherit. The history of the late ancient and the early medieval life sciences is essentially the story of the preservation, dissemination and partial elaboration of classical Graeco‐Roman learning within several very different political, linguistic and religious contexts following the dissolution of the political and cultural synthesis that had been established under the Roman Empire (27 bc–ad 476).Key ConceptsLife science in the classical (ad 300–600) and post‐classical (ad 600–1000) periods centres around the study of three primary categories of ensouled or animate creatures, plants (botany), animals (zoology) and man (anthropology) and includes the subdisciplines of medicine, pharmacology, agriculture and veterinary science.Soul (Greekpsyche; Latinanima) is the life principle of plants, animals and people, of which there are three broad species: the vegetative, sensitive and rational.Classical anatomy, physiology, medicine, botany and zoology are tacitly accepted in the post‐classical period.The interlocking concepts of (1) teleology, (2) the microcosm–macrocosm analogy and (3) the great chain of being provide common conceptual ground for the ancient (classical) and the late ancient/early medieval (post‐classical) world views.Classical life science continues to flourish in diverse religious (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) and linguistic (Latin, Greek, Persian, Syriac and Arabic) cultures following the dissolution of the political and cultural synthesis that had been established under the Roman Empire.Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic languages are the primary linguistic vehicles in the diffusion of classical knowledge throughout Europe and the Middle East.Linguistic barriers are overcome by a handful of multilingual scholars who live on the borderland of two or more dominant cultures.Christian and Muslim post‐classical scholars use their pagan classical heritage selectively by (1) choosing organisation, conciseness and practicality over theoretical and experimental elaboration and (2) adapting it to the sacred Scriptures of the Judaeo‐Christian (Old and New Testaments) and Muslim (Koranic) cultures.

ABSTRACTKropfsberg, located near Reith im Alpbachtal, in North Tyrol (Austria), has been exploited for its copper ores for centuries, since at least the Early Iron Age. Excavations conducted in 2020 by the University of Innsbruck exposed the detailed stratigraphic sequence of the mine, leading to a surprising discovery: what was initially believed to be only a site for mineral extraction showed clear indications of ritual use during the Roman period and Late Antiquity. These cultic layers are characterised by abundant charcoals, animal bones and almost 200 votive coins, and suggest that the mine served during this period as a Mithraeum. Using micromorphology and µXRF, along with macroscopic, hydro‐ and geomorphological information about the mine and its surroundings, we reconstructed the processes that led to the deposition of sediments within this artificial cave. Our analyses indicate that remains of ceremonial fires and offerings were deposited within a cultic pit, rather than being spread over the floor. Also, evidence suggests that the cultic use of the mine likely ceased before the area surrounding the mine was flooded, potentially due to the damming of the Inn River caused by a significant rock fall during the Roman period. We also traced the phases following the inundation, including the cave's reopening after a period of abandonment, and identified a sequence of mining backfills that provide evidence of the site's subsequent secular use. Ultimately, the study sheds new light on the cultural and geomorphological dynamics of the Inn Valley during the Roman Period and the Late Antiquity, while underscoring the importance of integrating microarchaeological approaches to disentangle the complex interaction of cultural and environmental influences, even in historical (artificial) cave contexts.

The purpose of this study is to examine the healing strategies employed by the inhabitants of Egypt during the Roman period, from the late first century BC to the fourth century AD, in order to explore how Egyptian, Greek and Roman customs and traditions interacted within the province. Thus this study aims to make an original contribution to the history of medicine, by offering a detailed examination of the healing strategies (of which 'rational' medicine was only one) utilised by the inhabitants of one particular region of the Mediterranean during a key phase in its history, a region, moreover, which by virtue of the survival of papyrological evidence offers a unique opportunity for study. Its interdisciplinary approach, which integrates ancient literary, documentary, archaeological and scientific evidence, presents a new approach to understanding healing strategies in Roman provincial culture. It refines the study of healing within Roman provincial culture, identifies diagnostic features of healing in material culture and offers a more contextualised reading of ancient medical literary and documentary papyri and archaeological evidence. This study differs from previous attempts to examine healing in Roman Egypt in that it tries, as far as possible, to encompass the full spectrum of healing strategies available to the inhabitants of the province. The first part of this study comprises two chapters and focuses on the practitioners of healing strategies, both 'professional' and 'amateur'. Chapter 2 examines those areas of ancient medicine that have traditionally been neglected or summarily dismissed by scholars: 'domestic' and 'folk' medicine with particular emphasis on the extent to which the specific natural environment of any given location affects healing strategies. Chapter Three examines the nature and frequency of eye diseases and injuries suffered by the inhabitants of Roman Egypt. Chapter Four examines the nature and frequency of the fevers suffered by the inhabitants of Roman Egypt, focusing first on the disease malaria, which is attested by papyrological, archaeological and palaeopathological evidence as having been suffered throughout Egypt. Chapter Five examines the dangers that the animal species of Egypt could pose to the inhabitants of the province, focusing particularly upon snakes, scorpions, crocodiles and lions, as attested by papyrological and epigraphic evidence such as private letters, mummy labels and epitaph inscriptions. The concluding chapter underlines the importance for a study of the healing strategies utilised in any province of the Roman Empire (or indeed any region in the ancient world) of taking into account the historical, geographical, cultural and social context of the location in question.

