Volume 84, 2009

For many Near Eastern scholars the label ‘Philistine’ continues to reflect an ethnic group comprised of people who migrated from the Aegean ca 1200 BC, and who should be equated with the Peleset Sea Peoples mentioned in Egyptian texts. When looking at the archaeological evidence of 12th-11th century BC southern Canaan, however, any straightforward correlation between intrusive materials and an Aegean identity is frustrated by apparent influences from Cyprus and Canaan itself. Using Philistine seated female figurines (customarily called ‘Ashdoda’ figurines) as a case study, it is argued that Philistine remains more likely represent the productions of a hybrid culture, and betray influences from more than just the Aegean. As such, Ashdoda is not an appropriate ethnic marker for any ‘Aegean’ Philistine identity. While it is possible to interpret a path of migration in the cultural influences present in Ashdoda, a more likely interpretation of these figurines classifies them as hybridised objects, the by-products of the mixing of peoples and ideas in the multicultural setting that was Early Iron Age ‘Philistia.’ If any Aegean influence in the material remains seems predominant, it may be due to a particularly cohesive subgroup falling within the early Philistine/Peleset identity label, for whom a return home was less likely.

The sanctuary of Alaimo was discovered in the 1988 outside the ancient town of Leontini in Sicily. The dig yielded a cult open-air area that in antiquity was characterized by the proximity of rivers and by the presence of aquatic plants. In the sanctuary were performed animal sacrifices and ritual meals. The offers to the deity were mostly ceramics and small finds dated mostly between the second half of the 7th century BC and the beginnings of the 6th century BC. These offers were discovered inside a small square deposit or in the area around it. It was found also a attic red-figured krater dedicated to Dioskouroi but we propose a different dedication of the sanctuary in the archaic age.

The author wants to draw the attention of those interested in archaic Greek bronzes, to three Laconian bronze products which remained in the dark, but in fact are important, for one reason or another, even if they are still not properly published.

Die bislang sehr umstrittene Gravur auf einem Spiegel in Berlin (Abb. 1-3) wird als die erste etruskische Darstellung des griechischen Mythos von der gewaltsamen Annäherung des Hephaistos (Sethlans) an Athena (Menvra) gedeutet, die im Schema einer ‘Liebesentführung’ wiedergegeben ist; neben einer sitzenden Figur sind auch Aphrodite (Turan) und Ares (Laran) anwesend, so dass alle Protagonisten des Mythos versammelt sind. Das Bild des Spiegels fügt sich als singuläre Gestaltung zu anderen Spiegeln mit Paaren des griechischen Mythos.

A better understanding of the everyday realities of ancient life, for instance sheep-herding, could improve our study of such disparate fields as Etruscan religion and urbanism. The information acquired by participants in animal sacrifice, specifically haruspicy, the examination of sheep livers, could have given warning of hazardous situations and threats to the human community such as parasitic infection. The cultic response to such discoveries could also have led to the improvement of the human condition. We suggest some details of one such phenomenon, associated with artifacts such as the Piacenza model liver, an emblem of Etruscan divination.

In this article, an attempt is made to reconstruct the sacred landscape of the region Latium in the late republican period purely based on archaeological sources. The image that emerges from the data is one of numerical decline and spatial concentration of cult places in the late republican period. A religious ‘market’ model will be proposed to explain this development, based on the assumption that that people tend to make rational choices with regard to religious behaviour. This model can be used as a heuristic tool to describe and conceptualise the situation in Latium, with competition between cult places as its central notion. A trend towards generalisation and standardisation of votive religion and a growing (economic) focus on the towns of Latium during the republican period fed into this competitive process and ultimately led to the demise of many cult places. In the end, it was integration into the urban infrastructure and the number and importance of service offered which determined if a cult place would ‘stay in business’. Existing data may benefit from the application of the model, providing fresh insights into familiar areas of research.

This paper reports on a set of intensive interdisciplinary field operations by a Belgian team of Ghent University in 2007 in the Marche region of central Adriatic Italy. Most of the interventions, comprising geophysical prospections, geomorphologic observations, aerial photography, surface artifact surveys, excavations, topographic surveys and pottery studies, aim at a better understanding of the developing Romanisation of this part of Picenum and the rapid urbanization of the area from the late Republic onwards. Quite spectacular are the results of combined remote sensing work on such towns as the coastal colony Potentia and the interior municipium Trea, with unusually detailed mapping of the majority of public and private town structures. In Potentia these intra-site and peri-urban surveys are now also being checked in the field with focused excavations on a town gate and an amphora workshop. Also important are original contributions towards a better comprehension of the town-landscape nexus, involving the discovery of roads, cemeteries, aqueducts and quarries discovered near the four Roman cities. Finally new observations concerning the pre-Roman situation of centrally organized settlement and its links with the establishment of more Roman style towns, add much to the debate about the relatively late urbanization of this Adriatic region.

