History of the Limes Congress

To celebrate the 25^th International Congress of Roman Frontiers Studies (Limes Congress) to be held in Nijmegen in August 2022, the authors, together with Professor David Breeze and Dr Andreas Thiel, have put together a history of the Congress, from the early ideas of such a gathering in the interwar years through to the first Congress held in Newcastle in 1949 and on to the present day.

In many ways, the research for the book has been a labour of love by the authors – the Limes Congresses hold a particular affection by many of the attendees, as an opportunity for visiting the remains of Roman frontier sites around the empire, hearing about new research through lectures and posters, and networking with colleagues who may be doing similar research but in different countries.

Whilst it is unlikely that the organisers of the first congress of 1949 had a clue of the success to which their endeavours would ultimately lead (which now includes up to 400 participants from 25 countries from four continents; and three ‘Frontiers of the Roman Empire’ World Heritage properties); in many ways, the history of the 24 Congresses held thus far has held up a mirror to selected historical events of the last 73 years. Even the most recent three:

• The 2022 Congress in Nijmegen was originally scheduled to take place in 2021 and has been delayed due to Covid. Very few scholars from the Ukraine and Russia are unable to attend following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the impossibilities for attendance at foreign conferences due to financial and travel restrictions.
• The 2018 Congress in Serbia was a welcome return to that part of the Balkans following the cancellation of a proposed congress in the former Yugoslavia in 1992 due to the deteriorating situation there.

Participants in the 2018 Congress visiting the Roman fort of Diana in Serbia.
Copyright: Nemanja Mrđić

• The 2015 Congress in Ingolstadt in southern Germany was at that point in time when there was a mass influx of Syrian refugees across Europe, resulting in the closure of land borders and delays in delegates reaching Bavaria.

One noticeable factor in the Congresses has been the increase in attendees and numbers of speakers. This includes a rise in the number of women speaking, although the gender disparity on the topics discussed is a notable aspect which we explore briefly in the book.

But perhaps one aspect of the research on the book that engaged us most was learning more about those scholars that we only knew as authors of esteemed volumes on the archaeology of Roman frontier regions, and then identifying them on group photographs from the Congresses. Following the description of each Congress in the book, we have a few short reminiscences by one or two participants for whom that Congress was their first immersion into the world of limes studies or otherwise noteworthy. Each Congress note is supplemented by a series of photographs, not of monuments visited during the Congress excursions (as these can be easily found online) but of people visiting particular sites, and social events such as receptions, dinners and informal lunches. We believe that this exercise not only gives an opportunity for the reader to put a face to a name, but also to learn more about limes past, present and future stalwarts’ characters, ambitions and interests.  

Specifically, it has been a particularly delightful quest to try to name every individual on a group photograph from the First Congress in 1949 in Newcastle.

That first Congress followed the centenary Pilgrimage of Hadrian’s Wall, and the publication of the Congress proceedings tells us that there were 11 speakers (10 males and one female). There was a reasonable spread of geography covered – in part due to international schools of archaeology and colonial occupations.

Copyright: Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery

Yet a photo of that Congress, featuring 38 people, tells perhaps a slightly different story than that told in the proceedings. And this led the authors onto a hunt to identify the participants on the photograph – particularly the nine women depicted. Two women known to have been at the Congress – Anne Robertson from Glasgow (the sole female speaker) and Brenda Swinbank (later Heyworth) – are not in the photograph. This thereby suggested that there were at least 11 women present at the Congress, potentially over 25% of the delegates. We didn’t feel that a simple dismissal of ‘wives and other family’ was sufficient and are pleased to say that our endeavours paid off.

In the front row of the photograph, seated on the ground, are two women: Elisabeth Ettlinger and Barbara Birley.

Elisabeth Ettlinger, then 34, was a German-born archaeologist, who had fled Germany for Switzerland in the 1930s. She joined the classical archaeology department at Basel University and received her PhD in 1942 on the subject of the pottery found in thermae of Augst (published in 1949). Her work Die römischen Fibeln in der Schweiz (1972) still acts as an essential reference book for the study of Roman brooches and she was one of the founders of the Fautores (the Rei cretariae Romanae fautores – Roman pottery studies: https://www.fautores.org/) which met for the first time after the Third Limes Congress in Switzerland in 1957. Elisabeth sits next to Dutch archaeologist Willem Glasbergen and, whom we think was the American-born Roman archaeologist and Latin philologist Howard Comfort. Both were life-long friends with Elisabeth, sharing their love for the Roman pottery, and it was with Howard that the idea for the Fautores was born (Howard is another co-founder).    

Barbara Birley, sister of Eric Birley, sat alongside her brother and was a teacher in South Africa. She and Eric remained close, and she was interested in Roman archaeology so would regularly return to visit family at the same time as a major Roman event such as the Pilgrimage.

In the very back row, between Antonio Frova (from Italy, who spoke about Bulgaria) and Mortimer Wheeler (from Britain and spoke on Mesopotamia) is the tall blonde figure of Dutch anthropologist Guda van Giffen-Duyvis. Although her husband Albert Egges van Giffen spoke at the Congress, Guda attended the Hadrian’s Wall Pilgrimage and was a scholar of Aztecs and pre-Columbian art of Mexico and Peru.

In front of Guda is a line of six women, of whom we have been able to identify three. The lady in the hat on the left is unknown but to the right of her in the spotted dress is Margerie Venables Taylor, who was the Secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies for a great many years and editor of the Journal of Roman Studies. She would have graduated from Oxford University, but they didn’t award degrees to women when she studied there! She was later Vice President and President of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies and later became the first woman to hold office as Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

We don’t know the name of the woman to the right of M V Taylor, nor the lady with the dark hair in the dark suit to the right again. Although Dorothy Evelyn ‘Eve’ Dray (later Simpson) has been suggested for the latter, this lady wears what appears to be a wedding ring and Eve didn’t marry until 1952. But we have been able to identify the two ladies on the right hand side of this line up. In the cardigan with spectacles is Jocelyn Toynbee, the leading British scholar in Roman artistic studies and a lecturer at Cambridge University. Two years later, in 1951, she became the first (and, so far, only) female Lawrence Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge. To the right of Jocelyn is (Mary) Grace Simpson, who trained as an archaeologist after the war (graduating from the UCL Institute of Archaeology in 1948) and subsequently became a research assistant to Eric Birley at Durham. Her father was the archaeologist F G Simpson who played a key role in Hadrian’s Wall studies, particularly as director of excavations at Birdoswald in 1929. Grace developed significant expertise in Roman pottery, co-authoring an essential reference volume on Samian ware (Central Gaulish Potters) in 1958, and was Honorary curator of the Clayton collection at Chesters on Hadrian’s Wall. Like Elisabeth Ettlinger, she later played a key role in the Fautores Congresses.

It is notable that many of the women we have been able to identify were already, or became, significant figures in their various fields of research on Roman provinces and frontiers. It is possible that several already knew each other due to their work on Roman Britain and we can assume that they were potentially personally invited, with the younger generation there by the invitation of their supervisors. For example, we know that 26 year old Dutchman Willem Glasbergen, seated second from left, went at the invitation of his supervisor, Albert van Giffen (not pictured, and known to have had his leg in plaster at the time).

