Dalla Calabria al Delta del Po? L’Italia nella prospettiva greca tra IV e III secolo a.C.

Cooking is the vital process of rendering potential foodstuffs edible, accessible and appropriate both in biological and in socio-cultural terms. Despite being too long neglected in archaeological studies, the food production processes have left remains that make up a very large part of the archaeological record. The aim of this paper is to outline a scenario of the Greek-style cooking vessels found along the western Mediterranean coasts between the Archaic and the Hellenistic period, namely within the main Etruscan and Greek ports of trade and wrecks, in order to highlight the cultural impact and the developments of this crucial aspect in the cultural and social life. The main objects of the research is a particular cooking ware produced in Greece between the sixth century BCE and the Romanization, widespread all around the Mediterranean sea, consisting of handy and refractory vessels (named for example chytra, kakkabe, lopas, thyeia etc.). The case-study is the Adriatic hub of Spina (near Comacchio, Ferrara), founded by the Etruscans at the end of the 6th century BCE, and one of the main economic partners of Athens during the 5th until the middle 4th BCE. Ongoing multidisciplinary projects are trying to return the complex interaction between the local (i.e ‘etruscan’) culinary habits and the Greek culture, in terms of availability, preferences, economic choices, trough the adoption of multiple investigation methodologies including archaeology, archaeometry, archaeozoology, archaeobotany, biochemistry.

According to most of our historical sources, namely the Greek and Roman writers, the Samnites were a tough and warlike people who lived in the mountains of central Italy (known today as the Apennine mountains) and who challenged Rome for many decades during the 4th and 3rd centuries bce. Ancient authors describe the Samnites as having a common origin (as descendants of the Sabines, according to one version), and their own distinctive cultural traits, such as language, religious traditions, and the habit of living scattered in villages and farms instead of in cities. They were said to rely on pastoralism instead of agriculture, and they were considered on the whole to be less wealthy and sophisticated than their neighbours who lived in the rich coastal plains of Italy. Modern interest in the Samnites can be traced back to 19th-century southern Italy: the so-called Agnone table, an Oscan-language inscription with a series of cult instructions, was discovered in 1848 near Pietrabbondante, where soon afterwards the impressive Samnite-period sanctuary was brought to light with its limestone temple and theater. These discoveries were followed by archaeological excavations and surveys that became increasingly systematic over the 20th century, resulting in the exponential growth of material and epigraphic data. The key challenge, however, is to determine how the communities that inhabited the central Italian mountains match up with the people who are described in ancient accounts as the Samnites. It has proven very difficult to locate the Samnites as a stable and geographically cohesive group in antiquity. As is the case with other ancient Italic peoples, the Samnites were not so much a cultural or political unit, but rather a fluid and changing collective whose boundaries shifted depending on the context. In ancient texts, the name “Samnite” is given to different communities and regions of central and southern Italy, albeit with a tendency to focus on the portion of the central Apennine mountains which roughly corresponds to the modern provinces of Campobasso, Avellino, Chieti, and Isernia. Roughly speaking, this is the area that runs from the Apennine mountains to the Adriatic sea, from the south of the modern region of Abruzzo to the area just north of Naples. The ancient inhabitants of this region saw themselves, and were seen by others, as part of networks that extended throughout Italy. But they also seem to have subscribed to more local identities associated with specific towns or districts. All of this has led to complexities in how the Samnites are defined in modern scholarship. Some scholars favor a broader outlook and use the term “Samnite” to mean the ancient inhabitants of large portions of central and southern Italy on the periphery of Etruria and Latium, most of whom spoke dialects of the Oscan language. Other scholars work with a narrower definition that normally encompasses the central Apennine communities only—and even then there is some additional fuzziness as to where the Samnites end and neighboring mountain “peoples” begin, such as the Vestini, Marsi, Marrucini and Paeligni. If we also take into account the earlier period before the 4th century bce, the issue becomes even more complex, as it is not entirely clear at what point it makes sense to start speaking of Samnites. There are many equally difficult questions around which modern scholars have been working, such as: what did the Samnites call themselves and did they see themselves as a people at any point? To what extent did cultural stereotypes and prejudices shape the way in which Greek and Roman authors portrayed the so-called Samnites? What kind of socio-political organization did these communities develop and is it comparable to anything we find in Greek or Roman Republican history? Does it make sense to regard the Samnites as a nonurban society? How were they affected by the rise of Roman supremacy and to what extent did their experience of Roman power differ from that of other Italian and Mediterranean communities? And at what point does it become impossible to speak of Samnites in any meaningful sense? The following discussion offers a general assessment of these and other key issues in the field. Given the complexities noted above, this article will focus mainly on the communities and areas of central Italy more frequently associated with Samnites in the historical record as described above, while also considering studies that adopt a broader outlook. In terms of chronology, not just the last four centuries bce are considered, when references to Samnites appear in our sources, but also the earlier period, to provide a long-term context.

