Amnesty and Reform Texts. Edicts of amnesty and reform decreed by a king intervened in economy and society, invalidating loans, pledges and sales, cancelling debts, and issuing behavioral instructions to government officials. They were dated to a specific time at which their provisions would come into effect.

Amnesty and Reform Texts. Edicts of amnesty and reform decreed by a king intervened in economy and society, invalidating loans, pledges and sales, cancelling debts, and issuing behavioral instructions to government officials. They were dated to a specific time at which their provisions would come into effect.

Medieval Hebrew and Syriac scribes both indicated vowels by placing dots above or below their consonantal writing. These vowel points were created in the Late Antique and early Islamic periods to disambiguate the vocalization of important texts, especially the Bible. The earliest step in this process was the implementation of the Syriac ‘diacritic…[Read more]

Dawid bar Pawlos’ Letter on Dots is an eighth-century text that purportedly describes the introduction of some of the dots used in Syriac writing. It also sheds light on the life of a certain Rāmišoʿ of Beṯ Rabban, apparently the same man as the master of pointing named in MS BL Add. 12138. However, most studies of Syriac dots either neglec…[Read more]

This article presents new data on links between the various medieval vocalisation traditions of Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. These include the identification of overlaps in the Aramaic terminology used by Jewish Masoretes and Syriac Christian grammarians and in the phonological theories that underlie them, as well as connections between Syriac and…[Read more]

The seventh-century apocalyptic dialogue text Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati (“Teaching of Jacob, Newly Baptized”) depicts forcibly baptized Jews coming to terms with their new situation in hidden meetings led by Jacob. At a key moment in the text, the last voices of Jewish resistance belong to the wife and mother-in-law of one of the dialogue…[Read more]

The paper discusses how the natural environmental conditions of the Phoenician litoral in the eastern Mediterranean had shaped their culture from a very early age.

Late Halaf female figurines of clay/pottery from northeastern Syria (Type LH.1A; 6th millennium BCE) have close parallels in predynastic Egyptian figurines (4th millennium BCE) in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The lack of provenance for the Egyptian statuettes – all of which were purchased – has long inhibited any comparison with the…[Read more]

Late Halaf female figurines of clay/pottery from northeastern Syria (Type LH.1A; 6th millennium BCE) have close parallels in predynastic Egyptian figurines (4th millennium BCE) in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The lack of provenance for the Egyptian statuettes – all of which were purchased – has long inhibited any comparison with the…[Read more]

Destruction is an element of human behaviour that is universally present throughout our history. But what are the driving forces behind these violent acts? Can an underlying motivation be recognised in the archaeological record? This article focuses on the destruction and mutilation of monumental architecture and figurative works, and puts them…[Read more]

This study is a fresh analysis of a collection of scrolls and fragments grouped under the rubric, The Community Rule or Serekh ha-Yaḥad. As part of the manuscripts discovered in the Judean Desert, the Community Rule manuscripts are all fragmentary to various degrees, yet attest to important issues of legal dispute and community formation in the S…[Read more]

A didactic poster (written for schools) presented on the occasion of the conference “La città com’era, com’è, e come la vorremmo”, organized within the project “Pavia 100 Torri – Osservatorio Permanente sull’Antico”, held at the UNIPV on February 8th, 2013.

A didactic poster (written for schools) presented on the occasion of the conference “La città com’era, com’è, e come la vorremmo”, organized within the project “Pavia 100 Torri – Osservatorio Permanente sull’Antico”, held at the UNIPV on February 8th, 2013.

Poster presented at the 5th Annual Birmingham Egyptology Symposium: “Conflict in Ancient Culture”, 11th May 2018, University of Birmingham.

Review of: I. von Bredow 2017, Kontaktzone Vorderer Orient und Ägypten. Orte, Situationen und Bedingungen für primäre griechisch-orientalische Kontakte vom 10. bis zum 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr.”, Stuttgart

Review of: I. von Bredow 2017, Kontaktzone Vorderer Orient und Ägypten. Orte, Situationen und Bedingungen für primäre griechisch-orientalische Kontakte vom 10. bis zum 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr.”, Stuttgart

Review to: R. Parker (ed.) 2013, Personal Names in Ancient Anatolia, Oxford

The paper aims at providing a historical presentation and a brief description of the quite unknown manufacts kept in the Egyptian collection of the Archaeological Museum of the University of Pavia. The materials, most of them gifts given by scholars, travellers and scientists, in the fist mid of the 19th century, are a good evidence both of the…[Read more]

Niğde-Kınık Höyük: Excavation Report of Season 2017

Report of excavation at Kınık Höyük (Turkey), season 2016 (specifically, paragraph “Operation B”, together with L. d’Alfonso, pp. 591-592).