When we started our quest, we had an assumption that people featured were prominent figures in Roman provincial and frontier studies and we were correct there as well. Other people that we have been able to identify in the photograph are familiar names in Roman and Classical archaeology and material culture studies:

Front row, seated: Howard Comfort (?), Willem Glasbergen, Elisabeth Ettlinger, Barbara Birley, Eric Birley, Ian Richmond, Andreas Alföldi, unknown, Franz Oelmann.

Standing in the middle row: third from the left, not looking into the camera is Rudolf Laur-Belert, Georg “Gyuri” Kunwald (?); centre behind the seated Eric Birley is Canon Thomas Romans; three to the right of him, Margerie V Taylor, three again, Jocelyn Toynbee and then Grace Simpson.

Standing in the back row: centre back behind the lady with the hat is Jean Baradez, to his right is Hans Norling-Christensen; to his left is Antonio Frova, then Guda van Giffen-Duyvis, Mortimer Wheeler and Victor Erle Nash-Williams.

Many Congress participants are wearing the round 1949 Hadrian’s Wall Pilgrimage badge showing how many had been on the Pilgrimage prior to the Congress. We believe that Shimon Applebaum and Ulrich Kahrstadt should be in the photo but have been unable to identify them.

We would welcome any assistance in identifying the people on this photograph!

This book about the Congress history is more than a trip down memory lane: we believe it shows how a discipline of Roman frontier studies was born and developed facing various challenges along the way. If it were not for the existence of the Limes Congresses, the iconic Roman frontiers sites might not have received the visibility they deserve nor would they have enjoyed their inscription on World Heritage list. The discipline is thriving, despite the alarming disappearance of faculty positions at Universities across Europe with a focus on Roman provinces and frontiers. We hope that our readers will appreciate the significance of the Roman frontier studies and our discipline’s contribution to the understanding of life in Roman world outside the Mediterranean core.

Dr Tatiana Ivleva, University of Newcastle, and Dr Rebecca Jones, Historic Environment Scotland

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Sincerest thanks to Dr Ivleva and Dr Jones for contributing this article to the Archaeopress Blog.

A complimentary copy of the A History of the Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 1949-2022 will be presented to all those attending the 25^th International Congress of Roman Frontiers Studies (Limes Congress), Nijmegen later this month. For those not attending the conference, the book will be available to purchase in paperback (priced £38), or downloaded free of charge in Open Access from 25th August 2022. Pre-order the book on the Archaeopress website here.

Save 25% on our whole collection of books and eBooks at www.archaeopress.com by applying the following voucher code to your basket before checkout: LIMESXXV

Browse our website or download our dedicated flier for the LIMES congress, highlighting the specialist series and titles within our Roman collection.

Visions of the Roman North. Art and Identity in Northern Roman Britain

My new book for Archaeopress-Visions of the Roman North. Art and Identity in Northern Roman Britain– is a study of the role of images and art in the northern regions of Roman Britain, and how art and identity interacted together here to produce what is argued to have been a highly-distinctive visual culture. The book is not concerned with the fine details of the chronology and history of the northern frontiers of the Roman province of Britannia or of the shifting military dispositions there. Indeed, much writing about the Roman north often has been caught up in a relentless specificity-this site, this building, this find-and shied away from the idea of overview. Forward motion and meaning perhaps thus became subsumed in descriptive practice, and I have deliberately avoided this in my book.

The study is not only a geography book, about a particular region, but it is also a political and ideological history, an admonition of sorts, an impassioned defence of the art produced here, and a quasi-memoir. The text, like the art, is full of mysterious eddies and cross-currents. While acknowledging the notion that the world as it is experienced is shaped by the forms of human thought and sensibility, at the same time  the birth of an age of images such as in Roman times would also seem to have involved a certain degree of bewilderment at the elusiveness of time, and anxiety about the dehumanising effects of the resulting artistic production. A new art reflected a new model of existence commensurate with the experiences of living in a frontier zone, an art whose creation did not require a breaking-away from old frameworks of presentation but rather their adaption. This new art was steeped in a physical sense of the Roman north: the landscapes, the forts, the streets of tombs, the resilient peoples.

Altar to Sol-Mithras from Carrawburgh, Northumberland. Third century AD. Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle. (Photo: Author).

‘Visions…’ is to some extent a long essay, a series of interconnected studies of particular aspects of identity formation explored by material objects, highlighting the dominant strands of artistic practice at the time. The roots of this practice are not explicitly explored, indeed only in so far as they can be seen to have reinvigorated and tested the potential of sculpture as a medium. The interworking of agency, gesture, and landscape make this very much a regional study. Looking at the art from the Roman north helps us to understand how this geographic space was conceptualized. People, materials, and environment served to emphasise the local context and the landscape acted as a medium through which agency and gestures were translated. The art of the region should be seen as the end result of active engagements with developing patterns of change which formed one crucial aspect of the contemporary experience. Art acted as a kind of mesh through which real life escaped, the overall assemblage of artworks being somehow greater than the sum of its many parts. By deploying new modes of representation it is argued that it is almost as if the Romans looked down from above on the northern landscapes which had not been seen in this way before and reinterpreted them through imagery. Looking at this art allows us to recognise the deep connection between social and geological territory, and between landscape and memory.

Relief of Roman legionaries from Croy Hill, Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Antonine. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. (Photo: Author).

I also argue that northern Romano-British art between the first and early fifth centuries AD was in a sense a period of sufficient historical integrity to make it worthy of study in its own right and not just as a regional study. This art helped in the creation of a discrete social and psychological space in the north. The study seeks to question conventional polarities with regard to province and frontier. But there nevertheless remains a feeling that these resulting new visual narratives ultimately longed for some degree of constancy and integration in a broader whole. There is a sense that there was a struggle under way to envisage a new politicised landscape effortlessly spanning both the past and the present. The question addressed is whether the art produced was, ultimately, entirely successfully in doing so?

Visual experience was a vital and integral part of the character of the region as it was shaped by broad cultural and sociopolitical forces. Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall did not exist in a void: they lay within a broader landscape. The frontiers existed at a critical point where history and geography, architecture and topography met, or at least intersected; a region of perpetual exchange where economic, cultural, and political currents met in a zone of both contact and ideological, rather than actual, conflict. Perception and interpretation in such a zone can be, but need not necessarily have been, the same thing. Art and culture ultimately became the main arteries of connectivity and communication, drawing on repertoires of extraction and mobilisation.

Tombstone of the optio Caecilius Avitus from Chester. Mid to second half of third century AD. Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Painted Cast. (Photo: Author).

This bold and innovative northern art consequently made its own map of the region in a cartography of consequences whose transitory nature defied the rational lines and grids of conventional map-making. Conventional maps of northern Roman Britain would simply have failed to capture the essence and specifics of artistic production and consumption there at that time and consequently would have missed more than they managed to record. The northern landscapes should be understood as both physical and social spaces. The Antonine Wall distance slabs, discussed at great length in the book, are an exception, a series of conceits of uncommon force. They demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that as a means of expanding rather than circumscribing ideological practice art and craft were media for the exchange of different knowledge systems at the frontier. Contested borders and contested identities to some extent helped decentre the image of the human body here. In the event, abandonment of the Antonine frontier led to the sacrificing of the correspondence between art and fixed historical narratives in favour of a new fluidity.