The essay “Edom in the Jacob Cycle (Gen *25–35): New Insights on Its Positive Relations with Israel, the Literary-Historical Development of Its Role, and Its Historical Background(s)” by Benedikt Hensel investigates the role of Edom within the Jacob narrative, which still constitutes a heavily disputed problem in reconstructing the formation of the Jacob Cycle. Furthermore, the question of Edom’s role is supplemented here for the first time with an inquiry raised by the most recent archaeological findings from territory of Edom. As opposed to the classic stance in the field still prevalent today, in which the relations between Israel and Edom as reflected in the Jacob Cycle are assigned to specific historical circumstances sometime between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE, the latest historical research has revealed that the kingdom of Edom was relevant for the history of the Southern Levant and the literary history of the Hebrew Bible beyond this short period of time. The history of Edom should be traced not only through the entire Iron Age I/II, but also into the Hellenistic period, especially since the history of Edom had a twofold trajectory following its fall in 552 BCE – one in Edom, and one in Idumea. This essay pursues three major objectives: 1) describing the historical Edom in light of the most recent archaeological and historical research; 2) investigating Edom’s role within the narrative of the first literary edition of the Jacob Cycle; 3) exploring the role of Edom throughout the various redactional processes of the Jacob Cycle during the exilic and Persian periods. The primary hypothesis is that Edom’s role in the Jacob Cycle underwent a particular series of developments throughout its literary growth. This resulted in a conception of “Edom” that developed alongside its conception of “Israel” in a process roughly spanning the 8th to the 5th/4th centuries BCE. Hensel proposes that the early Jacob Cycle (Gen *25, 27, 29–31, 32–33) should be understood as a post-722, yet still 8th century “exilic” tradition of Northern (and thus Samarian) origin. For the redactional processes, emphasizing positive Israel-Edom relations after 586 BCE, Hensel proposes that they represent a deliberate counter-image to the portrayal of Edom in other parts of biblical literature after 586 BCE, which is overwhelmingly negative. This notion of Edom could then either a) substantiate claims to Judean settlements in Idumea (“Edom”), or b) represent the integration of the (ex-)Judean settlements or individuals within the west-Edomite/Idumean regions in the 6th-4th century BCE.

