Dit is het verhaal van een bijzondere opgraving. Onderzocht werd een onaanzienlijke ruïneheuvel in Jordanië. De naam van de ruïneheuvel kwam niet in de Bijbel voor, en er was geen belangrijke stad onder het puin te verwachten. De opgraver Henk Franken had nog geen naam gemaakt binnen de archeologische gemeenschap.

Maar op Tell Deir Alla werd vanaf 1960 geschiedenis geschreven. Om de tell haar geheimen te ontfutselen trotseerden de opgravers maandenlang kou, regen en wind, het slapen in kla...

Excavations at Chalk Hill, Ramsgate in south-eastern Britain were primarily aimed at investigating the remains of a possible early Neolithic causewayed enclosure visible on aerial photographs. However, the monument could not in fact be categorised as a causewayed enclosure, but instead represented a type of early Neolithic ritual monument unique to the British Isles.The earliest significant features recorded on the site dated to the early Neolithic (roughly 3700-3600 cal BC). They took the fo...

Colourful surface treatments form an integral element of vernacular and élite architecture of ancient societies. This is also true for the various regions of the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium B.C.E., where elaborate wall paintings furnished temples, tombs, palatial buildings, and in general more elaborate houses. From a present-day perspective, these rich images provide invaluable insights into past realities as well as interconnections between different visual systems. However...

Depuis 2001, des recherches archéologiques sont menées dans l'archipel de Molène. Ce secteur s'avère particulièrement riche en vestiges du Néolithique et de l'Age du Bronze. Une concentration exceptionnelle de monuments mégalithiques y a été mise en évidence.

Plusieurs habitats sont attestés par la présence de dépotoirs domestiques. A la pointe de Beg ar Loued (île Molène), l'un de ses amas coquilliers fit l'objet d'un premier sondage en 2003 marquant le début d'une série de c...

Jan Herman Insinger was a well-known character in the history of Egyptology, mainly because his name has been linked forever with a famous demotic wisdom papyrus now in Leiden. Although he is mentioned by many of his contemporaries, biographical notes on Insinger rarely surpass a few lines and can be quite inaccurate. However, a lot of information can be gathered from the Archives of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and other sources, both published and unpublished ones. These doc...

Excavations at Chalk Hill, Ramsgate in south-eastern Britain were primarily aimed at investigating the remains of a possible early Neolithic causewayed enclosure visible on aerial photographs. However, the monument could not in fact be categorised as a causewayed enclosure, but instead represented a type of early Neolithic ritual monument unique to the British Isles.The earliest significant features recorded on the site dated to the early Neolithic (roughly 3700-3600 cal BC). They took the fo...

Das Buch bietet eine detaillierte Darstellung des Jüngeren Neolithikums (ca. 2850 - 2250 v.Chr.) in Schleswig-Holstein (SH). Neben der Vorlage aller bisher bekannter Funde und Befunde der Einzelgrabkultur wird ein besonderer Fokus auf deren Hammeräxte gelegt. Sie sind das meist vorkommende Artefakt und bieten in ihren Kontexten eine Möglichkeit, soziale Praktiken des Jungneolithikums zu analysieren.

Grundsätzlich nimmt die Variationsbreite der Hammeräxte mit der Zeit zu, was - ähnlich wi...

Questions about the cultural exchange of both knowledge and material goods are just as topical today as in years gone by. These questions have gained increasing attention from scholars since the 1980s when the term 'transfers cultures' by historians arose. However, this book provides a completely new approach in this context by interdisciplinary investigation of cultural exchanges based on chosen objects from shipwrecks and land, significant written documents and verifiable transfer of knowle...

Past Landscapes presents theoretical and practical attempts of scholars and scientists, who were and are active within the Kiel Graduate School "Human Development in Landscapes" (GSHDL), in order to disentangle a wide scope of research efforts on past landscapes. Landscapes are understood as products of human-environmental interaction. At the same time, they are arenas, in which societal and cultural activities as well as receptions of environments and human developments take place. Thus, env...

Papyrus Leiden I 343 + 345 is one of the most extraordinary manuscripts providing a deeper insight into magic and medicine in Ancient Egypt.The main part of the papyrus deals with the ancient Near Eastern disease demon Sāmānu, who is well known from Sumerian and Akkadian incantations and medical texts. In addition, a broad range of other conjurations and spells against any pain and feet swelling are included. The papyrus also contains two curious spells dealing with 'falling water from the ...