Both artists and viewers experienced an alternative world to that created by historical writers on the province, a world that they themselves were creating and perpetuating. In many ways then this study marks an attempt to connect with a cognitive map of the northern region from the perspective of its cultural production over time. This kind of cartography could lead to all sorts of consequences, most importantly by allowing the art discussed to bring its past with it. This art was not just something to look at: it was communicative, performative, and constructive, and sometimes dwelled on its own form and formative power.

Tombstone of Aurelia Aureliana from Carlisle. Mid-third century AD. Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle. (Photo: Author).

These Romano-British artworks were very much about themselves or about the medium of art itself in some senses because what they did was reveal, demonstrate, question, and argue for a particular position on an ideological issue. This book proposes a means of looking at certain artworks in northern Roman Britain as having operated beyond what appeared to be their genre or their narrative, in that they can be thought to have been reflecting upon themselves. These artworks would appear to have asserted geography and chronology as their principal organisational concept. Oblivion and rescue were at best myopic tropes that served to define the later history of many of the artworks discussed in this study. As a body of works they appear to me endowed with a vivid, even epic, quality which somehow helps render them unique. The art of the northern region remains a reflecting glass in which we can see so much of Roman Britain and of the Roman world more broadly.

This is a study which is unashamedly regional but I hope certainly not parochial, based on data and evidence but still poetic in intent, revisionist but not iconoclastic. In the Roman north the concerns of Rome’s rulers, its soldiers, shadowplayers, civilians, traders, and those seeking help, salvation, or transcendence from regional or supra-regional deities came together in a heady cultural mix that defined a unique world. Boundaries between interior and exterior worlds dissolved.

Jet knife handle in the form of a dog from Binchester, County Durham. Late third, but probably fourth, century AD. Private collection. (Photo: Author).

For those who know the north we understand that it is a closed landscape, all of whose reference points draw us irresistibly towards the past. Though we might see things from variable angles-the individual viewing experience-or from receding perspectives-mediated by the knowledge that underpins the act of viewing-these variables nevertheless allow us to catch a glimpse of a completely novel conception of space here in the deep past, but in the end these glimpses remain no more than incoherent visions of a kind that require interpretation and careful analysis. What we are dealing with in trying to understand and empathise with the ancient viewer moving through the Roman landscape is absence and presence in time: the absence of an object becomes a presence that one can feel and experience. Viewers did not have to simply interpret the world, but rather the transformation of that world. Thus we have to try and understand from their perspectives a world which in many respects made itself.

I sing in praise of sandstone, of ‘this region of short distances and definite places’*, in the past as in the present. Hypnagogic sleep: visions of the Roman north.

Iain Ferris

* W.H. Auden 1948In Praise of Limestone.

Header image: The Cramond Lioness from Cramond, Edinburgh, Scotland. Mid-second to early third century AD. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. (Photo: Author).

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Sincerest thanks to Iain for preparing this blog post.

Visions of the Roman North: Art and Identity in Northern Roman Britain will publish in May 2021, priced £35 in paperback, and from £16 as a PDF download.
Pre-order using this form to save 20% upon publication.

The complete introduction and first chapter are available to preview on our website now.

History of Siberian Archaeology: The Life and Works of Aleksei P. Okladnikov in 1961–1981

Archaeopress is very pleased to have published Volume II of A. K. Konopatskii’s biography of Soviet archaeologist Aleksei P. Okladnikov as part of its ongoing Archaeological Lives series.

It is about the life and works of Aleksei P. Okladnikov in 1961–1981, when he was organiser (1961–1966) and since 1966 the Director of the Institute of History, Philology, and Philosophy, Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in Novosibirsk. This institute was a part of large-scale project of Akademgorodok (Academic Town) built in 1957–1964, the unique phenomenon of Soviet science (see Josephson 1997).

Okladnikov went to the Akademgorodok for the first time in 1960, and was invited to move to Novosibirsk permanently, in order to organise the institute devoted to the study of the humanities in Siberia. Okladnikov felt the necessity to have free hands in order to continue his archaeological and historical pursuits in Siberia, the Russian Far East and Central Asia; also, the possibility to become a member of the Academy of Sciences in the near future was another important factor in favour of a move to Novosibirsk. In 1961, Okladnikov arrived in Akademgorodok to settle down. The Sector (i.e. Department) of History of the Industry was created within the existing Institute of Economics and Industrial Production Engineering (IEIPE). Okladnikov brought with him several archaeologists, historians, and philologists. In 1962, the Sector became the Department of Study of the Humanities, still attached to the IEIPE. In December 1966, the new Institute of History, Philology and Philosophy (IHPP) was officially opened, and Okladnikov was appointed as its Director. It had 120 employees, and consisted of three departments – History (including archaeology and ethnology), Philology, and Philosophy. The main task of the new institute was not only to conduct research but also to coordinate efforts in the field of humanities for all Siberia and the Russian Far East.

In Novosibirsk, Okladnikov continued extensive fieldworks in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Of particular importance were surveys and excavations in the Lake Baikal region (both Pribaikal’e and Zabaikal’e), headwaters of the Lena River, Altai Mountains, Kuznetsk Basin, and Primor’e and Priamur’e regions. Active fieldwork were also conducted in Mongolia in collaboration with Mongolian archaeologists. The ability of Okladnikov to find new archaeological sites was legendary; some people truly believed that he could become ‘prehistoric human’ to understand where to set up camp or permanent settlement. Of course, this talent was the result of his vast expertise in the study of ancient sites, and his intuition. In the 1960s and 1970s, Okladnikov also widely traveled abroad for conferences and business meetings – to Japan, Cuba, Hungary, USA, North Korea, Poland, India, and Czechoslovakia.

Figure 1. Meeting with Oriental scholar O. Lattimore in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 1971; from left to right: A. P. Derevyanko, O. Lattimore, D. Dorj, V. E. Larichev, A.P. Okladnikov and N. Ser-Odjav.

In 1964, Okladnikov was elected the Member-Correspondents of the Academy of Sciences, filling the quota of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1968, he was elevated to the title of a Full Member (Academician). As a matter of fact, Okladnikov was given carte blanche to conduct archaeological, historical and other related research in all of Siberia, the Russian Far East, and Central Asia. The IHPP scholars were also the main workforce of the newly created Faculty of Humanities, Novosibirsk State University.

From the beginning of research in humanities at the Akademgorodok, the compilation of multi-volume History of Siberia was put forward as one of the major tasks, and Okladnikov was the main motor of this enterprise. In 1964, the 700 pages prospectus of Volume 1 (Ancient History) was compiled, printed and distributed among scholars. In 1968–1969, five volumes of the History of Siberia were published, and this was the first comprehensive (for the time being) compendium on archaeology and history of a large region. Okladnikov contributed the lion share of editorial work for the whole collection, and wrote several chapters for Volume 1. In 1973, this fundamental research was awarded the State Prize, with Okladnikov as a co-recipient.

Figure 2. Joint US–Soviet team at the Unalaska Island (Aleutian Islands), 1974; from left to right: A. K. Konopatskii, W. S. Laughlin, A. P. Derevyanko, R. S. Vasil’evskii, A. P. Okladnikov and V. E. Larichev.

