Presents numismatics from the ancient harbor town of Dor/Dora in modern Israel with a history that spanned from the Bronze Age until the Late Roman Era.

Contributions in honour of John J. Dobbins, Professor of Roman Art and Archaeology at the University of Virginia, offers new readings of archaeological data and art, illustrating the impact that one professor can have on the wider field of Roman art and archaeology through the continuing work of his students.

Late Antique artefacts, and the images they carry, attest to a highly connected visual culture from ca. 300 to 800 C.E. On the one hand, the same decorative motifs and iconographies are found across various genres of visual and material culture, irrespective of social and economic differences among their users – for instance in mosaics, architectural decoration, and luxury arts (silver plate, textiles, ivories), as well as in everyday objects such as tableware, lamps, and pilgrim vessels. On the other hand, they are also spread in geographically distant regions, mingled with local elements, far beyond the traditional borders of the classical world. At the same time, foreign motifs, especially of Germanic and Sasanian origin, are attested in Roman territories. This volume aims at investigating the reasons behind this seemingly globalised visual culture spread across the Late Antique world, both within the borders of the (former) Roman and (later) Byzantine Empire and beyond, bringing together diverse approaches characteristic of different national and disciplinary traditions. The presentation of a wide range of relevant case studies chosen from different geographical and cultural contexts exemplifies the vast scale of the phenomenon and demonstrates the benefit of addressing such a complex historical question with a combination of different theoretical approaches.

Before Alexander, the Near East was ruled by dynasts who could draw on the significant resources and power base of their homeland, but this was not the case for the Seleukids who never controlled their original homeland of Macedon. The Early Seleukids, their Gods and their Coins argues that rather than projecting an imperialistic Greek image of rule, the Seleukid kings deliberately produced images that represented their personal power, and that were comprehensible to the majority of their subjects within their own cultural traditions. These images relied heavily on the syncretism between Greek and local gods, in particular their ancestor Apollo. The Early Seleukids, their Gods and their Coins examines how the Seleukids, from Seleukos I to Antiochos IV, used coinage to propagandise their governing ideology. It offers a valuable resource to students of the Seleukids and of Hellenistic kingship more broadly, numismatics, and the interplay of ancient Greek religion and politics.

This book collects the most complete, current scholarship on the history of known examples of ancient electrum coinage of the Greek world, with text, catalogues, and images. From the Preface The genesis of this volume took place in 2011 when then Numismatic Curator, Haim Gitler, conceived of a unique exhibition to be held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem that would showcase the earliest coins in the Western tradition, those struck in electrum. Five hundred coins, all from the collections of Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan, Baron Lorne Thyssen-Bornemisza, and several from the Israel Museum, were displayed in a spectacular exhibition, the first of its kind anywhere that looked at electrum coinage from the seventh to the fourth centuries BCE. Catharine Lorber soon joined Gitler in curating the exhibition, White Gold: Revealing the World's Earliest Coins, a name suggested by Lorber, which opened in June 2012, with an exhibition catalogue of the same name written by Koray Konuk, Lorber, and edited by Gitler. Meanwhile, Gitler organized a conference on electrum coinage that was held at the Israel Museum the week the exhibit opened. Tom Kaplan and Lorne Thyssen-Bornemisza, who have been keenly interested in this area of numismatic research, both actively participated in the conference. We are also most grateful for their most generous support, which funded the exhibition and conference, as well as this volume, and also for their help and enthusiasm for this project. Initially, Gitler, Lorber, and Konuk planned to publish the conference proceedings with the Israel Museum's imprimatur, but as many of the conference participants felt a follow-up meeting would be beneficial to address some of the outstanding problematic aspects of early electrum raised in Jerusalem, a second White Gold conference was held in November 2013 at the American Numismatic Society (ANS) in New York City. In 2016, it was decided that publication of the proceedings of the two conferences would be undertaken by the ANS with Ute Wartenberg and Peter van Alfen serving as the volume's editors, who received considerable editorial and other assistance on several of the chapters from Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert. Since 2013, the scope of the volume grew. Scholars, notably Kristin Kleber and Donald Jones, who had not participated in the two original conferences were invited to contribute chapters, and others who had participated offered additional contributions. While the expanded scope of the volume delayed publication, nonetheless we can now offer a fuller and more detailed picture of the evidence at hand for understanding the various contexts in which early electrum coins were produced and used.

In the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s conquests in the late fourth century B.C., Greek garrisons and settlements were established across Central Asia, through Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan) and into India. Over the next three hundred years, these settlements evolved into multiethnic, multilingual communities as much Greek as they were indigenous. To explore the lives and identities of the inhabitants of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms, Rachel Mairs marshals a variety of evidence, from archaeology, to coins, to documentary and historical texts. Looking particularly at the great city of Ai Khanoum, the only extensively excavated Hellenistic period urban site in Central Asia, Mairs explores how these ancient people lived, communicated, and understood themselves. Significant and original, The Hellenistic Far East will highlight Bactrian studies as an important part of our understanding of the ancient world.

The Archaeology of Colonialism demonstrates how artifacts are not only the residue of social interaction but also instrumental in shaping identities and communities. Claire Lyons and John Papadopoulos summarize the complex issues addressed by this collection of essays. Four case studies illustrate the use of archaeological artifacts to reconstruct social structures. They include ceramic objects from Mesopotamian colonists in fourth-millennium Anatolia; the Greek influence on early Iberian sculpture and language; the influence of architecture on the West African coast; and settlements across Punic Sardinia that indicate the blending of cultures. The remaining essays look at the roles myth, ritual, and religion played in forming colonial identities. In particular, they discuss the cultural middle ground established among Greeks and Etruscans; clothing as an instrument of European colonialism in nineteenth-century Oceania; sixteenth-century Andean urban planning and kinship relations; and the Dutch East India Company settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.

This interdisciplinary study investigates the divine personas in the so-called magical hymns of the Greek magical papyri which, in a corpus usually seen as a significant expression of religious syncretism with strong Egyptian influence, were long considered to be the 'most authentically Greek' contribution. Fifteen hymns receive a line-by-line commentary focusing on religious concepts, ritual practice, language and style. The overarching aim is to categorise the nature of divinity according to its Greek or Egyptian elements, examining earlier Greek and Egyptian sources and religious-magical traditions in order to find textual or conceptual parallels. Are the gods of the magical hymns Greek or Egyptian in nature? Did the magical hymns originate in a Greek or Egyptian cultural background? The book tries to answer these questions and to shed light on the religious plurality and/or fusion of the two cultures in the treatment of divinity in the Greek magical papyri.

Out of a lifetime of study of the ancient Near East, Professor Olmstead has gathered previously unknown material into the story of the life, times, and thought of the Persians, told for the first time from the Persian rather than the traditional Greek point of view. "The fullest and most reliable presentation of the history of the Persian Empire in existence."—M. Rostovtzeff

" it engages with the agentive qualities of matter " it shows how affective dimensions in history connect with material history " it explores the religious and cultural identity dimensions of the use of materials and artefacts