THE BOOK OF ESTHER: A PERSIAN STORY IN GREEK STYLE

“Epigram,” (Gr. epigramma) is one of the terms that the Greeks employed, from Herodotus onward, for short verse-inscriptions, poems typically composed in hexameters or elegiacs in order to be inscribed, and as a rule originally associated with a particular object, occasion, and context (such as dedicatory, funeral, honorific, or sympotic). By the virtue of its metrical form it constitutes a category separate from the prose inscriptions, and by the virtue of its conciseness, its reliance on the object, and the occasion, it stands apart from other verse-inscriptions (such as metrical oracles, hymns, or aretalogies which in some cases may also have extraordinary length). The history of inscribed epigram started in the second half of the 8th century bce and continued throughout the entirety of Greco-Roman antiquity. Inscribed epigrams are attested in significant numbers in all major areas inhabited by the Greeks, but also in remote areas of Asia and Egypt where Hellenization was relatively short-lived. Inscribed epigram flourished again during the Byzantine period, and the practice of carving epigrams on public monuments continued in Greece well into the modern period. These texts represent an invaluable source for literary, cultural, social, religious, art, and military history. From the Archaic and Classical periods, around 950 inscribed epigrams survive; from the Hellenistic period, based on the estimates, more than 1,500; from the later periods, and until the end of antiquity, several thousand poems survive. Poems are composed in a variety of meters, among which elegiac, hexameter, and iambic and trochaic tetrameter were most popular, but later texts also occasionally employ relatively less common meters such as Sotadeus or Priapeus. Some of the earliest inscriptional epigrams, attested on pottery, are composed in iambic meter and associated with the sympotic setting; in the course of early 6th century bce, dedicatory and funerary epigrams, often consisting of a single hexameter, gain in numbers. From around the middle of the 6th century bce, elegiac became by far the most dominant meter and would remain so until the end of Classical Antiquity. From the late 6th century bce onward new epigrammatic genres appeared (such as, e.g., epigrams that are distinctly honorific in nature, which are sometimes called “epideictic”), and prose inscriptions of various genres increasingly find their counterparts in verse-inscriptions (such as, e.g., iamata, binding spells, or building inscriptions). From the 5th century bce onward, professional poets are attested as authors of inscriptional epigrams. From the 4th century bce onward, there is conclusive evidence of collections of inscribed poems. From the early 3rd century bce at the latest, inscriptional epigram becomes a model for the by then fully established genre of literary epigram.

The paper deals with the finds from the Late Persian-Early Hellenistic period settlement unearthed at Tel ͑Eton. The settlement, which existed during the 4th and early 3rd centuries BCE, was comprised of a fort at the top of the mound and a large village that surrounded it. The article presents the architectural, ceramic and additional finds and discusses the possible circumstances involved in the establishment of the site in the 4th century BCE, after a settlement hiatus of some 300-350 years. It also examines the possible causes for its abandonment during the course of the 3rd century BCE.

Infectious disease in the ancient Aegean: Intestinal parasitic worms in the Neolithic to Roman Period inhabitants of Kea, Greece

This article presents a summary of excavations that took place some 30 years ago at Horvat Tov, a late Iron Age fortress in the northeastern Negev. The finds suggest that Horvat Tov was established in the transitional period from the Iron IIB and IIC, and was destroyed like most of the other sites in the region at the end of the 7th or early 6th century BCE. The study reconstructs the historical framework of Judah’s southern frontier, with an emphasis on the Arad–Beer-sheba Valley during the 7th century BCE, and examines the ties between Horvat Tov, the nearby fortress at Tel Arad, and other fortresses in the region at the end of the Iron Age.

The article reevaluates the archaeology and history of Kadesh Barnea in view of some recent publications. It argues that the finds at the site cover the entire sequence of the Iron Age and later, up to the Persian period. The main conclusions are: (1) Substratum 4c represents the earliest occupation, which dates to the Iron I in the 12th to 10th centuries BCE. The radiocarbon results from seed samples that ostensibly belong to Substratum 4b provide dates in the 10th century BCE, and should be affiliated with this settlement. (2) Substratum 4b is a settlement (rather than an oval fortress) that features at least two phases. It covers the entire sequence of the Iron IIA, between the late 10th and early 8th century BCE. (3) Strata 3–2 feature the remains of a single rectangular fortress with a solid wall built as a foundation for a system of casemates. This fortress was built in the second half of the 8th century, with the Assyrian take-over of the region, and continued to function until ca. 600 BCE. It features three construction phases.

This section presents a list of Dia accession numbers that occur in this book titled The Villanovan, Etruscan and Hellenistic collections in the Detroit Institute of Arts . The Etruscan collection was a part of the Department of Ancient art at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) for three decades. After a reorganization of the museum, it is now cared for in the Department of European Art. Cinerary urns of stone or terracotta provide one of the most important sources for studying Etruscan culture during the Hellenistic period. The northern half of Italy began its long tradition as an important Mediterranean metalworking region under the Villanovan culture, 10th-early 7th century's BCE. This Iron Age Urnfield culture was named after Villanova, a site near Bologna where one of its distinctive cinerary urn cemeteries was first discovered in 1853.Keywords: Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA); Etruscan collection; European art; Hellenistic period; Villanovan culture