In 1974, Okladnikov and four of his colleagues from IHPP participated in trips and joint excavations on the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, USA, along with Prof. William S. Laughlin (University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA). This was a rare example of the real collaboration, that is joint expeditions and excavations. Campbell (1976: 3) noted:

The Aleutian project of 1974 constituted, both in intent and practice, quite a radical departure from the general pattern of exchange visits between North American and Soviet anthropologists, biologists and earth scientists, which, while they have resulted in very useful comparison of data and ideas, have rarely involved actual field research under the conditions which the visiting scientists enjoyed at home. Purely and simply, therefore, the Aleutian project amounted to honest joint field work, and was not a guided tour.

Figure 3. W. S. Laughlin and A. P. Okladnikov examine the skull of one of the D. Medvedev’s party of Cossacks massacred in 1764 at Chaluka (Unalaska Island), University of Connecticut, Storrs (CT), 1974.

Another of Okladnikov’s initiative in the 1960s – 1970s was to create an Open-Air (Outdoor) Museum, and bring to Akademgorodok the ancient stelae with inscriptions and pieces of rock art that are endangered by construction of large reservoirs or industrial development. A wooden church with bell tower from the abandoned town of Zashiversk in the Indigirka River basin, built in 1700 and the miraculous survivor of several fires, was rescued from the Arctic and brought in pieces to Akademgorodok in 1971. Today, this is one of the major attractions of the Open-Air Museum that was officially opened in 1981.

Figure 4. The wooden church and bell tower from the abandoned Arctic town of Zashiversk, Open-Air Museum, Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk.

Several foreign learning societies – British Academy (1973), Academy of Sciences of Mongolia (1974) and Hungarian Academy of Science (1976) – granted Okladnikov honorary membership. In 1978, Okladnikov was given the title of Hero of Socialist Labour (civil equivalent to the Hero of Soviet Union, the highest honour in USSR).

Most of Okladnikov’s biographies are panegyric, and only his achievements are described. It seems that L. S. Klejn’s opinions (see Klejn 2012: 334–338; Klejn 2014: 306–325) are more balanced. Okladnikov’s legacy is tremendous because of his many years of work in northern Asia where large tracts of land were previously unknown to archaeologists. Klejn (2012: 338) noticed about Okladnikov: ‘Not even his enemies deny his achievements, charm, and talent.’ Besides the rich artefact collections acquired throughout more than 50 years of research, Okladnikov also built a Novosibirsk school of archaeologists – including Z. A. Abramova, S. N. Astakhov, V. V. Bobrov, A. P. Derevianko, E. I. Derevianko, B. A. Frolov, Yu. P. Kholushkin, Y. F. Kiryushin, V. E. Larichev, A. I. Martynov, A. I. Mazin, V. E. Medvedev, V. I. Molodin, V. T. Petrin, R. S. Vasil’evskii, and others.

Figure 5. A. P. Okladnikov in his Director’s office with A. K. Konopatskii (right), Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk, 1978.

However, some scholars did not come along well with Okladnikov. He was quite suspicious about some Siberian archaeologists who were revising his chronology and periodisation of ancient cultural complexes – Yu. A. Mochanov from Yakutsk; G. I. Medvedev, M. P. Aksenov, G. M. Georgievskaya and other people from Irkutsk; A. A. Formozov and G. I. Andreev from Moscow; and Z. V. Andreeva from Vladivostok. Sometimes Okladnikov used his position to postpone publications of these researchers or push them from sites that he wanted to excavate by himself. It is obvious that Okladnikov had many ‘summits and bottoms’ in science; however, his achievements are probably more important today than his flaws and mistakes.

The book (including Volume I, published by Archaeopress in 2019) is for archaeologists, historians, and everyone who is interested in the history of scholarship (particularly the humanities) in the twentieth century, especially in the USSR.

Header image: A. P. Okladnikov examines the rock art at the Sakachi-Alyan site, Khabarovsk Province, 1971.

References

Campbell, J.M. (1976). The Soviet–American Siberian expedition. Arctic 29: 2–6.

Josephson, P. (1997). New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, the Siberian City of Science. Princeton, NJ & Chichester: Princeton University Press.

Klejn, L.S. (2012). Soviet Archaeology: Trends, Schools, and History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Klejn, L.S. (2014). Istoriya Rossiiskoi Arkheologii: Ucheniya, Shkoly i Lichnosti. Tom 2. Arkheologi Sovetskoi Epokhi (The History of Russian Archaeology: Doctrines,Schools and Personalities. Volume 2. Archaeologists of the Soviet Epoch). St.Petersburg: Eurasia Press (in Russian).

About the Author

Yaroslav V. Kuzmin has been studying geoarchaeology of the Russian Far East, Siberia and neighbouring Northeast Asia since 1979 (PhD 1991; DSc. 2007). He has also assisted in translating and editing books on the archaeology of eastern Russia along with Richard L. Bland.

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How to order

Aleksei P. Okladnikov: The Great Explorer of the Past
by A. K. Konopatskii, translated by Richard L. Bland and Yaroslav V. Kuzmin

Volume I: A biography of a Soviet archaeologist (1900s – 1950s):
PB: £24.99 | PDF: from £16.00

Volume II: A biography of a Soviet archaeologist (1960s – 1980s):
PB: £34.99 | PDF: from £16.00

Conversations in Human Evolution

Conversations in Human Evolution is an ongoing science communication project exploring the breadth and interdisciplinarity of human evolution research at a global scale. Through informal interviews (henceforth referred to as ‘conversations’), this project delves deeply into topics concerning the study of our species’ evolutionary history, covering the current advances in research, theory and methods as well as the socio-political issues rife within academia. This project also provides important insights into the history of human evolutionary studies. Overall, the Conversations in Human Evolution website has attracted around 8000 visitors from over 100 countries. Volume 1 (available from Archaeopress) is the result of the first twenty conversations, published online between March and June 2020. When we went to press, this subset of the conversations had been collectively viewed 6817 times since they were made available on the website.

The idea for Conversations in Human Evolution (CHE) arose in March 2020 during the escalation of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Following the cancellation and postponement of in-person events, CHE became a creative project to encourage engagement with human evolutionary research during this time of isolation and confinement. It was noticed that, whilst there is great public interest in this area of research, there are few freely accessible online resources about human evolutionary studies itself (though see the Smithsonian Human Origins Programme for a good example of a publicly available resource). What’s more, science engagement initiatives are almost always concerned with communicating exciting results and discoveries, and whilst this is obviously the most important aspect of science communication, it can lead to the neglection of the personal experiences of the scholars behind the science. Broader socio-political issues within subject-specific academic circles are also rarely discussed through publicly accessible communicative forums, somewhat depersonalising the science and perhaps even romanticising academia in certain ways. CHE fills this void by asking – what does it actually mean to study and research human evolution in the 21st century?

Human evolution studies, by definition, is a discipline concerned with the deep past. We explore the most pertinent questions about the evolution of humanity, such as the emergence of complex language and culture. The exploration of such issues allows researchers to look back into our species’ evolutionary history to better understand our present and our future. Yet, we rarely consider the role of history and personal experience in the shaping of human evolution research. Acknowledging that the history of our discipline and its historical figures deserve focus in their own right is a fundamental premise of CHE as, in the same way that human evolutionary research drives our understanding of our past, present and future selves, historical and personal contexts have driven modern approaches to the deep past. CHE bridges the gap between the research and the researcher, contextualising modern science with personal experience and historical reflection.

