5th Century BCE Research Articles

The genesis of Roman architecture

An important new look at Rome's earliest buildings and their context within the broader tradition of Mediterranean culture This groundbreaking study traces the development of Roman architecture and its sculpture from the earliest days to the middle of the 5th century BCE. Existing narratives cast the Greeks as the progenitors of classical art and architecture or rely on historical sources dating centuries after the fact to establish the Roman context. Author John North Hopkins, however, allows the material and visual record to play the primary role in telling the story of Rome's origins, synthesizing important new evidence from recent excavations. Hopkins's detailed account of urban growth and artistic, political, and social exchange establishes strong parallels with communities across the Mediterranean. From the late 7th century, Romans looked to increasingly distant lands for shifts in artistic production. By the end of the archaic period they were building temples that would outstrip the monumentality of even those on the Greek mainland. The book's extensive illustrations feature new reconstructions, allowing readers a rare visual exploration of this fragmentary evidence.

Rethinking Tel Achziv: an Iron II Architectonic and Ceramic Sequence from Southern Phoenicia

By assessing the archaeological corpus of Moshe Prausnitz's 1963 and 1964 excavations at Tel Achziv, the article reevaluates aspects of the chronology and nature of the Phoenician expansion to the area south of the Ladder of Tyre (Rosh Haniqra). The authors present the Iron IIC stratigraphical sequence of Area D, the main excavation, as well as an outline of a typological and quantitative study of its pottery. It is dominated by a building with long and narrow spaces which existed over three phases, from the late 8th to the 7th century BCE. An analysis of the changes in its architecture and pottery assemblage indicate that it began as a domestic unit in Phase 6 and was transformed into a non-domestic structure in Phases 5 and 4, with an emphasis on storage, very likely in relation to trade in the port of Achzib. Finally, a review of settlement patterns in the Western Galilee during the Iron IIC suggests that the enlargement of the settlement at Achzib at the end of the 8th century BCE, and the likely contemporary (re?)building of the fort at Kabri, are indications of a deliberate Phoenician involvement in the resettlement of Achzib, as well as its administration.

Why Groups Matter to Sociocultural Evolution

Evolutionary concepts have a rich history in sociological theory, from Spencer to Durkheim, Marx to Weber. Recently, a neo-evolutionary revival has occurred in the social sciences, (1) bringing neuroscience into dialogue with age old sociological questions of origins; (2) considering the gene-culture relationship; and (3) constructing sweeping general theories of sociocultural evolution. Generally, the role collective actors play in the evolutionary process is taken for granted, as is the contingent, multi-directional, and multi-linear paths evolution takes when we focus on specific cases. The paper below examines the evolution of the ancient Israelites from the 8th–6th centuriesbce, teasing out a theory that supplements these other important areas. Specifically, it is argued that (a) institutional entrepreneurs are the collectives thatdrivesociocultural selection processes by innovating organizationally, normatively, and symbolically; (b) their cultural assemblages are sources of variation upon which sociocultural forms of selection, likeSpencerianorMarxian, can work; and, (c) institutional spheres evolve and become “survivor machines” for the entrepreneur’s assemblage, imposing it on a significant proportion of the population and reproducing it across time and space.

Neutron tomographic analysis: Material characterization of silver and electrum coins from the 6th and 5th centuries BCE

Neutron tomography was applied to study a set of Greek silver coins and a single Lydian electrum coin minted in the 6 and 5th centuries BCE. The investigation was conducted at the new neutron imaging station DINGO at ANSTO in order to demonstrate capabilities and to explore limits of this non-invasive method in characterizing numismatic materials. From the reconstructed volume of each sample, the morphology, porosity, inclusions, and presence of composite structures can be revealed and evaluated. This information can be used to elucidate ancient minting technology and to prove authenticity. Moreover, the state of conservation, corrosion processes and attempts to repair the coins can be determined.

A European Mitochondrial Haplotype Identified in Ancient Phoenician Remains from Carthage, North Africa.

While Phoenician culture and trade networks had a significant impact on Western civilizations, we know little about the Phoenicians themselves. In 1994, a Punic burial crypt was discovered on Byrsa Hill, near the entry to the National Museum of Carthage in Tunisia. Inside this crypt were the remains of a young man along with a range of burial goods, all dating to the late 6th century BCE. Here we describe the complete mitochondrial genome recovered from the Young Man of Byrsa and identify that he carried a rare European haplogroup, likely linking his maternal ancestry to Phoenician influenced locations somewhere on the North Mediterranean coast, the islands of the Mediterranean or the Iberian Peninsula. This result not only provides the first direct ancient DNA evidence of a Phoenician individual but the earliest evidence of a European mitochondrial haplogroup, U5b2c1, in North Africa.

