Volume 92, 2017

From the Cévennes to the Mediterranean, across limestone hills and coastal lagoons, the valley of the Vidourle takes in all the features of the lower Languedoc geo-system. This 800 sq km catchment area has been settled for millennia and so is an excellent field of study for spatiotemporal analysis of population by means of surface surveys and programmed or rescue excavation. These have contributed to the rich database of 205 settlements between the Iron Age and the Late-Republican period (7th-1st centuries BC): archaeological sites (oppida, dwellings, burial sites) that have been mapped with a geographical information system using ArcGIS software. Detailed mapping helps us to analyse the spatiotemporal dynamics of the population within the geographic entity formed by the valley. Analysis has revealed contrasts in the rate of occupancy of its sectors from the coast to the Cévennes foothills, ranging from scattered dwelling places to population clusters within the oppida.

After the flowering of the Nuragic culture in the early Iron Age the island of Sardinia seems to lose its Nuragic identity with the progress of the 1st millennium BC; it is generally considered that at the end of the early Iron Age the Nuragic culture undergoes some form of crisis. Whilst it is agreed that important changes took place in the local Nuragic communities during the first centuries of the first millennium, a reading is proposed here according to which not enough attention has been paid to the continuity of local practices in the subsequent later Iron Age. Using central/north Sardinia as an example this paper examines the evidence of continuity, highlighting the continuous contact in the subsequent later Iron Age between local communities and the Greek and Etruscan ones. Although changes did take place at the end of the early Iron Age, it is stressed that the cultural identities and traditions continued to the late-1st millennium BC, with real change only registering during the Roman Imperial period. For this reason the traditional periodization is not very appropriate when talking about the local Sardinian communities.

In the last years particular attention has been given to fantastic creatures in antiquity. As a consequence of this new interest we could have now a better overview of the phenomenon. Undoubtedly Mischwesen must be considered one of the hallmarks of the Orientalizing iconography in the Mediterranean and Pre-Roman Italy and their study offers a wide and valuable frame to trace on the one hand the several influences from Greece and Levant and on the other hand the development of an original local repertoire. This paper focuses on some peculiar subjects that are particularly widespread in central Italy (in particular chimaeras and their modifications) and aims to point out the iconographical models and ways of transmission starting from the most recent studies.

This article compares Naukratis to other Greek emporia in the Mediterranean in order to explore religion in cosmopolitan settlements: Did individuals’ choices of what gods to worship relate to the settlements’ multiethnic and commercial nature? How did religious practices change in these communities? Did religion impart new ways of organizing society and structuring the polis? The article shows the competing religious discourses in Greek emporia, and argues that religious practices were fluid, led to religious innovation, and actively shaped politics, trade, and even the polis itself.

An Attic red-figure crater that can stylistically be assigned to the Boreas-Florence Group has a very interesting commercial graffito under its foot, consisting in three lines, with a proper noun, Paseas, and two vase names, i.e. kothones and arysteres, accompanied by numerals. As far as it is known, this is the first occurrence of the two vase names written in full in a commercial graffito. This occurrence provides the opportunity for a reappraisal of the attestations of the kothon, and of the rather uncommon aryster, and to formulate hypotheses on their uses and their identification in effectively attested shapes.

A terracotta group which depicts two comedians was found in the recent excavation of the northeastern necropolis of Thebes, in Boeotia. Analysis of the costume and the compositional scheme used, and comparison with similar representations allow us to propose a more accurate chronology of the group, and to identify the types of masks. In contrast to many individual statuettes, this group occurs more rarely; however, it offers the opportunity to identify the subject. This is the dispute between the two servants for a bag of food, a recurring motif in the intrigue of the play, which was standardized in the New Comedy.