Themes:

Volume 1 is organised into five non mutually exclusive categories based on broad research areas: (1) quaternary and archaeological science, (2) Palaeolithic archaeology, (3) biological anthropology and palaeoanthropology, (4) primatology and evolutionary anthropology, and (5) evolutionary genetics. CHE features scholars at various different stages in their careers and from all over the world; in this volume alone, researchers are based at institutions in seven different countries (namely the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States of America, Germany, Denmark, India and China), covering four continents.

Quaternary and Archaeological Science

Section 1 features five conversations with quaternary and archaeological scientists, covering topics such as quantitative methods in archaeology, human-environment interactions, palaeoecology and geoarchaeology. Dr Enrico Crema discusses his research into evolutionary cultural change and prehistoric demography, with a particular focus on Japanese prehistory, as well as the importance of being a ‘π-shaped’ researcher with both domain-specific knowledge and analytical and computing skills. Professor Felix Riede builds on this idea, suggesting that ‘π-shaped’ researchers should learn how to ‘hold hands’ and work collaboratively. He also discusses his research projects attempting to understand how paleoclimates have interacted with past societies, and the role that archaeology can play in current discourse in contemporary climate change. Professor Ben Marwick details the importance of ‘open access archaeology’ as well as some of his many projects, mainly in Southeast Asia. Quaternary Scientist, Professor Chris Hunt recounts his work at the ongoing Shanidar Cave Project in Iraqi Kurdistan (among his many other projects), which has recently published fascinating results on Neanderthal mortuary practises. Professor Andy Herries also reviews his recent publications, such as the dating of the DNH 134 Homo erectus fossil. As well as discussion about his ongoing work in geoarchaeology and geochronology, he stresses the importance of working with local collaborators and communities.

A cartoon of π-shaped researchers that boast both knowledge (K) breadth and depth as well as statistical acumen learning to ‘hold hands’ and do archaeological team science, also with colleagues of other shapes. Image by Felix Riede.

Palaeolithic Archaeology

Section 2 features five conversations with Palaeolithic archaeologists working all over the world. This section highlights the ongoing research that is being carried out to further understand prehistoric human behaviour over a huge geographic area. Starting in Asia, Professor Shanti Pappu recounts her experiences of researching the Indian Palaeolithic, drawing special attention to the importance of her outreach programmes with local schools during excavation. Professor Michael Petraglia details his interdisciplinary work in South Asia and East Asia –  as well as Arabia and eastern Africa –  which has the overarching focus of understanding the origin and dispersal of our own species. Dr Shi-Xia Yang describes her recent work on the stone tools of Palaeolithic in East Asia, making links between hominin behaviours and climatic change in the region. Moving into African Stone Age archaeology, Professor John Gowlett explores his experiences working in eastern Africa, illustrated with amazing pictures from his personal archive. Professor Eleanor Scerri next describes her ongoing work in northern and western Africa. Like others in this volume, she encourages the development of new quantitative and computational methods for interpreting patterns in the archaeological record. Finally, coming into the European Palaeolithic, Dr Rob Davies describes his work at the British Museum looking at the archaeology of ancient Great Britain. As a mature student coming into archaeological research later in life, he provides an invaluable account of his experiences within academia.

The research team at the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education in action. Image by Shanti Pappu.

Biological Anthropology and Palaeoanthropology

Four biological anthropologists and paleoanthropologists are featured in Section 3, covering topics such as evolutionary medicine, comparative anatomy and the significance of new fossil discoveries. Dr Emma Pomeroy first describes some of her latest work in evolutionary medicine on the osteological indicators of body fatness (among other projects, such as the excavation of Neanderthal remains at Shanidar Cave), discussing the implications of her work on modern health. Professor Chris Stringer talks us through his expansive career in physical anthropology, including his PhD at the University of Bristol which led to the establishment of the Out of Africa hypothesis. Professor Katerina Harvati describes some of her most recent research at Apidima Cave on some of the oldest Homo sapiens fossils outside of Africa. She goes on to discuss some of the technological and methodological advancements that have revolutionized modern anthropological science as well as some of academia’s socio-political issues that still require attention, like the representation of women and ethnic minorities in human evolution research as well as sexual harassment. Finally, Professor Bernard Wood recounts his experiences working with Richard Leakey and other well-known paleoanthropologists during the ‘golden era’ of fossil discoveries.

Chris Stringer on his PhD trip around Europe (1971). Image by Chris Stringer.

Bernard Wood looking at newly recovered hominin fossils with colleagues, brought down to Nairobi by Don Johanson from Hadar in 1973, at the old Center for Prehistory and Palaeontology at the National Museums of Kenya. From left to right, Tim White, Richard Leakey, Bernard Wood and Don Johanson. Image by Bob Campbell.

Primatology and Evolutionary Anthropology

Section 4 includes three conversations with researchers working within primatology and evolutionary anthropology. First, Professor Susana Carvalho describes how she helped to establish the field of ‘primate archaeology’. She also outlines the progression of the Gorongosa Field School and Palaeo-Primate Project in Mozambique which she directs. Like many others, she also strongly advocates the training of local students to lead research in these areas. Then, Dr Isabelle Winder, a self-proclaimed ‘question-led researcher’, discusses the broad nature of her past and present projects, including some very interesting work in the modelling of non-primate species distributions in response to climate change. Finally, Professor Fiona Jordan discusses her work on the VariKin project which uses data, methods and theory from anthropology, biology, linguistics and psychology to explore kinship system diversity. Interestingly, in this conversation, she reflects on her experiences working in academic institutions all over the world.

Susana Carvalho with Rene Bobe and Zeray Alemseged at Gorongosa (2017). Image by Luke Stalley.

Evolutionary Genetics

The final section focuses on individuals working on evolutionary genetics as it features conversations with two population geneticists. First, Professor Eske Willerslev discusses the significance of environmental DNA for understanding biological activity in the past, a field within evolutionary genetics that he founded. He also discusses some of his biggest achievements, such as the first whole-genome sequencing of an ancient human genome and proposes some of the most promising avenues of future research for human evolution studies, such as proteomics. Second, Dr Pontus Skoglund addresses the interaction between archaeology and genetics, discussing some of the contentious issues between the two, such as the definition of ancestry. He also describes his research into the links between population migrations and the global transition to agriculture, archaic gene flow, early human evolution in Africa and more.

Eske Willerslev visiting the Northern Cheyenne Reserve in Montana, talking to members of the Cheyenne and Crow Native American Tribes. Image by Eske Willerslev.

About the author

Lucy Timbrell is an AHRC-funded PhD researcher in the Archaeology of Human Origins Research Group at the University of Liverpool. She was awarded her BSc in Evolutionary Anthropology from the University of Liverpool in 2018 and her MPhil in Biological Anthropological Science from Clare College, University of Cambridge, in 2020. Broadly, she is interested in the evolution of modern human diversity, with her doctoral research focussing on quantifying the population structure of early Homo sapiens in Late-Middle Pleistocene Africa. Alongside her PhD research, she organises the widely known University of Liverpool Evolutionary Anthropology seminar series. She has previously published and organised international workshops on the application of geometric morphometrics methods in biological anthropology and archaeology, and was awarded a global prize in 2018 for her undergraduate research that utilized these techniques. Lucy is also an advocate for open science and public engagement with human evolutionary studies.