The bouleuterion housed the boule or council of a Greek polis in the form of a roofed meeting space. Most, if not all, cities had one; the remains of more than fifty buildings are extant. Although there were also bouleuteria in large sanctuaries and federal capitals, the major examples are urban. Bouleuteria were almost always located near a city’s agora. Over time their architects designed increasingly unobstructed interior spaces. Construction of dedicated bouleuteria began in the late archaic period; earlier councils may have met in porticoes or other buildings. Councils were generally composed of 100–500 bouletai and required a capacious meeting place; the bouleuterion became one of a city’s largest secular buildings. In the 5th and 4th centuries bce, the usual form was a hypostyle hall with symmetrically spaced interior columns, level floors, and seating on benches, as at Argos and Athens. Sloping stone seating was introduced early in the Hellenistic era and became standard; both rectilinear and curvilinear versions are known, the latter much more common. Secondary meeting spaces for committees of prytaneis or probouloi were sometimes adjacent. From c. 250 bce the design of bouleuteria became increasingly ambitious. After adoption of the wooden roofing truss, interior supports could be more widely spaced, as at Priene and Miletus, and eventually eliminated. Often the product of Hellenistic and Roman euergetism, bouleuteria were constructed by private citizens and rulers; sculptures were often dedicated within their precincts. Rare architectural sculpture was limited to motifs symbolizing the council’s role as a defense against a city’s enemies. A majority of known bouleuteria are in Asia Minor, where Greek cities long retained their civic identity under Rome; membership in the council came to signify high status, in some places becoming hereditary. Many bouleuteria were built between the 2nd century bce and 2nd century ce, often incorporated, as at Ephesus and Aphrodisias, into large urban complexes. As multivalent roofed halls, bouleuteria provided useful settings for civic ceremonies and were often used for cultural activities including oratory and spectacle. Later examples became more like odeia or roofed theaters, with vast open interiors, a raised stage, and a two-storey scaenae frons that was separated from the cavea by parodoi and populated by sculptures of benefactors, deities, and emperors. When epigraphical evidence is lacking, identification of a later building as an odeion or bouleuterion can be uncertain; while some roofed halls may have served both functions, location on or near the agora points at least to political use. In Asia Minor some bouleuteria continued into the late antique period; the building at Nysa may have survived until the 10th or 11th century ce.

There are numerous depictions of Moses in the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible: Leader and lawgiver, miracle worker, prophet and priest, etc. This contribution argues that one should refrain from reconstructing a linear, almost evolutionary, development of Moses as a model of Israelite and early Jewish identity. Instead, it will be suggested that deuteronomistic traditions evolved during the latter part of the monarchy and the exile (7th and 6th century BCE). On the one hand, some deuteronomistic traditions remembered Moses as a leader exhibiting qualities in stark contrast to Assyrian and Judean kings; while other deuteronomistic traditions propose Moses to be the ideal prophet that is called to be the spokesperson for God amongst his people. Concurrently, priestly traditions flourished in the Persian and Hellenistic periods (6th to 4th century BCE), that remembered Moses as a lawgiver and an intermediary. On a methodological level, it will be proposed that collective memory studies allow research to move beyond the futile attempts to establish the historicity of Moses and the exodus. Appreciating the evolving of theological traditions as the result of the collective memories negotiated amongst believing communities, the role Moses played as a paradigmatic model for the maintenance of Israelite and Jewish identity amidst Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic onslaughts is presented in a new light.