A re-evaluation of the sarcophagus fragments in S. Maria in Castello in Tarquinia, first published by M. Morandi, along with the addition of some new fragments allows the reconstruction of two marble sarcophagi. Morandi’s assignment to the burial of Larth Velcha in the local Tomba degli Scudi is still valid for one of them. Its new reconstruction resembles three pieces from San Giuliano, Carthage and Larnaca, which can be recognised as belonging to a bigger group of marble sarcophagi of the second half of the 4th century BC due to their form and painted decoration. This group comprises sarcophagi with lids featuring ‘standing’ figures and simpler ones with lids shaped as gabled roofs. The distribution area as well as the conception and iconographical details of the figured lids show that Carthage is the most likely production centre of the whole group. Four marble sarcophagi and two local imitations attest to the import to southern Etruria, probably by traders from Tarquinia. They can be seen in the context of a revival of Carthaginian-Etruscan trade in this period.

This article offers an interpretation of the scene depicted on the body of an Apulian red-figured oinochoe, assigned to the Darius Painter, now kept in the storage of the Museo Civico of Foggia. This interpretation is based on the analysis of the iconographic language of the Apulian imagery as well as on the connexion in series of this scene with those appearing on contemporary vases produced in the same cultural community. This article is also accompanied by a set of previously unpublished colour pictures of the entire vase and of several details taken on site by the author.

This article addresses a scene on a mirror from Caere, now in Berlin, as the prelude to the apotheosis of Herakles. It suggests that the otherwise unknown inscribed name Mutnuc derives from the Latin Mutinus, the name of a phallic deity who is rendered here as Pan. Herakles’s position between Mutnuc and a Siren, and the presence of one or two thunderbolt symbols suggest that he is on his journey to Olympos.

Halos, a city of Achaia Phthiotis in Thessaly, Greece has been the subject of continuous archaeological research by the University of Groningen since 1976. The Halos Archaeological Project celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 2016. In this article we take the opportunity to look back on the earliest research in the area, and provide an overview of how the fieldwork has refined our knowledge of the ancient town over the past forty years, and what questions still remain.

Oggetto di questo studio sono l’analisi e la ricostruzione, a mo’ di esempio, di un monumento funerario della tipologia detta ‘a tempietto’ situato presso via degli Eugenii. Verranno presi inoltre in considerazione gli edifici funebri in muratura a vista siti nell’area del IV-V miglio della via Appia antica, con particolare attenzione alle problematiche inerenti alla loro classificazione, concezione architettonica, decorazione, nonché alla storia delle loro ricostruzioni. Il presente è un contributo ospite nell’ambito progetto internazionale ‘Mapping the via Appia’, realizzato sotto la guida della Soprintendenza di Roma in cooperazione con la Radboud Universiteit Njmegen, la Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam e il Reale Istituto Olandese di Roma, nell’ambito del quale saranno presentati anche altri risultati.

This short note examines the difference in drainage of the cold and hot pools of Roman baths. In some hot pools, it seems that the water was drained through the half-cylindrical water container in contact with the pool (testudo alvei) or possibly through a metal heating device inserted in the bottom of the pool (a type of semi-testudo). Such a system could imply that the waste water of the hot pools may have been used to clean the furnaces. If the drain gave directly onto the furnace, the pool could only be emptied once a day, when the baths closed.

The Roman-period burial chest from Simpelveld has captured the interest of archaeologists and the public since its discovery in 1930. Substantial looting has disturbed the original contents, but there remains some cremated human material. Despite the incomplete and fragmented nature of these remains, this paper demonstrates that through detailed and advanced analyses much can be learned about the person buried in the chest. Macroscopic and microscopic analyses are undertaken to reconstruct variables about the cremation process, estimate sex and age-at-death, and document pathological conditions. The results reveal the Simpelveld chest’s occupant was a middle-aged (35-49 years) female, free from pathological lesions or skeletal anomalies, most notably lacking any signs of osteoarthritis. This osteobiographic profile largely matches the representation of the lady on the inside of the chest, suggesting it was made specifically for her and, with the lack of osteoarthritis, that she probably lived a privileged life. This study improves our understanding of this lady and Roman-period villa life in the south of the Netherlands in general.

As a reply to Ruurd Halbertsma’s 2015 BABESCH article on the Gemma Constantiniana in Leiden, Paul Stephenson made some interesting remarks, which deserve an answer.