Available Now!

Conversations in Human Evolution: Volume 1 is available now in paperback (£30) and as a FREE PDF download here.

Sincerest thanks to Lucy Timbrell for supplying this blog post. If you would be interested in submitting something for the Archaeopress Blog – please contact Patrick Harris.

An Educator’s Handbook For Teaching About the Ancient World

How did the book come about?

The world has changed so quickly and so drastically around us in 2020. So has our teaching: online and open-access resources have often been the only way students and educators can access and share information, when libraries, schools, and cultural organizations have been closed for much of the year, and in many cases remain so. Even when they have re-opened, educators have been forced to teach in entirely new or hybrid formats.

Teachers (inspired by ancient Assyrian, Mayan, and Greek depictions holding teaching tools)  and students (holding various school supplies) in a classroom. The image imitates the style of painted ancient stone reliefs. The colors and details are worn. Cover artwork by Hannah M. Herrick.

Now that many of us are required to teach over digital platforms, can we expect our students to listen to us lecture for two hours and give us their undivided attention? The instructional designers I work with in preparing my online courses suggest that online lectures should be 10 minutes maximum. So do many other educators. This is how long your students can focus on your lecturing voice and your ‘floating head talking’ video. In the physical classroom, the maximum is around 15-20 minutes. So how do we communicate information and teach content for longer stretches of time while still enabling students to interact and engage?

Interactive classroom activities make learning undeniably more engaging and fun, in addition to providing students with physical dexterity, collaboration, critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills. There are very creative educators among us who have been teaching about the ancient world in exciting ways using hands-on, project-based, and experiential activities. I wanted to use these activities in my classes. And based on dozens of activity exchanges with my educator friends, I was sure that other educators were also looking for new strategies to engage their students with the ancient world. This is why I created An Educator’s Handbook for Teaching About the Ancient World.

‘Live like it’s 3000 BC: Experimental Archaeology’; students are flintknapping to produce an Acheulean hand axe. Brown University, 2018.

What is in the book?

The initial idea was to format the lesson plans into a cookbook, with teaching ‘recipes’, which include the materials, budget, preparation time, and level of students so that any educator could replicate these recipes in their classes. Some of these activities require materials, some do not. Some need to be prepared before class, some require no preparation. Some of the activities are very much tied to the culture, time period, or place, but some can be applied to any content. Some of the activities were written by a single educator, and some are a product of collaborative teaching. All of the activities, however, are tested in the classroom and peer-reviewed by other educators. More importantly, all activities are engaging, hands-on, immersive, and/or experiential. They are only a small portion of the endless possibilities of making teaching and learning about the ancient world fun, meaningful, and informative.

An example of the ‘recipe’ format: ‘Making Lions at Babylon’ by Anastasia Amrhein and Elizabeth Knott

In addition to these teaching recipes, this book also addresses some important issues in ancient world pedagogy: Why should we publish educational resources as open access? How can we effectively make use of museums and ancient objects in our teaching? Why should our research and pedagogy be collaborative? Our teaching has broader implications. These essays address such implications and provide great examples and case studies for educators to apply these methods and ways of thinking to their own teaching. I hope this book will be a resource where we can learn from each other about ancient world pedagogy regardless of the time periods, cultural or geographical areas, and subjects we teach.

Who is this book for?

Educators teaching about the ancient world. Students and parents learning how to teach about ancient world. Anyone who is interested in the ancient world and pedagogy. The activities in this book can be implemented online or in-person, in school, university, library, museum, or home classrooms. Every activity specifies the age/grade level of students for which the activity is appropriate. Many activities also have optional steps to make the activity work for other ages/levels. The activities and essays were written by school teachers, university instructors, and museum educators who teach about ancient objects, materials, peoples, and cultures.

Some of the activities were also written in different languages. Contributors and educators Leticia Rovira and Cecilia Molla from Argentina, who wrote their activity both in English and Spanish, say that this book is:

“a novel contribution to the didactics of ancient societies’ teaching. The main objective is challenging and enthralling: to go beyond the thresholds of academy and reach another very important audience –students at different levels- and try to capture their interest, drawing their attention towards our fields of study through a wide diversity of appealing didactic proposals.”

You can find out more about the Contributors here: https://pinardurgunpd.wixsite.com/teachancient

One of the goals of this book was to open up the conversation about ancient world pedagogy and create a hub for more collaboration. I encourage you to try out the teaching activities and share your photos and observations with other educators: https://pinardurgunpd.wixsite.com/teachancient/gallery 

You can also explore further pedagogical resources about ancient world pedagogy here: https://pinardurgunpd.wixsite.com/teachancient/copy-of-about

About the Author

Dr Pınar Durgun is an art historically-trained archaeologist with a background in anthropology, cultural heritage, and museums, passionate about outreach and education. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University and has been teaching for about a decade in universities, museums, and school classrooms about archaeology and the ancient world. As a dedicated public scholar and educator, Dr Durgun hopes to make academic information about the ancient world accessible, fun, and inclusive. Find out more about her work here: https://pinardurgunpd.wixsite.com/pinardurgun

Grab it and spread the word!

The eBook version of my book is FREE to download in Open Access. To download the free eBook or to purchase a printed hardback copy, please click on the cover image below:

Sincerest thanks to Dr Durgun for writing this article for the Archaeopress Blog. To submit an article, please send your proposal to Patrick Harris: patrick@archaeopress.com

Engraved Gems and Propaganda in the Roman Republic and under Augustus

Introduction

Fig. 1

How did the Romans effectively communicate their private successes? Whom did they set as examples to follow? How did they manifest their political affinities? How did the political leaders of ancient Rome employ the noble and luxurious art of gem engraving for their political purposes? How did their official seals contribute to the spread of information on their successes and help to build up a positive image within the society? These and many more questions are answered in my book, Engraved Gems and Propaganda in the Roman Republic and under Augustus (see fig. 1).

I think it is one of the most important books on Roman gems ever produced, and hopefully it will become a standard work in university teaching…

Martin Henig, Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford

How did the book came about?

The book deals with small, but highly captivating and stimulating artwork – engraved gemstones (carnelian, agates, amethysts etc. with images carved upon their surfaces). I began studying them a few years ago when I accessed a long forgotten but magnificent collection of intaglios, cameos and seals in the National Museum in Krakow. That assemblage, composed mostly of the gems gathered together by one of the most successful Polish art dealers and collector Constantine Schmidt-Ciążyński (1818-1889), was my first major study, resulting in the publication of the ancient part of the cabinet in 2017.[1] This study was, in fact, the initial spark for my more comprehensive work on the use of intaglios and cameos for self-presentation and propaganda purposes in the Roman Republic and under Augustus. In Krakow, there is a good selection of stones related to this issue. Besides this, engraved gems have so far been somewhat neglected in the analysis of Roman propaganda, with discourse focused mainly on literature, architecture, sculpture or coins. Intaglios and cameos had multiple applications in Antiquity (seals, jewellery or amulets), but despite their various function, the images engraved upon them offer snapshots of people’s beliefs, ideologies, and everyday occupations. Thus, they cast light on the self-advertising and propaganda actions performed by Roman political leaders, especially Octavian/Augustus, their factions and other people engaged in the politics and social life of the past. The major aim of the new book is to place glyptics in the interdisciplinary discourse mentioned above, and fill this gap in the studies of Roman propaganda.

