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Sepphoris was an important Galilean site from Hellenistic to early Islamic times. This multicultural city is described by Flavius Josephus as the \"ornament of all Galilee,\" and Rabbi Judah the Prince (ha-Nasi) codified the Mishnah there around 200 CE. The Duke University excavations of the 1980s and 1990s uncovered a large corpus of clay oil lamps in the domestic area of the western summit, and this volume presents these vessels. Richly illustrated with photos and drawings, it describes the various shape-types and includes a detailed catalog of 219 lamps. The volume also explores the origins of the Sepphoris lamps and establishes patterns of their trade, transport, and sale in the lower city's marketplace. A unique contribution is the use of a combined petrographic and direct current plasma-optical emission spectrometric (dcp-oes) analysis of selected lamp fabrics from sites in Israel and Jordan. This process provided valuable information, indicating that lamps found in Sepphoris came from Judea, the Decapolis, and even Greece, suggesting an urban community fully engaged with other regional centers. Lamp decorations also provide information about the cosmopolitan culture of Sepphoris in antiquity. Discus lamps with erotic scenes and mythological characters suggest Greco-Roman influences, and menorahs portrayed on lamps indicate a vibrant Jewish identity.

Sepphoris, \"the ornament of all Galilee\" according to Josephus, was an important Galilean site during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods and into early Islamic times. It served as Herod Antipas's capital of Galilee in the late first century B.C.E. and the early first century C.E., and the Sanhedrin (the supreme Jewish judicial authority) was located there for a time in the third century C.E. Extensive excavations on the western acropolis—probably the location of many of the Jewish occupants of this multicultural city—by the Duke University-Hebrew University project in the mid- to late 1980s and the Duke excavations of the 1990s produced a remarkable assemblage of ceramic wares. This book provides an overview of the history and chronology of the site. It then presents a detailed examination of the pottery. Featuring 55 plates with line-drawings as well as some photos of the various ceramic types, this important publication will be essential for all studies of the archaeology of early Judaism and Christianity in the Holy Land.

Do shifts in material culture instigate administrative change, or is it the shifting political winds that affect material culture? This is the central question that Shlomit Bechar addresses in this book, taking the transition from the Middle to Late Bronze Age (seventeenth-fourteenth centuries BCE) in northern Canaan as a test case. Combining archaeological and historical analysis, Bechar identifies the most significant changes evident in architectural and ceramic remains from this period and then explores how and why contemporary political shifts may have influenced, or been influenced by, these developments. Bechar persuasively argues that the Egyptian conquest of the southern Levant-enabled by local economic decline following the expulsion of the Hyksos and the fall of northern Syrian cities-was the impetus for these changes in ceramics and architecture. Using a macro-typological approach to examine the ceramic assemblages, she also discusses the impact of the influx of Aegean imports, suggesting that while \"attached specialists\" were primarily responsible for ceramic production in the Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age ceramics were increasingly made by \"independent specialists,\" another important result of the new administrative system created following Thutmose III's campaign. An important contribution to our understanding of the transition between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, this original and insightful book will appeal to specialists in the Bronze Age Levant, especially those interested in using ceramic assemblages to examine social and political change.

This book presents a comprehensive critical analysis of diverse ceramic assemblages from Sai Island, in the Middle Nile Valley of Northern Sudan, on the border between ancient Upper and Lower Nubia. The assemblages included in this study cover about five millennia, spanning the period c. 8000 to c. 2500 BC.

Balkan ceramic studies is an emerging field within archaeology. This book brings together diverse studies by leading researchers and upcoming scholars, capturing the variety of current archaeological, ethnographic, experimental and scientific studies on Balkan ceramic production, distribution and use.

The City of David, more specifically the southeastern hill of first- and second-millennium BCE Jerusalem, has long captivated the imagination of the world. Archaeologists and historians, biblical scholars and clergy, Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and tourists and armchair travelers from every corner of the globe, to say nothing of politicians of all stripes, look to this small stretch of land in awe, amazement, and anticipation. In the City of David, in the ridge leading down from the Temple Mount, hardly a stone has remained unturned. Archaeologists have worked at a dizzying pace digging and analyzing. But while preliminary articles abound, there is a grievous lack of final publications of the excavations—a regrettable limitation on the ability to fully integrate vital and critical results into the archaeological reconstruction of ancient Jerusalem. Excavations of the City of David are conducted under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The Authority has now partnered with the Center for the Study of Ancient Jerusalem and its publication arm, the Ancient Jerusalem Publication Series, for the publication of reports that are written and designed for the scholar as well as for the general reader. Excavations in the City of David (APJ 1), is the first volume in this series.

For many years the author has been tracking the spread of the Neolithic of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) and its extension eastwards into the western Pacific, as a proxy for dating the spread of the Austronesian (AN) languages across that same vast area. Here he recalls the evidence, updates the hypothesis and poses some new questions.

New excavations in ravines at Ounjougou in Mali have brought to light a lithic and ceramic assemblage that dates from before 9400 cal BC. The authors show that this first use of pottery coincides with a warm wet period in the Sahara. As in East Asia, where very early ceramics are also known, the pottery and small bifacial arrowheads were the components of a new subsistence strategy exploiting an ecology associated with abundant wild grasses. In Africa, however, the seeds were probably boiled (then as now) rather than made into bread.