The focus of Archaeological Open-Air Museums (AOAMs) is to present both the tangible and intangible past to the public. The tangible parts of AOAMs are the archaeological remains and the reconstructions. The intangible and, in some respects the most interesting part of an AOAM, is the story of the people the museum represents. This volume explores the research and visitor agendas of structures and their life cycles as they are experienced by experimental archaeology projects and AOAMs. The pa...

In prehistoric Europe hierarchic societies arose and developed technological systems and processes in the production of objects related to everyday use, on the one hand, and items of religious and symbolic character emulating prestige and luxury, on the other, while both types of objects may not always be clearly distinguishable.

This volume deals with questions of how artisans and other social groups, involved in these productive processes and social practices, reacted to and interacted with...

This volume describes, illustrates, and analysis the finds from the excavations at Dra Abu el-Naga, an important necropolis on the east bank of the Nile in Luxor (Egypt), which was in use from Middle Kingdom times until the early Christian era. Excavations of the site have been conducted by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).

A wide variety of leather objects or objects with leather parts have been discovered, including footwear, musical objects, loincloths as well as parts of furnitur...

Chariots, the racing cars of the ancient world, first appeared in Egypt about 1600 BC, and quickly became not only the preferred mode of transport for royalty and the elite, but also revolutionised military tactics and warfare. Remains of chariots have been found in Egyptian tombs -Tutankhamun's tomb contained six chariots, which tripled the number of ancient Egyptian chariots known before the discovery of his tomb. However, none of the chariots was complete, as all lacked their leather casin...

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter in 1922 is one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of all time. It took Carter and his team 10 years to clear the contents of the tomb and among the objects found was a large collection of shoes and sandals. The footwear is analysed here in detail for the first time since the discovery using Carter's records and Harry Burton's excellent photographs along with the author's analyses of the objects, all of which are housed in th...

Starting in the year 1828, Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, unearthed more than 2000 Greek vases on his estate near the ancient Etruscan town of Vulci. The vases were restored and found their way to archaeological collections all around the world. This volume publishes 10 papers by scholars of international repute dealing with these ceramics.The papers were presented in 2015 at a colloquium in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, which acquired 96 vases from the Bonaparte collecti...

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...

The fifth millennium is characterized by far-flung contacts and a veritable flood of innovations. While its beginning is still strongly reminiscent of a broadly Linearbandkeramik way of life, at its end we find new, inter-regionally valid forms of symbolism, representation and ritual behaviour, changes in the settlement system, in architecture and in routine life. Yet, these inter-regional tendencies are paired with a profusion of increasingly small-scale archaeological cultures, many of them...

This edited volume explores how (what is today) Scotland can be compared with, contrasted to, or was connected with other parts of Early Medieval Europe. Far from a 'dark age', Early Medieval Scotland (AD 300-900) was a crucible of different languages and cultures, the world of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Anglo-Saxons. Though long regarded as somehow peripheral to continental Europe, people in Early Medieval Scotland had mastered complex technologies and were part of sophisticated intellect...