Reviewed by: Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100–1600 Darrel W. Amundsen Steven Bassett, ed. Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100–1600. Leicester, U.K.: Leicester University Press, 1992. x + 258 pp. Ill. $69.00. In 1989, the Urban Research Committee of the University of Birmingham (England) began hosting a biennial international conference to review recent progress in premodern urban research. This volume is the fruit of their second conference. One’s heart cannot help but go out to the volume’s editor, who laments in the book’s preface that a written version of “Aeternaliter in Urbe: A Summing-up,” which “brought the 1991 conference to such a memorable end” (p. vii) was never submitted. Perhaps the derelict scholar, whose promise to transform that presentation into “a wide-ranging introductory discussion for the volume was enthusiastically taken up by the Committee” (p. vii), was so preoccupied that he never even got around to procrastinating. But when publication could be delayed no longer, the editor elicited the help of two colleagues to write a short, synthetic “Introduction” (pp. 1–7). This introduction is the successful fruit of three desperate scholars’ efforts to weave together into the semblance of a pattern some disparate strands from the diverse essays contained in this volume. The first essay (“The Palaeopathology of Urban Infections,” by Keith Manchester), which is an attempt, as the author so poignantly expresses it, “to apply clinicopathological concepts and palaeopathological evidence to the palaeoepidemiology of infectious disease in urban contexts” (p. 13), and the concluding paper (“Dispersal or Concentration: The Disposal of the Winchester Dead over 2000 Years,” by Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle), which argues that “In the last century and a half the pattern of burial at Winchester has come full circle, reverting to the [End Page 149] Roman practice” (p. 245), have only this in common: they cover an even greater span than the temporal purview of this volume. The intervening essays are arranged chronologically. Essays 2 through 5 deal with the Roman imperial period. John Patterson (“Patronage, Collegia and Burial in Imperial Rome”) explores “the relationships between the funerary and burial practices of non-elite Romans and the political and social structures in which they were enmeshed” (p. 16). Simon Esmonde Cleary (“Town and Country in Roman Britain?”) determined that, at least in Roman Britain, settlement types did not significantly influence burial types. Theya Molleson (“Mortality Patterns in the Romano-British Cemetery at Poundbury Camp near Dorchester”) provides paleopathological analyses of the skeletal evidence from a Romano-British cemetery. In “Death and the Dead in the Late Roman West,” Jill Harries explores the effect of the cult of martyrs on generally held views about the dead. The remainder of the essays deal with the Middle Ages and slightly beyond. Alan Morton (“Burial in Middle Saxon Southampton”) concludes that “the role of the Church is not clearly reflected” by such evidence as there is for burial practices there: “Indeed it is tempting to argue that the urban corpse was, figuratively as well as actually, a piece of rubbish—but archaeology is the wrong discipline to support such an interpretation” (p. 76). In “Urban Cemetery Location in the High Middle Ages,” Julia Barrow discusses the significance of cemetery locations for social history. Roberta Gilchrist (“Christian Bodies and Souls: The Archaeology of Life and Death in Later Medieval Hospitals”) argues that while “the incidence of hospitals [sc. the medieval sense of that word] is one criterion for indicating a hierarchy of medieval towns . . . such figures [also] act as a scale of urban deprivation and need” (p. 101). In “Burial Choice and Burial Location in Later Medieval London,” Vanessa Harding discusses the motivations for, and the significance of, the choice of type and location of burial. John Henderson (“The Black Death in Florence: Medical and Communal Responses”) seeks to determine “the relationship between physicians’ beliefs about the causes, nature and methods of transmission of plague and the policies adopted by city governments” (p. 136), especially that of Florence. In “Death and Rebirth in Late Medieval Bury St. Edmunds,” Robert Dinn attempts “to reconstruct funeral rituals” in order to “decode the...

The archaeological research carried out within the fort and vicus of Favianis/Mautern, on the Austrian-Danube limes, has provided scholars with important new information for the development of settlement structures and for material culture in the Roman imperial and late antique periods, as well as for the Early Middle Ages. Archaeological structures in the fort were analysed alongside the structures in the vicus. A major focus of this analysis lay in the examination of diverse forms of waste management during the Roman imperial and late antique periods, and the interpretation of primary and secondary rubbish. The findings provide us with new evidence for the population migration from the vicus to the fort in Late Antiquity, for the dating of Horreum ware and late antique burnished pottery, as well as for the transition from the late antique fort to the Early Medieval town.

This book is the first detailed study of a village in the Roman Empire, Tebtunis, in Egypt, in the first century AD. It is based on the evidence of the archive of the local notarial office (grapheion), which was run by a man named Kronion for most of the mid-first century. The archive as a whole, unparallelled in antiquity, includes over 200 documents written on papyrus and attests to a wide range of transactions made by the villagers over well-defined periods of time, in particular the years AD 42 and 45–7 during the reign of the emperor Claudius. This evidence gives us a unique insight into various aspects of village life, such as the level of participation in the written contractual economy; the socio-economic stratification of the village, including the position of women, slaves, and priests, and the role of the elite; the functions of associations; the types and importance of agriculture and non-agricultural activities. This book argues for a highly diversified village economy, wide involvement in written transactions among all strata of the population, and a rural society that generally lived above subsistence level. It provides a model of village society that can be used for understanding the large majority of the population within the Roman empire who lived outside cities in the Mediterranean, particularly in the other eastern and more Hellenized provinces.

The article contains a revised edition of the four greek word-lists to Cicero’s Catilinarians: PVindob g 30885 a+e, PRyl 61, PVindob l 127 and PSI inv. 2876. These papyrus codices were produced in the Roman pars orientis of the late Antiquity and were thought for the natives of the eastern provinces of the Roman empire who wanted to study latin language and Roman law, with the purpose to make a career in the Roman bureaucracy.

Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire. The poetics of power in late antiquity. Edited by Natalie B. Dohrmann and Annette Yoshiko Reed. (Jewish Culture and Contexts.) Pp. x+389 incl. 12 figs and 2 tables. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. £45 ($69.95). 978 0 8122 4533 2 - Volume 65 Issue 3