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"Abstract: From the ceramic lot (circa 10.000 Roman wares) identified within the legionary fortress at Potaissa, only 10 of them bear graffiti, tituli picti and manufacturer stamps on their body (0,1% of the total). The ceramic wares were recovered from various areas of the fortress, namely the barracks (praetentura sinistra, praetentura dextra, latus praetorii dextrum, retentura), the legionary baths (thermae), the western gate (porta decumana), and the headquarters building (Principia). In the present study I will offer an interpretation of the finds, as well as an explanation for the extremely rare occurance of manufacturer stamps within the Potaissa legionary fortress. Keywords: Graffiti; Roman pottery; Potaissa; legio V Macedonica; legionary fortress. Rezumat: Din întregul lot ceramic (circa 10.000 de vase de factură romană) identificat in castrul legionar de la Potaissa, doar 10 vase prezintă graffiti, tituli picti şi ştampile de producător pe corpul lor (0,1% din total). Piesele ceramice au fost descoperite în diverse zone ale castrului, respectiv cazărmile soldaţilor (praetentura sinistra, praetentura dextra, latus praetorii dextrum, retentura), termele castrului (thermae), poarta de vest (porta decumana) şi clădirea comandamentului (Principia). În studiul de faţă voi oferi o interpretare a materialului descoperit, cât şi o explicaţie privind problema frecvenţei extrem de reduse a ştampilelor de producător în castrul legionar de la Potaissa. Cuvinte cheie: Graffiti; ceramică romană; Potaissa; legio V Macedonica; castru legionar. "

This book by the author of The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies considers important interlocking themes. Did the Roman Empire have a single 'national' economy, or was its economy localised and fragmented? Can coin and pottery survivals demonstrate the importance of long-distance trade? How fast did essential news travel by sea, and what does that imply about Mediterranean sailing-patterns? Further subjects considered include taxation, commodity-prices, demography, and army pay and manpower. The book is very wide-ranging in its geographical coverage and in the evidence that it explores. By analysing specific features of the economy the contrasting discussions examine important questions about its character and limitations, and about how surviving evidence should be interpreted. The book throws new and significant light on the economic life of Europe and the Mediterranean in antiquity, and will be valuable to ancient historians and students of European economic history

La investigación actual sobre la economía de los alimentos en el mundo romano queda reflejada en esta obra, que aborda la producción y distribución de tales bienes fundamentales desde el estudio de casos y la innovación metodológica. Su configuración parte de una iniciativa del proyecto europeo EPNet, que reunió a los distintos autores participantes en el volumen con motivo de una sesión específica de la 27.ª Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (Durham, marzo de 2017). Aunque también se trata el abastecimiento de trigo, las contribuciones se dedican mayoritariamente al aceite y el vino. Los casos de estudio se concentran en el occidente romano, con especial atención a Italia e Hispania. Se incluyen contextos productivos y de redistribución, particularmente en los asentamientos militares fronterizos y la capital. Metodológicamente destacan las estrategias de cuantificación, el análisis SIG y la modelización. Se contrastan aspectos geográficos y arqueológicos de las diversas zonas de estudio para extraer conclusiones relativas a los patrones de asentamiento rural, la producción de alimentos y envases anfóricos, y sus redes de distribución comercial. De tal forma se dibuja un panorama amplio, vertebrado en torno a una cuestión clave para el funcionamiento y la sostenibilidad del Imperio: la economía alimentaria. Este amplio abanico metodológico resulta sugerente para la orientación de nuevas investigaciones que, de forma complementaria, se unan para profundizar en las razones del prolongado éxito de la cultura romana.

In this paper, petrographic, mineralogical and chemical analyses have been performed on plain table-ware fragments discovered in the ancient town of Akrai (modern Palazzolo Acreide, Syracuse, Sicily) and dated between the Hellenistic and the Late Roman periods (4th-5th/6thcentury A.D.). The project is developed in the context of the archeological debate on the cultural and political process occurred in Sicily since the 3rdcentury B.C. and known in archaeological literature as Romanization. In this framework, a gradually substitution of Greek-Hellenistic materials with the Roman ones has occurred in Sicilian colonies and the city of Akrai was deepened involved in this process. As the sensitiveness of material culture to cultural and social changes, the archaeometric investigation has been focused on provenance and technological manufacture aspects of tableware production, in order to delineate the eventually changes took place in the area during the investigated period. The comparison of obtained data with numerous references local groups of ceramics allows to identify different highly specialized local productions, drawing-back the commercial movements of potteries in Sicily during Roman Age.