Greek medicine: a new look

The earliest known Greek medical school opened in Cnidus in the Hellenistic period BCE. Alcmaeon of Croton, author of the first anatomical text, worked at this school in the 6th and 7th centuries BCE. Before Hippocrates, he suggested that man might be constituted of Talete’s four individual elements or humours. A person’s health derived from the equilibrium of these elements, which he called isonomy, whereas disease derived from monarchy when one element superseded the others. The Greeks incorporated older Egyptian ideas and remedies into their medicine. Greeks believed that evil spirits or angry gods caused diseases, and that the gods such as Asclepius, son of Apollo, could heal and cure diseases. Sacrifice and prayer, often at Asclepius’ shrine, were common methods of seeking remedy. In Greek mythology, the centaur, Chiron, wounded by Hercules, was thought to have invented medicine in order to heal himself. He taught Asclepius the art of healing, the source of divine medical knowledge. But by ∼500 BCE, Greek doctors had become more interested in using scientific observation and logic to discover what caused diseases. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, most works of the Greek physicians were lost to Western Europe. Fortunately, in the 14th and 15th centuries, some were rediscovered in Arab repositories of learning, many in Spain and Italy. Most texts on Medical History before the 18th century rely heavily on translations often from Greek, Latin or Arabic. With authenticity diminished by the passage of time, many are based on quotations. Thomas M. Walshe’s Neurological Concepts in Ancient Greek Medicine is different. He interrupted his medical career in 1992 to study Ancient Greek, and subsequently wrote a series of original essays, which he has now revised in this book. Walshe relates much academic detail of reference sources and their …

Drought and the fall of Assyria: quite another story

A recent Climatic Change paper suggests a relationship between climatic change in the 7th century BCE and the fall of the Assyrian Empire. However, available archaeological and textual evidence does not support the hypothesis that Assyria was overpopulated during this time and for that reason susceptible to outbreaks of drought. Besides long-term climatic variation, inter-annual variability in crops has always been very high in the dry farming areas of Upper Mesopotamia. To cope with this uncertainty, the local population developed several strategies (e.g. storage of agricultural surpluses in granaries and artificial irrigation in river valleys). Finally, slave prices, known to have declined during times of famine, were relatively stable during the entire century suggesting absence of prolonged periods of food shortage.

Characterizing the age of ancient Egyptian manuscripts through micro‐Raman spectroscopy

We report the first in-depth, systematic study of the Raman spectra of black pigments on ancient Egyptian papyri with well-specified dates from the 4th century bce to the 10th century ce. The observed spectra are all characteristic of carbon black, but the shapes of the spectra change systematically with the manuscript date, a striking observation given the time span represented. We conclude that the pigments for these papyri were manufactured by using similar processes. We attribute these experimentally observed changes to chemical degradation, possibly the result of the oxidation of both amorphous carbon and crystalline aromatic carbon within these pigments. This investigation offers new insights into the ink materials used in ancient Egypt and provides a possible basis for a new nondestructive means for estimating the dates of ancient papyri. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

REMEMBERING MOSES AS A MODEL OF ISRAELITE AND EARLY JEWISH IDENTITY

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.

Debating the United Monarchy: Let's See How Far We've Come

This article reviews the two opposing sides of the ongoing debate concerning the historicity of the biblical United Monarchy, the kingdom of David and Solomon. After discussing the scholarly background of archaeological research into the 10th century BCE and Iron IIA period, it discusses the major chronological and historical revision proposed by Israel Finkelstein and the counterarguments deployed by Amihai Mazar. After discussing particular issues highlighted by the archaeology of Jerusalem and Khirbet Qeiyafa, the article closes with a brief reflection on how attitudes towards the Deuteronomistic History have affected this debate, with particular reference to the differing evaluations of Finkelstein and Baruch Halpern regarding its usability in historical reconstruction of the United Monarchy.

Choosing Peace Instead of War. A Lesson from Athenian Democracy

AbstractThe present essay discusses how a society can make decisions on specific issues according to how flexible or rigid it is in accepting new ideas and trends. Then, it explains how Athenian society abandoned war in favor of a grand peace strategy during the second half of the 4th century BCE. To achieve this, two visionary Athenian policymakers, Eubulus and Lycurgus, introduced fiscal expansionary policy programs which proved beneficial for the majority of the citizens. Through expansionary public works programs, Athenian citizens were now able to make decisions based on rational choices, based on a wider economic prospective. They could now gain more during periods of peace (as traders, ship-owners, “industrialists” etc.), providing compensation to the poor.

