One of the medical manuscripts recovered from Tomb No. 3 at Mawangdui (dated 186 B.C.E.) states that, “When a person is born there are two things that need not to be learned: the first is to breathe and the second is to eat.” Of course it is true that all healthy newborn human beings possess the reflexes to breathe and eat. Yet, the imp…[Read more]

The Persian King Darius I (reigned 522-486 BCE) constructed a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea – an ancient precursor to the Suez Canal that made it possible to sail from Egypt to Persia, and to places in between.

In a groundbreaking endeavour to triangulate three important traditions of our collective cultural heritage, the Arkeologisk Museum of the University of Stavanger presents Eden and Everything After, a conceptual exhibition organised around notions of the loss of – and slim hope of reconnection with – the lost paradise. Mirroring the boldly exp…[Read more]

Poland has been recognized as important in the widespread migration of the Vikings, yet subject to little theoretical inquiry. I became particularly interested in the ways in which the Vikings in Poland understood and negotiated their world. To my knowledge, nobody has drawn together the pan-European evidence about the image of the two mythical…[Read more]

The paper presents for the first time to the public some wooden fragments of an ancient Egyptian ‘mummy cover’, kept in the ‘Egyptian Corner’ of the University of Pavia Archaeology Museum (Italy). The fragments, belonging to an original ancient Egyptian artefact which dates back to the end of the New Kingdom, are here published after a restora…[Read more]

We offer an archaeological analysis of the visual display of “space heroes” and Orthodox icons in the Russian Zvezda module of the International Space Station (ISS). This study is the first systematic investigation of material culture at a site in space. The ISS has now been continuously inhabited for 20 years. Here, focusing on the period 200…[Read more]

A 12-page paper illustrating the likely presence, in geoglyph form, of a probably long-established cult art form in the UK, as elsewhere.

The aim of space archaeology is to understand the interaction of technology and human behaviour in off-Earth environments. This paper presents the methodology and results of the first archaeological study focused on human habitation in outer space. The International Space Station (ISS) is the only extant, continuously-occupied location in space,…[Read more]

Space archaeology is defined as the study of “the material culture relevant to space exploration that is found on Earth and in outer space (i.e., exoatmospheric material) and that is clearly the result of human behavior” (Gorman & O’Leary 2013: 409). The aim of space archaeology is to understand the interaction of technology and human behav…[Read more]

The Late Bronze Age is renowned for heightened interregional interaction in the entire Near East and Eastern Mediterranean as wealthy states like Egypt and Hatti jostled with each other in the pursuit of valuable commodities, technologies and materials. This increased political and economic interaction is credited in relatively recent scholarship…[Read more]

This paper publishes a ceramic bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicting a Parthian shot. Although it lacks archaeological provenance, the bowl can be dated to the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE, and probably comes from northwestern Iran. It is, therefore, one of the few possible instances of a Parthian shot from the Arsacid Empire.

This article discusses major issues of interdisciplinary research. In the introduction, the concepts of ›disciplinarity‹, ›multidisciplinarity‹, ›interdisciplinarity‹ and ›transdisciplinarity‹ are being explicated. This is followed by a comparative treatment of experiences with designing and practicing interdisciplinarity in various fields…[Read more]

In this paper I outline some of empirical and theoretical problems associated with the dividing Mycenaean Greece into a core and a periphery. The periphery has traditionally been defined in contrast to a homogeneous palatial core, but recent research has shown that this homogeneity is illusory. I suggest, following Knappett’s discussion of M…[Read more]

A recent genetic study has revealed that the adult male buried in the most elaborate recess of the Neolithic passage-tomb at Newgrange was the child of a first-degree incestuous union, suggesting that the complex was built as a burial monument for an endogamous family elite who may have been regarded as “god-kings.” The present paper shows how clo…[Read more]

A short essay on the different forms of money used in the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Translated into German by Julia Linke.

This chapter surveys the means by which the Late Bronze Age polities of Mycenaean Greece acquired goods and services, with a focus on regular extractive transactions.

The neolithic figurines of North – and North-East Europe, belonging to Pitted Ware culture and Pit-Comb Ware culture, are a desideratum to research. These pretty creations, often sculptures of human and animals such as bears, moose, seals, wild-horse, domestic animals and fantastic four-limped beings are spatially distributed over the Baltic R…[Read more]

This article presents two newly-discovered fragments of Linear B tablets from recent excavations at the site of Ano Englianos, Bronze Age Pylos, along
with a third possibly inscribed object.

The final publication is available at http://www.degruyter.com.

This course explores the art, archaeology, and culture of the Greek world from prehistory to the Roman period. The course focuses on architecture, sculpture, painted pottery, and wall painting as its main object classes and situates artistic and stylistic developments within their social, political, and historical context. We will consider issues…[Read more]

The Plague of Justinian began in 541 and quickly spread over the area of the late antique Mediterranean. There it continued in more than a dozen plague waves until the middle of the 8th century, causing much suffering and a great number of deaths. Academia traditionally debates it as the end of Antiquity. Isochronal, the effect of climate change…[Read more]