"The ancient counties surrounding the Weald in the SE corner of England have a strongly marked character of their own that has survived remarkably well in the face of ever-increasing population pressure. The area is, however, comparatively neglected in discussion of Roman Britain, where it is often subsumed into a generalised treatment of the 'civilian' part of Britannia that is based largely on other parts of the country. This book aims to redress the balance. The focus is particularly on Kent, Surrey and Sussex account is taken of information from neighbouring counties, particularly when the difficult subsoils affect the availability of evidence. An overview of the environment and a consideration of themes relevant to the South-East as a whole accompany 14 papers covering the topics of rural settlement in each county, crops, querns and millstones, animal exploitation, salt production, leatherworking, the working of bone and similar materials, the production of iron and iron objects, non-ferrous metalworking, pottery production and the supply of tile to Roman London. Agriculture and industry provides an up-to-date assessment of our knowledge of the southern hinterland of Roman London and an area that was particularly open to influences from the Continent"--Publisher description

Historical and literary works and archaeological materials (such as pottery figurines, tomb murals and reliefs, paintings etc.) recorded the spread of foreign dog breeds in the territory of China since the period of the Northern dynasties and their highest popularity among Chinese upper class during Tang epoch. At the present time there is information about two breeds — "Persian" dogs and "Roman" dogs. "Persian" dogs (Bosi gou, Bosi quan) were the hunting dogs with a thin elongated body, long legs, short-haired, probably, related to Saluki. "Roman" dogs (Fulin gou, Fulin quan) were miniature dogs with short body and legs, long-haired, black and white spotted, probably, originated from Maltese dogs. They performed a decorative function and served as companions of women and children. Apparently, originally both "Persian" and "Roman" dogs were imported into China along the Silk Road via Sogdian city-states of Central Asia and the states of Western Regions (Xiyu). Later, the breeding of these dogs started in China in order to meet the demand for the prestigious home pets among the Chinese elite.

The frontiers of the Roman empire together form the largest surviving monument of one of the world's greatest states. They stretch for some 7,500 km through 20 countries which encircle the Mediterranean Sea. The remains of these frontiers have been studied by visitors and later by archaeologists for several centuries. Many of the inscriptions and sculpture, weapons, pottery and artefacts created and used by the soldiers and civilians who lived on the frontier can be seen in museums. Equally evocative of the lost might of Rome are the physical remains of the frontiers themselves. The aim of this title is not only to inform the interested visitor about the history of the frontiers but to act as a guidebook as well

"The ancient counties surrounding the Weald in the SE corner of England have a strongly marked character of their own that has survived remarkably well in the face of ever-increasing population pressure. The area is, however, comparatively neglected in discussion of Roman Britain, where it is often subsumed into a generalised treatment of the 'civilian' part of Britannia that is based largely on other parts of the country. This book aims to redress the balance. The focus is particularly on Kent, Surrey and Sussex account is taken of information from neighbouring counties, particularly when the difficult subsoils affect the availability of evidence. An overview of the environment and a consideration of themes relevant to the South-East as a whole accompany 14 papers covering the topics of rural settlement in each county, crops, querns and millstones, animal exploitation, salt production, leatherworking, the working of bone and similar materials, the production of iron and iron objects, non-ferrous metalworking, pottery production and the supply of tile to Roman London. Agriculture and industry provides an up-to-date assessment of our knowledge of the southern hinterland of Roman London and an area that was particularly open to influences from the Continent"--Publisher description

The presence of Jews on Cyprus during Ptolemaic and Roman rule, although attested by diverse historical sources, has not been convincingly identified archaeologically. However, the pottery style named Cypriot Sigillata A, may provide oblique evidence of the Jewish Diaspora on Cyprus, or at least its end. This paper will propose a causal relationship between two seemingly unrelated facts: the historically attested destruction of the Jewish Community 115–117 CE during the Diaspora Revolt; and, the sudden disappearance of Cypriot Sigillata A from the archaeological record by 150 CE.