The Genetics of Bene Israel from India Reveals Both Substantial Jewish and Indian Ancestry.

The Bene Israel Jewish community from West India is a unique population whose history before the 18th century remains largely unknown. Bene Israel members consider themselves as descendants of Jews, yet the identity of Jewish ancestors and their arrival time to India are unknown, with speculations on arrival time varying between the 8th century BCE and the 6th century CE. Here, we characterize the genetic history of Bene Israel by collecting and genotyping 18 Bene Israel individuals. Combining with 486 individuals from 41 other Jewish, Indian and Pakistani populations, and additional individuals from worldwide populations, we conducted comprehensive genome-wide analyses based on FST, principal component analysis, ADMIXTURE, identity-by-descent sharing, admixture linkage disequilibrium decay, haplotype sharing and allele sharing autocorrelation decay, as well as contrasted patterns between the X chromosome and the autosomes. The genetics of Bene Israel individuals resemble local Indian populations, while at the same time constituting a clearly separated and unique population in India. They are unique among Indian and Pakistani populations we analyzed in sharing considerable genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations. Putting together the results from all analyses point to Bene Israel being an admixed population with both Jewish and Indian ancestry, with the genetic contribution of each of these ancestral populations being substantial. The admixture took place in the last millennium, about 19–33 generations ago. It involved Middle-Eastern Jews and was sex-biased, with more male Jewish and local female contribution. It was followed by a population bottleneck and high endogamy, which can lead to increased prevalence of recessive diseases in this population. This study provides an example of how genetic analysis advances our knowledge of human history in cases where other disciplines lack the relevant data to do so.

Large geomagnetic field anomalies revealed in Bronze to Iron Age archeomagnetic data from Tel Megiddo and Tel Hazor, Israel

Abstract Geomagnetic field measurements from the past few centuries show heightened secular variation activity in the southern hemisphere associated with the south Atlantic anomaly (SAA). It is uncertain whether geomagnetic anomalies at a similar scale have existed in the past owing to limited coverage and uncertainties in the paleomagnetic database. Here we provide new evidence from archaeological sources in the Levant suggesting a large positive northern hemisphere anomaly, similar in magnitude to the SAA during the 9th–8th centuries BCE, called “Levantine Iron Age anomaly”. We also report an additional geomagnetic spike in the 8th century. The new dataset comprises 73 high precision paleointensity estimates from ca. 3000 BCE to 732 BCE, and five directional measurements between the 14th and the 9th centuries BCE. Well-dated pottery and cooking ovens were collected from twenty archaeological strata in two large contemporaneous stratigraphical mounds (tells) in Israel: Tel Megiddo and Tel Hazor. The new data are combined with previously published data and interpreted automatically using the PmagPy Thellier GUI program. The Tel Megiddo and Tel Hazor data sets demonstrate excellent internal consistency and remarkable agreement with published data from Mesopotamia (Syria). The data illustrate the evolution of an extreme geomagnetic high that culminated in at least two spikes between the 11th and the 8th centuries BCE (Iron Age in the Levant). The paleomagnetic directional data of the 9th century BCE show positive inclination anomalies, and deviations of up to 22° from the averaged geocentric axial dipole (GAD) direction. From comparison of the Levantine archaeomagnetic data with IGRF model for 2015 we infer the “Levantine Iron Age anomaly” between the 10th and the 8th centuries BCE is a local positive anomaly. The eastward extent of the anomaly is currently unknown.

The Epic Rhapsode and his Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective by José M. González