What is inside?

On 618 pages and with the help of 1015 mostly colour illustrations in Engraved Gems and Propaganda in the Roman Republic and under Augustus you can find out how gems can show both general trends (the specific showpieces like State Cameos) as well as the individual and private acts of being involved in politics and social affairs, mainly through a subtle display of political allegiances, since they were objects of strictly personal use. Gems enable us to analyse and learn about Roman propaganda and various social behaviours from a completely different angle than coins, sculpture or literature. The miniaturism of ancient gems is in inverse proportion to their cultural significance. My book presents an evolutionary model of the use of engraved gems from self-presentation (3rd-2nd century BC) to personal branding and propaganda purposes in the Roman Republic and under Augustus (until 14 AD). The specific characteristics of engraved gems, their strictly private character and the whole array of devices appearing on them are examined in respect to their potential propagandistic value and usefulness in social life. Hence, you can see that self-advertising through glyptics did not come out of nowhere in the early 1st century BC. Individuals used to refer to their personal accomplishments as early as in the 3rd century BC as we read in Pliny the Eleder’s Natural History book 37: ‘Intercatia, whose father challenged Scipio Aemilianus, and was slain by him, was in the habit of using a signet with a representation of this combat engraved upon it’. [2] People used to set the heroes like Achilles, Theseus or Herakles as examples to follow or even to act as a comparison. The display of family legends and origio stories was another important aspect of self-promotion through glyptics. For example, it is plausible that Ulysses engraved upon an intaglio might have been a reference to the legendary ancestor of the gens Mamilia (see fig. 2). The very same depiction of him welcomed by his dog Argos appears on the denarii minted by C. Mamilius Limetanus in 82 BC (see fig. 3). Even though gems’ iconography is complex, and often it cannot be determined if it represents one specific narrative, still gems seem to be as vital in the promotion of personal or familial stories as were coins.

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  Fig. 2

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  Fig. 3

I tried, in the presentation of this book, to make good use of more than one hundred Roman Republican and Augustan coins (counting only those illustrated, many more are referred in the text) in order to prove the numerous connections between glyptics and numismatics, not only on technical and stylistic grounds, but most importantly in the propaganda agenda they both transmit. Coins sometimes compensate for important lost intaglios like in the case of the two seals of Lucius Licinius Sulla and they offer immeasurable help with portraits’ identification as well as dates. The first seal of Sulla represented the dictator seated on a raised seat with a bound Jugurtha kneeling beside him while before him kneels Bocchus, offering an olive-branch. The seal portrays Sulla’s first great victory, in which he ended the Jugurthine War (112-106 BC) and its iconography was most likely based on the sculptural prototype which was a gilded statuary group sent by Bocchus to Rome and installed on the Capitol.[3] That event enormously boosted his political career and for a nobleman seeking to raise his authority it was a perfect occasion to promote his success. There was no better way to illustrate his exceptional military and political achievement than upon a personal seal. The seal itself as well as the statuary group have not survived, but the seal’s iconography inspired the son of Sulla, Faustus Cornelius Sulla (questor in 54 BC), who in 56 BC minted a denarius presenting exactly the same scene.[4]

Fig. 4

However, the particular strength of gems if compared to coins and any other branch of art and craft is that they exhibit the real involvement of the society into politics and prove propaganda campaigns successfulness. This is due to the fact that they were strictly private objects; they carried images that people identified with. Hence, a portrait of a political leader like Pompey the Great or Julius Caesar upon one’s ring was a clear manifestation of support towards a patron (see fig. 5). Moreover, intaglios and cameos were both mass produced objects (especially glass gems) and the luxurious ones (for instance the so-called State Cameos). This makes glyptics particularly effective propaganda channel suitable for agitation and integration and reaching all social strata. The most effective with the employment of gem engravers for his political purposes was, of course, Emperor Augustus. He not only organised an imperial court workshop lead by the famous Dioscurides and his three sons producing intaglios and exceptional cameos for him, but was also quite influential on the whole glyptic production at the time of his reign.[5] This is clear from analysis of gems iconography since, for instance, many bear subjects related to the mythological foundations of the New Rome (see fig. 6). It seems that glyptics, apart from coinage and sculpture, was also another channel promoting Augustus successors because one finds their numerous portraits cut upon gemstones (see fig. 7).

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  Fig. 5

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  Fig. 6

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  Fig. 7

Overall, the aim of my book is to offer new insights into the political and social affairs of ancient Rome. It should be of interest not only to those studying intaglios and cameos but coin enthusiasts will certainly find the exposed interconnections between numismatics and glyptics useful and interesting. I hope all those interested in Roman propaganda, archaeology and art will profit from the book as well.

Grab it and spread the word!

The eBook version of my book is FREE to download in Open Access. To download the free eBook or to purchase a printed hardback copy (£90), please visit: https://tinyurl.com/9781789695397

About the Author

Paweł Gołyźniak works as a Research Fellow in the Institute of Archaeology, Jagiellonian University in Krakow. His research interests include engraved gems (ancient and neo-classical), Roman Republican and Augustan numismatics, history of antiquarianism, collecting and scholarship as well as 18th century drawings of intaglios and cameos and the legacy of antiquary and connoisseur Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757). Author of two monographs (Ancient Engraved Gems in the National Museum in Krakow (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2017) and Engraved Gems and Propaganda in the Roman Republic and under Augustus (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020)) and more than a dozen scientific articles, most can be found on his Academia.edu profile: https://jagiellonian.academia.edu/PawelGolyzniak

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[1] Gołyźniak, P. 2017. Ancient Engraved Gems in the National Museum in Krakow. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. See also an article providing an overview of the whole cabinet: Gołyźniak, P., Natkaniec-Nowak, L. and Dumańska-Słowik M. 2016. A nineteenth-century glyptic collection in the National Museum in Cracow: The cabinet of Constantine Schmidt-Ciążyński. Journal of the History of Collections 28 (1), (March 2016): 85-96 (DOI: 10.1093/jhc/fhu056).

[2] Pliny, Historia Naturalis, XXXVII.4.

[3] Plutarch, Life of Sulla, 6.1. However, Flower has suggested that Bocchus took the inspiration for his monumental sculptural group directly from Sulla’s ring device (Flower, H.I. 2006 The art of forgetting: Disgrace and oblivion in Roman political culture. Chapel Hill: 113).

[4] RRC, no. 426/1.

[5] Pliny, Historia Naturalis, XXXVII.8; Suetonius, Augustus, 1.

The Antonine Wall. Papers in Honour of Professor Lawrence Keppie

Lawrence at Westerwood. Photo by the late Margaret J. Robb.

Arranging a Festschrift can be a fraught task. The organiser wants to honour the recipient, but if s/he is a university lecturer it is likely that the potential contributors will come from a range of interests, creating a rather disparate book, which in turn might have an impact on sales. With Lawrence, a former museum curator, the decision for Bill Hanson and myself was simple; the obvious focus of the volume was the Antonine Wall. After all, Lawrence had excavated throughout its whole length and curated its most famous artefacts, the distance slabs. Within a week of inviting all the archaeologists currently working on the Wall we had a full volume. Moreover, the 39 contributors, writing 32 papers, easily covered the wide range of Lawrence’s interests.