[spa] El objetivo de este trabajo es explorar las dinámicas de producción anfórica durante el Imperio Romano. En particular, se aplica un enfoque evolutivo para comprender los mecanismos de cambio en las ánforas oleıı́colas béticas conocidas como Dressel 20. El análisis realizado se centra en la detección de diferencias en la producción de ánforas a través del tiempo posibilitando cuantificar el grado de transformación en estos contenedores. Uno de los principales retos de este enfoque ha sido el alto nivel de incertidumbre asociado con la cronología arqueológica. Adicionalmente, este problema se combina con la falta de un marco formal para aplicar técnicas convencionales al análisis de los datos de ánforas. Con el fin de lograr este objetivo, este trabajo usa un marco cuantitativo basado en la teorıı́a de la Evolución Cultural y proporciona una serie de métodos que pueden ser usados para tener en cuenta estos cambios en la producción de las ánforas romanas. En este contexto, se presentan tres diferentes casos de estudio donde esta metodología ha sido usada para mostrar su capacidad de detectar trayectorias culturales. Todos los casos de estudios se han enfocado en comprender las dinámicas de cambio de la producción anfórica localizada en la provincia de la Bética durante el Imperio Romano (I-III d.C.). Especialmente, los métodos cuantitativos y la simulación se han aplicado para cuantificar la diferencias entre producciones con el objetivo de identificar discontinuidades en secuencias arqueológicas e históricas. Se pretende conocer si estos cambios identificados se han producido por razones culturales como podrıı́an ser los cambios económicos, políticos o sociales. El análisis explora cómo el marco propuesto por la arqueología evolutiva puede ser una herramienta útil para comprender los cambios en los procesos de producción usando la cultura material para analizarlos. Finalmente, los resultados sugieren que determinados factores culturales pueden influir en el grado de cambio en los contenedores anfóricos siendo posible identificar variaciones en producciones tan estandarizadas como la romana. ; [eng] The aim of this thesis is to explore the dynamics of change in amphoric production within the Roman Empire. In particular, an evolutionary framework is applied to understand the mechanisms of changes in olive oil amphorae. This analysis can be developed by the fact that we detect differences in the amphorae production through time that allows us to quantify the rates of change. One of the main challenges of this approach is the high level of uncertainty associated to the archaeological chronologies. In addition, this problem is combined with the lack of a formal framework to apply on the conventional techniques for the analysis of the amphorae dataset. In order to achieve this goal the study uses a quantitative framework based on cultural evolution theory. It provides a set of methods that can be used to account these changes in the production of olive oil amphorae. In this context, it will be presented a research where this methodology has been used to show its capacity to detect the culture trajectories. Our three case studies have been focused to understand the dynamics of change of olive oil amphora production found in Baetica (currently Andalusia) during the Roman Empire (1st- 3rd century AD). Specifically quantitative methods and simulation have been applied to quantify the morphological distance between pottery assemblages in order to identify discontinuities in archaeological and historical sequences. In particular, we want to identify if these changes were produced by cultural reasons as it may be economical, political and social changes. The analysis explores how the framework provided by evolutionary archaeology can provide a useful base for understanding change in production processes using material culture. Finally, the results suggest that different factors can influence rate of change and thus different speeds can be identified with distinguishable patterns of social behaviour.

"Lyde Green Roman Villa, Emersons Green, South Gloucestershire was excavated between mid-2012 and mid-2013 along with its surroundings and antecedent settlement. The excavations took place as part of the Emersons Green East Development Area, funded through the mechanism of commercial archaeology by Gardiner & Theobald LLP. The results of the stratigraphic analysis are given here along with specialist reports on the human remains, pottery (including thin sections), ceramic building material, small finds, coinage and iron-working waste. Six open-area excavations allowed the archaeologists the rare opportunity to trace a substantial part of the site's layout. Three ancillary buildings within the villa compound, including a bathhouse, were excavated. Evidence of advanced water management was uncovered in the form of lead piping, ceramic drain tiles and an enigmatic stone structure built into a canalised spring line. The villa's economy included stock raising, crop processing and iron and textile production. The settlement appears to have originated in the mid-1st century AD, or slightly earlier. "

The article explores 15 terracotta oil lamps found during the archaeological excavations of the Centre for Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Kom Tuman (Memphis, Egypt). The majority of these lamps were made in moulds, and only one — on potter's wheel. Various types of local Egyptian clays were used for the production of the lamps. Many of the lamps are decorated with various ornaments, such as palms, dolphins, torches, and, possibly, the 'Macedonian shield'. Similar lamps were widespread in all the territory of Egypt; equally, such lamps appear among archaeological finds in the countries neighbouring with Egypt. The Memphite lamps under study were found in mixed layers and, therefore, we have compared them with analogous lamps from other locations in order to obtain more secure dating. Based on the parallels, we date the lamps to the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods (3rd century B.C. — 3rd century A.D.). The archaeological context of the lamps indicates their possible use in households and/or in temples for illumination of indoor spaces. The lamps are archaeological evidence for the existence of active everyday life at Kom Tuman in Graeco-Roman Period which is also confirmed by other sources. The study of archaeological pottery and of papyri found in the city of Memphis and in adjacent necropoleis shows that even after the foundation of the new Ptolemaic capital Alexandria, Memphis was not abandoned but continued for centuries to be a major administrative and cultic centre. The article includes the catalogue of 15 lamps with descriptions and illustrations.