A painting of Theseus and Ariadne in the House of M. Lucretius Fronto at Pompeii shows the moment when the princess hands the hero the ball of wool that will enable him to find his way out of the Labyrinth; but the action of Theseus, who holds his arm over his head with a fillet dangling from the hand, presents a problem of interpretation. A recent theory has proposed that he is crowning himself after his victory over the Minotaur and, therefore, that the painting combines two moments in time: the preparations for the expedition into the Labyrinth and the celebrations after its successful outcome. The present paper suggests, by analogy with other Pompeian paintings of the same subject, that Theseus is actually removing his sword prior to entering the Labyrinth naked and unarmed. This is an iconographic variant found only at Pompeii and only for a brief period shortly before the middle of the 1st century AD.

The Casa del Marinaio at Pompeii was a large and distinguished property framed by three streets west of the forum; streets noted for their ‘oddities’. This article explains these oddities by reference to the evolving patterns of urban traffic over the first centuries BC and AD. Changes made elsewhere in Regio VII diverted wheeled traffic around insula VII 15; forcing the owners of the Casa del Marinaio to make several modifications outside their property. The legal frameworks that regulated changes to roads and pavements may suggest that the owner(s) of the Casa del Marinaio were actively involved in Pompeii’s magistracy.

The ‘Villa dell’Ambulatio’, the ‘Villa della Sosandra’ and the ‘Piccole Terme’ at Baiae offer useful elements to define more exactly their socio-historical background. They aren’t property of the emperor, but of private citizens, as the clivi between the villas, the absence of inscriptions of imperial freedmen or members of royal family and modest artistic quality of the furnishings show. Chronologically the first building is the ‘Piccole Terme’ (half 1st century BC), followed a few decades later by the ‘Villa dell’Ambulatio’, while more later is the ‘Villa della Sosandra’ (in Claudian Age). Finally, the ‘Villa della Sosandra’ and the ‘Piccole Terme’ form one complex around the half-the second half of the Ist century BC and then include the ‘Villa dell’Ambulatio’, maybe in Severian Age.

The temple on the so-called Piazzale delle Corporazioni in Ostia was built just before AD 96. Domitian who founded a collegium Flavialium may have been responsible for building it. It stands on one of the most frequented spaces of Ostia, in the axial middle of the quadriporticus, a garden, behind the Theatre. In or around AD 140, lateral annexes were added to the temple. From that time onward until AD 249 at least 21 marble bases (16 with inscriptions), originally supporting male marble statues, were placed around it. Comparison with other porticus temples, an inscription mentioning cultores found in the cella, the find of a giant marble arm near the temple and several other indications show that the temple may have been a templum divorum.

This paper presents the results of a geoarchaeological research project in the north-eastern Alentejo region of Portugal. The study focuses on the granite and rock crystal exploitation in the territory of the Roman town of Ammaia. By means of non-destructive survey methods, performed by an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, geomorphologists and geologists, the main quarries in the Civitas Ammaiensis were identified and investigated. The survey project aimed at gaining a clearer insight in the extractive industries of the town and, on a higher level, at gaining a better understanding of the economic and spatial organization of the town and its hinterland.

This study examines archaeological evidence and rabbinic texts in order to challenge recent scholarly claims that the rabbis in Palestine rejected the Roman public latrine because of the lack of privacy during ‘bodily exertion’. By reevaluating both the written and material evidence within the appropriate geographical context (differentiating between Babylonian and Palestinian), I argue that there is no evidence that suggests rabbis living in Palestine rejected Roman public latrines. However, the evidence does suggest that in Babylonia, where Roman public latrines were not used, such a rejection did exist. In order to explain the different attitudes towards public latrines, I suggest that the Zoroastrian cultural environment may have influenced the Babylonian rabbis to develop their rejection.

In Late Antiquity, cities and other important settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean almost completely disappeared from view behind massive fortifications. The walled areas could then only be entered through a small number of highly visible gates. This article investigates the physical appearance of these gates. It presents an overview of their basic requirements and their additional architectural and figurative decoration. It then attempts to explain why these features were used and how this relates to the nature of the settlement – imperial capital, ‘normal’ city, border town or Christian sanctuary – to which they belonged.