Between the second half of the 8th and the beginning of the 6th century bce, the Greeks expanded toward the West by settling at numerous sites in Sicily, southern Italy (the area of Greek colonization in this region being defined as Magna Graecia), and the south of France and Spain. The terms traditionally used to describe this process and its results, “colony” and “colonization,” are still convenient labels. However, both definitions are misleading given their strong “statist” associations, which are not appropriate for the settlement processes of the Archaic period, processes that were due more to the initiative of single individuals or groups than to city-states, and ultimately led to the foundation of new city-states independent from their mother cities. This expansion toward the West marks an important moment in the history of Greek architecture. New territories and foundations became available for the development of land division, urbanism, and construction. Moreover, within a few generations after their foundation, the successful settlements developed a particular interest in monumental building, which was critical, from the Archaic all the way down to the Hellenistic period, in asserting not only the wealth and power of these communities living away from home, but also in constructing and reinforcing their cultural identity. This process led to major construction and significant experimentation and innovation, first, in association with sacred architecture, in the 6th and 5th centuries bce and later in the field of military architecture, when in the 4th and 3rd centuries bce and before the advent of Rome in the latter century, the Greeks came under particular pressure from Carthage in Sicily and indigenous populations in southern Italy. Finally, not only did the Western Greeks play a critical role in the transmission of Greek architecture to the other populations of pre-Roman Italy, but also they had a significant effect on the development of Roman, particularly Republican, architecture. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, monumental architecture at critical sites, such as Poseidonia/Paestum and Acragas, played a major role in the rediscovery of ancient Greek architecture in Europe, particularly before the systematic development of archaeological research in Greece and Asia Minor. This renewed interest in monumental, particularly Doric temple architecture led to the first systematic excavations at ancient sites in both southern Italy and Sicily, starting in the early 19th century. These excavations were mainly focused on sacred architecture and its design, and only in the second half of the 20th century did the interest of scholars start to shift toward political, domestic, and military architecture. As well, only in recent years has interest in sacred architecture moved from a focus on design to a larger archaeological and anthropological approach. Site conservation has played a major role since the rediscovery of monumental architecture, including in the anastylosis or partial reconstruction of buildings, especially temples, at critical sites like Acragas and Selinus between the late 18th century and the mid-20th century. Today, in the age of mass tourism, site conservation and site management have become particularly critical issues, especially with respect to the presentation and preservation of architecture.

Phenotypical differentiation among individuals of Mediterranean horse mackerel Trachurus mediterraneus in the Adriatic Sea was investigated through the analysis of several morphometric characters. Overall, 426 individuals of Mediterranean horse mackerels were sampled from the northern, central and southern Adriatic Sea during the summers of 2012 and 2013. Forty-six morphometric characters were measured for each individual and then compared using multivariate techniques (linear discriminant analysis). Based on the morphometric characteristics, at least two different Mediterranean horse mackerel were identified: one comprising the northern and central Adriatic, and the other formed by individuals from the southern Adriatic basin. The northern and central areas showed stable populations, overlapping both in space and time. The southern area seemed to be more variable over the years, with a low degree of overlapping both in space and time. A possible hypothesis for this, to be further investigated, could be the flow of individuals from the Ionian and Aegean Seas populations through the Otranto Channel. The main differences between the two stocks were associated with the head characters of the fish. In particular, the northern and central Adriatic Sea individuals had shorter and thicker heads than the southern ones. This could be due to different feeding habits: the former mainly feed on small fishes, the latter mainly on euphausiids. A short mouth could reduce the power of suction of bigger preys, while a long mouth could increase the volume of water to be filtered to feed on small planktonic crustaceans. From this study, it becomes clear that the Mediterranean horse mackerel should not be managed as a single stock in the Adriatic Sea as it was evident that at least two morphologically different stocks are present in the basin.

Pontecagnano is one of the largest pre-Roman sites in southern Italy, best known for its necropolises, located around the inhabited area. Archaeological excavations of the burial areas have uncovered more than ten thousand burials. Several studies have highlighted different phases of the settlement’s development from the 9th to the 3rd century BCE, which are marked by major societal and cultural shifts. In turn, these periods are reflected by changes in funerary customs. The present study aims to provide further evidence of these social transitions through an interdisciplinary analysis focused on the non-adult population. The analysis integrates archaeological, anthropological, and archeozoological data relating to 152 burials from three chronologically and spatially distinct funerary sectors: Colucci (early Iron Age, 9th century – 8th century BCE); De Chiara (Orientalizing period, 7th century – 6th century BCE); and Baldi (Archaic period, 6th century – first half of the 5th century BCE).