This is the first translation of the two graffiti texts found at the exit of Wadi el-Ḥôl (“Wadi of Terror”) in the Qena bend area of Egypt. Their signs represent a transitional stage between Minoan Phaistos Disk and Linear A. These texts were found by John and Deborah Darnell during their 1993-94 excavation season (Darnell, and all 2005). Th…[Read more]

This course offers a survey of the archaeology of settled landscapes in the ancient Mediterranean world,
including both the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean basin. In particular, the course will focus on
city-country dichotomies in order to study the patterns of development, demography, and land use in
selected case study areas. While…[Read more]

This course provides an introduction to the visual culture and art forms of the Italo-Roman world from the
Early Iron Age to the beginning of Late Antiquity. The course examines the developmental arcs of art
forms in various spheres (public, private, sacred, funereal) and considers key media (sculpture, painting,
mosaic, decorative arts).…[Read more]

The text signs on this comb are Minoan Linear A and not the Proto-Canaanite of Serabit el-Khadim as claimed in its 2022 archaeology report. Like most pre-classical linear texts found by archaeology, the language of this text is Akkadian which was the language of the Neolithic farming culture which spread into Europe from the Near-East starting…[Read more]

This article analyzes the nexus between collective violence, temple violation, and military glory in 1 and 2 Maccabees by comparing two festivals established in the context of revolt and guerilla warfare; namely, Hanukkah and Nicanor’s Day. It argues that the accounts of the origins of these two festivals in 1 and 2 Maccabees reinforce the close c…[Read more]

Britain’s second-longest early medieval monument – Wat’s Dyke – was a component of an early medieval hydraulic frontier zone rather than primarily serving as a symbol of power, a fixed territorial border or a military stop-line. Wat’s Dyke was not only created to monitor and control mobility over land, but specifically did so through its careful a…[Read more]

Often neglected and misunderstood, there are considerable challenges to digital and real-world public engagement with Britain’s third-longest linear monument, Wat’s Dyke (Williams 2020a). To foster public education and understanding regarding of Wat’s Dyke’s relationship to the broader story of Anglo-Welsh borderlands, but also to encoura…[Read more]

We hope this comic heritage trail for Wrexham helps introduce you to Britain’s third-longest ancient monument

This article introduces the third volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal (ODJ). As well as reviewing ODJ 3’s contents, I present reviews of the journal received to date, notable new publications on linear monuments, and the Collaboratory’s key activities during 2021. The context and significance of the research network’s ongoing endeavours are present…[Read more]

This chapter presents a survey and critique of the use of ‘treasure(s)’ to describe the burial assemblage from the Mound 1 ship-burial at Sutton Hoo since its discovery in 1939. I argue that referring to the contents of Mound 1 as ‘treasure(s)’ is not merely misrepresenting, commodifying and sensationalising its funerary context and wider signifi…[Read more]

Setting the stage for The Public Archaeology of Treasure, this chapter presents the complex intersections of ‘treasure’ in archaeological teaching and research and archaeology’s interactions with a range of different publics on local, regional, national and international scales. The chapter also identifies the global issues in heritage conse…[Read more]

Introduction to the collected essays of Professor Dai Morgan Evans

This note outlines several features common to the reception of ancient ruins by the Christian populations of three countries, each located on a different continent. Most of the sites were and are strongly associated with the realm of the dead. Fear of misadventure or calamity typically inspired a respectful avoidance of such pre-Christian sites…[Read more]

Several documents from Egypt and Ḫatti (especially the Amarna letters and the Egyptian-Hittite correspondence) mention envoys and messengers in charge of diplomatic contacts between the two countries. Cuneiform and hieroglyphic transcriptions of Egyptian names at Ugarit hint at an actual presence (in Ugarit and Karkemish) of officials coming f…[Read more]

A selection of more than 5000 place Spanish Names from the Iberian Peninsula, presented in alphabetic order and showing their meaning when well established, or listing the known alternatives in cases where a single etymology cannot be ascertained.

We develop and apply a deep learning-based computer vision pipeline to automatically identify crew members in archival photographic imagery taken on-board the International Space Station. Our approach is able to quickly tag thousands of images from public and private photo repositories without human supervision with high degrees of accuracy,…[Read more]

GERMAN: Waren die Götter Astronauten? Davon ist Erich von Däniken überzeugt. Der erfolgreiche Autor ist seit Jahrzehnten der einflussreichste Protagonist auf dem Gebiet der Paläo-SETI bzw. Prä-Astronautik, einer grenzwissenschaftlichen Laienforschung, die die Position vertritt, dass Außerirdische vor Urzeiten die Erde besucht und die Entwi…[Read more]

What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]