John K. Papadopoulos

Gary Urton

Recipient of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value, and number value. The questions raised and addressed are of central importance to archaeologists studying ancient civilizations: How can we understand the value that might have been accorded to materials, objects, people, places, and patterns of action by those who produced or used the things that compose the human material record? Taken as a whole, the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or give priority to, one thing over another.

The Construction of Value in the Ancient World

Sarah P. Morris

Lorenc Bejko

Lynne A. Schepartz

The burial tumulus of Lofkend lies in one of the richest archaeological areas of Albania (ancient "Illyria"), home to a number of burial tumuli spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages of later prehistory. Some were robbed long ago, others were reused for modern burials; few were excavated under scientific conditions. Modern understanding of the pre- and protohistory of Illyria has largely been shaped by the contents of such burial mounds. What inspired the systematic exploration of Lofkend by UCLA was more than the promise of an unplundered necropolis; it was also a chance to revisit the significance of this tumulus and its fellows for the emergence of urbanism and complexity in ancient Illyria. In addition to artifacts, the recovery of surviving plant remains, bones, and other organic material contribute insights into the environmental and ecological history of the region.

The Excavation of the Prehistoric Burial Tumulus at Lofkend, Albania

Alexander Cambitoglou

Olwen Tudor Jones

The Excavations of 1975, 1976, and 1978

Torone I

Torone I: Text, pt. 1-2

Evelyn Lord Smithson

This volume, the first of two dealing with the Early Iron Age deposits from the Athenian Agora, publishes the tombs from the end of the Bronze Age through the transition from the Middle Geometric to Late Geometric period. An introduction deals with the layout of the four cemeteries of the period, the topographical ramifications, periodization, and a synthesis of Athens in the Early Iron Age. Individual chapters offer a complete catalogue of the tombs and their contents, a full analysis of the burial customs and funerary rites, and analyses of the pottery and other small finds. Maria A. Liston presents the human skeletal material, Deborah Ruscillo presents the faunal remains, and Sara Strack contributes to the pottery typology and catalogue. In an appendix, Eirini Dimitriadou provides an overview of the locations of burial activity in the wider city.

The Cemeteries

The Early Iron Age

This volume presents selected material associated with potters' workshops and pottery production from some 14 Early Iron Age contexts northwest of the Athenian Acropolis that range in date from the Protogeometric through Archaic periods. Located in the area that was to become the Agora of Classical Athens, these deposits establish that the place was used for industrial activity until it was formally transformed into the civic and commercial center of the city in the early 5th century B.C. The Early Iron Age potters' debris published in this volume sheds light on many aspects of pottery production, in prehistory as well as in the Classical and later periods. The material includes test-pieces, wasters and other production discards. There is also a reassessment of the evidence associated with the kiln underlying the later Tholos.

The Early Iron Age Potters' Field in the Area of the Classical Athenian Agora

Ceramicus Redivivus

Claire L. Lyons

Ιωάννης Κ Παπαδοπουλος

The Archaeology of Colonialism demonstrates how artifacts are not only the residue of social interaction but also instrumental in shaping identities and communities. Claire Lyons and John Papadopoulos summarize the complex issues addressed by this collection of essays. Four case studies illustrate the use of archaeological artifacts to reconstruct social structures. They include ceramic objects from Mesopotamian colonists in fourth-millennium Anatolia; the Greek influence on early Iberian sculpture and language; the influence of architecture on the West African coast; and settlements across Punic Sardinia that indicate the blending of cultures. The remaining essays look at the roles myth, ritual, and religion played in forming colonial identities. In particular, they discuss the cultural middle ground established among Greeks and Etruscans; clothing as an instrument of European colonialism in nineteenth-century Oceania; sixteenth-century Andean urban planning and kinship relations; and the Dutch East India Company settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.

The Archaeology of Colonialism

Piet De Jong

John McK. Camp

The archives of the American School of Classical Studies excavations in the Athenian Agora contain a remarkable series of watercolours and drawings - well over 40 - by Piet de Jong, one of the best-known, most distinctive, and influential archaeological illustrators of the 20th century. They show landscapes, people, and, above all, objects recovered during many seasons of fieldwork at one of the longest continuously running archaeological projects in Greece. The aim of this volume is to bring these illustrations out of the storage drawers and to assemble in colour a representative sample of some of the finest of Piet de Jongs contributions. Along the way, this book tells the story of the Agora excavations and assesses their contribution to scholarship. It includes essays by 16 scholars currently working at the Agora, and surveys the entire span of the material they are studying - from Neolithic pottery to the Late Byzantine and post-Byzantine frescoes from the Church of Ayios Spyridon.

Piet de Jong and the Athenian Agora

The Art of Antiquity

John K. Papadopoulos

Books

Your next favorite book is out there