REVIEW ESSAY The Epic Rhapsode and his Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective. By JOSÉ M. GONZÁLEZ. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013. Pp. xii+821. Paper, $27.50. ISBN 9780674055896. s with other productions from the Center for Hellenic Studies, this book resides freely accessible online (http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article /display/6127). But all Homerists should own a copy of González’s learned achievement, as should anyone interested in the performance of ancient Greek poetry. Those working on Greek rhetoric will wish to study Part V and should poke around elsewhere as well: in exploring the interactions between rhapsodes, actors and orators, González’s book intersects with David Sansone’s treatment of the interactions between drama and rhetoric.1 The book aggregates and analyzes material scattered in publications of varying degrees of accessibility. For instance, Part I brings together all the strands in the writing poet vs. dictating poet vs. evolutionary model debate. Part IV brings us up to speed on who the homēristai were and what the tekhnitai and the epōn poiētēs did and includes a catalogue of all references to historically attested rhapsodes. González presents a diachronic study of the rhapsode and examines the changing nature of rhapsodic performance over several centuries. If the book ranges far and wide, it is also a product of a specific time and place: it defends and builds on the work of Gregory Nagy.2 Readers skeptical of Nagy’s work should not think they can skip this book. As these opening paragraphs have aimed to make clear, the book’s utility is extensive. I will first summarize the book and then single out a few sections for further comment. Coming in at 821 pages, this book is three or four monographs in one. The following summary of its contents, especially of Parts II through V, will take some time, but the reader will benefit from knowing not just what González talks about but what he thinks of the subjects he addresses. 1 D. Sansone, Greek Drama and the Invention of Rhetoric (Chichester, 2012). 2 See, for example, G. Nagy, Homeric Responses (Austin, 2003) 1; cf. C. Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (New York, 1995) 173. A BOOK REVIEWS 495 Part I, “The ‘Homeric Question’,” defends Nagy’s evolutionary model for the gradual fixation of the Homeric poems by going after popular alternatives: a dictatedtextthatservedasanarchetypealreadyinthearchaicperiod;awritingoral poet who wrote out a text that became an archetype already in the archaic period. Chapter 1 argues that the literature of the ancient Near East or of the Phoenicians doesnotsupportthetheorythatanarchetypaldictatedtextemergedinthearchaic period.Chapter2declaresthatnotasinglepaintingonavasepointstothefixation of a standard text in the archaic period,and Chapter 3 that technological obstacles militate against the production of a written text at that time. Chapter 4 suggests thatlinguisticanalysisdoesnotsupportthenotionofEuboiaasthesiteofanearlyarchaic fixation of the poems, and Chapter 5 makes the same point as Chapter 4 but focuses on inscriptions and on the notion of an 8th -century book hand behind theinscription on theNestorCup.Chapter6 roundsoutPartI:neitherreferences to the dispute between Athens and Megara over Salamis nor references to the work of Theagenes of Rhegion back up the idea that a standard written text emerged in the (early) 6th century BCE. Part II, “Rhapsodic Performance in Pre-Classical Greece,” begins with Chapter 7’sdiscussionof“HomertheRhapsode.”HereGonzálezaddressesnotionalfixity.3 Oral poets and their audiences believe that every time a poet performs he generates the same oral text as he has and his peers have in the past and will in the future. In the Homeric case, “this fixity derived from the well-known kinship between poetry and prophecy” (177). Faith in notional fixity comes from a belief in the poet’s divine source (186), and, accordingly, “the epic tradition, notionally spoken by the Muse or Apollo, could not possibly change from one divine telling to another” (201). This sense of the sameness of each performance plays an important role in the ultimate assignation of the poems to a single author and in thegradualtextualizationofthepoetry.Italsoindicatesthetruth-valueofthesong. In chapter 8, “Hesiod the Rhapsode,” González focuses first on the poet as a mantis. Like the divinely inspired seer...

Clinical instrumentation and applications of Raman spectroscopy.

Clinical diagnostic devices provide new sources of information that give insight about the state of health which can then be used to manage patient care. These tools can be as simple as an otoscope to better visualize the ear canal or as complex as a wireless capsule endoscope to monitor the gastrointestinal tract. It is with tools such as these that medical practitioners can determine when a patient is healthy and to make an appropriate diagnosis when he/she is not. The goal of diagnostic medicine then is to efficiently determine the presence and cause of disease in order to provide the most appropriate intervention. The earliest form of medical diagnostics relied on the eye - direct visual observation of the interaction of light with the sample. This technique was espoused by Hippocrates in his 5th century BCE work Epidemics, in which the pallor of a patient's skin and the coloring of the bodily fluids could be indicative of health. In the last hundred years, medical diagnosis has moved from relying on visual inspection to relying on numerous technological tools that are based on various types of interaction of the sample with different types of energy - light, ultrasound, radio waves, X-rays etc. Modern advances in science and technology have depended on enhancing technologies for the detection of these interactions for improved visualization of human health. Optical methods have been focused on providing this information in the micron to millimeter scale while ultrasound, X-ray, and radio waves have been key in aiding in the millimeter to centimeter scale. While a few optical technologies have achieved the status of medical instruments, many remain in the research and development phase despite persistent efforts by many researchers in the translation of these methods for clinical care. Of these, Raman spectroscopy has been described as a sensitive method that can provide biochemical information about tissue state while maintaining the capability of delivering this information in real-time, non-invasively, and in an automated manner. This review presents the various instrumentation considerations relevant to the clinical implementation of Raman spectroscopy and reviews a subset of interesting applications that have successfully demonstrated the efficacy of this technique for clinical diagnostics and monitoring in large (n ≥ 50) in vivo human studies.