Map of the Antonine Wall as completed, based on currently available information
(copyright D.J. Breeze).

We start with looking at the Antonine Wall in its landscape and its impact on the indigenous population. The core of the volume are papers on the frontier and its artefacts, examining its building and occupation. The final section embraces Lawrence’s historiographical interests as well as the presentation of the Wall today and its role as part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site. Colleagues rose to the challenge of writing on Roman women on the Wall and on veterans for both of which there is so little evidence. There are papers here which we knew would interest Lawrence and acknowledge his major contribution to understanding Rome’s North-West frontier, including one on the structure of the Wall itself which goes to the heart of the monument as well as to Lawrencce’s investigations along its line.

The Antonine Wall: Papers in Honour of Professor Lawrence Keppie

Edited by David J. Breeze and William S. Hanson

206x255mm; 494 pages; 166 figures; 15 tables; ToC

Paperback: £30.00

PDF eBook: FREE to download in Open Access

Buy or Download Here

Cover image: The Distance Stone of the Twentieth Legion from Hutcheson Hill (RIB III 3507) found in 1969 lying face down in a shallow pit immediately to the south of the Wall (copyright Hunterian, University of Glasgow).

Access Archaeology: A New Approach to Archaeological Publishing

Here at Archaeopress we are fond of what we call a ‘bath idea’. In 2014 it was a bath idea that led to our first experiments with Open Access publishing, and in 2015 we began to conceive of a new publication model – a side-line to our more regular publishing endeavours – designed to function outside the parameters of the accepted wisdom of academic publishing.

Archaeopress is owned and run by archaeologists, and this has always influenced our perspective on what constitutes a useful publication. We receive many proposals that, following traditional publishing models, would not be commercially viable. But that is not to say they are not academically valuable, containing unique data, rare catalogues, intriguing synthetic analysis etc.

Access Archaeology evolved as a model to support many types of archaeological publication including PhD dissertations, smaller conferences and symposia, research projects, and commercial archaeology from parts of the world where funding is limited. It also supports publications that fall between conventional models: too long perhaps for a journal article, but too short for a traditional monograph.

All Access Archaeology titles are available as free-to-download pdf eBooks and in print format. The free pdf download model supports dissemination in areas of the world where budgets are more severely limited, and also allows individual academics to access the material privately, rather than relying on a university or public library. Print copies, nevertheless, remain available to individuals and institutions who need or prefer them.

Dr Boyd Dixon, Senior Archaeologist for the Cardno GS office in Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (retired), explains how the model afforded greater outreach in the local area:

‘Our recent volumes about Yellow Beach 2 and Afetna Point have found a receptive audience in the public, and in secondary school and community college on Saipan.

I feel it is the caliber of Archaeopress publications and photographs and maps, with their open access to a broader public that makes [the] volumes of particular interest.’

Boyd Dixon (fourth from right) was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the CNMI Humanities Council in October 2019, citing his two Access Archaeology publications among other endeavours of similar archaeological and historical interest.

By asking authors and editors to take a greater role in the production process and by making use of the huge improvements seen in recent years in print-on-demand technology, the books are typically made available in print and online formats, including the free download option, at no cost to the author/editor. Howard Williams, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Chester and co-editor of two forthcoming Access Archaeology titles, Public Archaeology: Arts of Engagement (due November 2019) and Digging into the Dark Ages, explains:

‘I’m a relatively experienced academic editor (having edited the Royal Archaeological Institute’s Archaeological Journal for 6 volumes over 5 years, and edited/co-edited special issues of the journals Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, Early Medieval Europe, Mortality and European Journal of Archaeology.) In this context, I was happy I could maintain high academic standards and take on editing and typesetting supported by the friendly and helpful Archaeopress team. Access Archaeology allows the latest research to be published as both print-on-demand and open-access online without a cost to the contributors. This was especially important for me given the books develop from student conferences and include a mix of student pieces with those by more established heritage professionals and academics.’

Gina L. Barnes, Professor Emeritus at Durham University and co-editor of the 2019 publication TephroArchaeology in the North Pacific, notes the free download and on-demand model offers considerable flexibility regarding colour content and page count:

‘The format allowed for considerable freedom in presenting the material, without word limits or restrictions on illustrations; colour pictures were possible for both the digital and print versions… I have been very pleased with the process throughout, through encouragement by David Davison in commissioning the work, communication with the team about formatting problems, assistance in the peer review process, and getting the document out in a timely manner…’

Dr Mark McKerracher, postdoctoral researcher on the FeedSax project at Oxford University, explains that the range provides an ideal home for manuscripts originating from data-heavy PhD dissertations such as his 2019 publication, Anglo-Saxon Crops and Weeds: A Case Study in Quantitative Archaeobotany:

‘I found Access Archaeology to be the ideal publisher for the specialist, data-heavy manuscript I had prepared from my doctoral thesis. The editorial staff were very helpful and enthusiastic, and the production process was impressively fast once I had submitted my text according to the formatting instructions. Within two or three months, an open-access PDF and a high-quality paperback, including colour illustrations, were both available. I’d recommend Access Archaeology to anyone looking for an efficient way to publish specialist, data-driven monographs.’

Dr Loretta Kilroe, Project Curator: Sudan and Nubia at the British Museum, organised the conference Invisible Archaeologies: Hidden aspects of daily life in ancient Egypt and Nubia held in Oxford, 2017. Dr Kilroe considers how the Access Archaeology model affected the decision to publish the proceedings:

‘So many people encouraged us to publish a Proceedings volume after our Invisible Archaeologies conference, but I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. Archaeopress were super helpful and their Access Archaeology range meant that it wasn’t out of reach, even for an impoverished student conference. Traditional publishing is often so slow and restrictive, and it is fantastic that our authors will have digital access to their own work immediately!’

Early career academics at the Invisible Archaeologies: Hidden aspects of daily life in ancient Egypt and Nubia held in Oxford, 2017.

With the imminent arrival of both Prof. Williams and Dr Kilroe’s edited volumes, we will soon have published 100 titles in the range since 2015 with subjects as diverse as metallurgy in Bronze Age Eurasia, Etruscan domestic architecture, digital imaging of artefacts, public engagement with heritage, volcanic archaeology, symposia for early career Egyptologists, and far more.

Long-running series that have found a happy home within the range include Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology, Paris Monographs in American Archaeology, and the South American Archaeology Series.

We are very proud of how the Access Archaeology imprint has developed from a bath idea to a thriving publishing model. We hope it offers a unique path to publication within the academic publishing landscape for research that might otherwise struggle to find a wider audience. The range may well continue to evolve over time, but its ambition will always remain to publish archaeological material that would prove commercially unviable in traditional publishing models, without passing the expense on to academics, be they author or reader.

Publish in Access Archaeology

If you have a proposal you think fits within the scope of the range we would be very pleased to hear from you; simply complete our brief submission form and send by email to Archaeopress editor Dr David Davison: info@archaeopress.com.

Download / Buy Access Archaeology Publications

See the full list of Access Archaeology publications on our website, all available as free PDF downloads or to purchase in paperback editions.

Patrick Harris
Archaeopress

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