Oxygen isotope composition of Sparidae (sea bream) tooth enamel from well-dated archaeological sites as an environmental proxy in the East Mediterranean: A case study from Tel Dor, Israel

This paper examines the potential of oxygen stable isotope composition of Sparidae (sea-bream) tooth enamel phosphate (δ18OP) as an indicator of the habitat in which the fish were captured. The isotopic compositions of Sparidae molariform teeth recovered from the coastal site of Tel Dor (northern coast of Israel), from a sequence dated to the 12th–7th centuries BCE and from modern samples were studied. The δ18OP values of the archaeological specimens exhibited a wide range of values, varying between 21.3 and 25.2 ± 0.2‰.While δ18OP values from the teeth dated to the 12th–9th centuries BCE resembled typical East Mediterranean coastal water, some of the later teeth, dated to the 9th–7th centuries BCE, exhibited higher values. The later values indicate tooth enamel deposition in a hyper-saline environment similar to δ18OP values of Sparidae observed at Bardawil Lagoon (Southeastern Mediterranean coast, east of the Suez Canal, Egypt). Prior to this study all Sparidae fish recovered at Tel Dor were regarded as evidence of local fishing activity. The current results exhibit, for the first time, that some of the Sparids may have been exported from the Bardawil Lagoon. We discuss, however, an alternative scenario, namely, the possible existence of saline lagoons near Tel Dor in antiquity.

The origins of Uyghur medicine: Debates and perspectives

Uyghur medicine refers to the traditional medicine of the people residing in the oases of the Taklamakan desert in the North-West corner of modern China. Due to historical and geographical reasons, the ancestors of the modern Uyghurs had extensive contact with Greco-Roman civilization even beginning in the 4th century BCE, and continuing with different extent until the 6th century CE. Thus, the knowledge of Greek humoral medicine spread to the Uyghur regions. When Arab-Persian medicine arrived along with Islam in the 10th century, it met both Buddhist medicine and the developed folk medicine. In this paper, we argue that “Greco-Roman”, “Arab-Persian” and “Uyghur” medicines are all of essentially the same system under holistic humoral medicine. We further assert that “Traditional European Medicine” is based on the same tradition, and, while it was discarded in the West, it has been substantially preserved by the Uyghurs. We also consider the implications of making the two millennial tradition of Uyghur medicine the object of modern scientific research in China.

A case of semi-combusted pregnant female in the Phoenician-Punic necropolis of Monte Sirai (Carbonia, Sardinia, Italy)

We present a case of a pregnant woman with the fetus skeletal remains in situ, belonging to the Phoenician-Punic necropolis of Monte Sirai (Sardinia, Italy). The burial dates back to the late 6th to early 5th century BCE. Of the unborn fetal cases documented in the literature this is amongst the oldest four and it represents the first documented case of a pregnant woman in the Phoenician and Punic necropolis literature. A physico-chemical investigation of bones combining X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy suggests that the female skeleton and fetus were subjected to an incomplete heat treatment according to a funerary practice, perhaps limited to the period of early 5th century BCE, that appears to be peculiar to this site.

A Terracotta Treasure at Assos

During the summer of 1995, Turkish archaeologists discovered a unique Late Classical tomb in the Western Necropolis of Assos. A modestly designed cist grave, Tomb 4 surprised excavators with the richest cache of grave goods ever found at the ancient city. The 62 well-preserved artifacts, which date from the 4th century BCE, when Aristotle's school of philosophy was active at Assos, consist of terracotta figurines, gold and bronze jewelry, and vases.

Recent Excavations Near the Gihon Spring and Their Reflection on the Character of Iron II Jerusalem

The paper presents discoveries from recent excavations in Areas C and H at the City of David, Jerusalem, where a sequence of Iron II strata contribute to understanding the development of ancient Jerusalem from the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE until the 586 BCE destruction. These data are used to emphasize two issues regarding the Iron II city: that the Middle Bronze Age fortifications built around the Gihon Spring were still functioning; and that the city expanded at a gradual pace until it reached its peak size in the late 8th century BCE. The latter point is important when considering the impact of the destruction of the Northern Kingdom on the extent and population of Jerusalem.